Read the July-August BCF Newsletter

Featured in this issue:

Bike Infrastructure Makes Belmont Safer

Few Belmont residents use bikes to get around this small town of only 4.7 square miles, although most live hardly a mile from schools, recreation facilities, stores, transit stations, and restaurants.  Given that short, local trips are responsible for 60% of automobile pollution, how can we encourage car-free travel? Read more.

Belmont Community Path Moves Forward

Momentum is picking up again for the Belmont Community Path, a critical two-mile link in the Mass Central Rail Trail (MCRT). The 25% design is nearing completion, and the town has appropriated funds to begin securing the right of way. Read more.

Cochituate Rail Trail Shows Success

After we published an article on rail trails in our January newsletter (“Bikeway Building Booms Beyond Belmont”), well-known cycling advocate and expert John Allen pointed out that we didn’t include the Cochituate Rail Trail in Framingham and Natick. Since then, I have had the time to ride this trail and write this update. Read more.

Belmont Once had a Cooperative Market

Many people are aware that Belmont was a town of farms until the mid-twentieth century, but fewer may know that we also had a cooperative grocery: the Belmont Cooperative Society Market, which opened in 1911. Read more.

New Group Seeks to Keep Belmont Beautiful

Belmont can drastically reduce the volume of refuse littering our public spaces and strengthen our sense of community by organizing volunteers and donations for a cleaner, greener place to live. Belmont can take its place among the 33 local nonprofit KAB chapters across Massachusetts (collectively KMB) that are making significant improvements to their communities. Read more.

Belmont Day School Cleans Up Lone Tree Hill

Nineteen students and three teachers from Belmont Day School spent the morning of May 19 removing invasive garlic mustard and trash from Belmont’s Lone Tree Hill. Read more.

Fernald Site Contains Rare Specimen Trees

It is vanishingly rare that a town within ten miles of Boston can, with a single purchase, add nearly 200 acres to its portfolio of open space. That is exactly what Waltham did in the fall of 2014 when its mayor and city council agreed to buy the former Fernald Development Center from the state. Read more.

Belmont’s Invasive Plants: Japanese Knotweed

Invasive plant species are disrupting ecosystems from Belmont to Beijing, permanently altering the ecology of our forests, fields, and gardens and causing biodiversity loss and species extinction. Read more.

Letters to the Editor

Readers comment on deforestation at Clay Pit Pond and the Town Clock. Read more.

Event Calendar

See listings on native plants, Black botanists, and more. Read more.