Sandwich is celebrating the opening of a new, four-mile bike path on Friday, what is seen as a key piece to a Cape-wide bike path.
The new Sandwich Service Road Trail runs from near the border with Barnstable across town to Route 130.
Sandwich Bikeway and Pedestrian Committee chairman Sean Polay says the path is separate from traffic, passing through neighborhoods and conservation land and offers access to Sandwich Hollows Golf Course and Maple Swamp Conservation Area trails.
"It's really quite something. If you knew Service Road before and you’ve seen it now, it looks like [the bike path] always should have been there. It really fits into the landscape nicely,” Polay said.
There are two parking lots connected to the new path, which connects from Chase Road to Robin Road.
Polay will be on hand Friday, May 29 for a ribbon-cutting ceremony at 11 a.m., which will be followed by a group walk and ride.
Cape state lawmakers, Sandwich Select Board members, as well as Cape Cod Commission staff are expected to be in attendance for Friday’s celebration.
While the new Service Road path is seen as a big step in making Sandwich more accessible for bikers and walkers, it’s also a significant step towards a more bikeable Cape Cod.
The so-called Vision 88 is a Commission initiative to connect Woods Hole to Provincetown with a contiguous bike path. Sandwich has been one of the missing links connecting a trail along the Cape Cod Canal to the Cape Cod Rail Trail in Yarmouth.
And while the Sandwich bikeways committee has worked on its side of the connection, Barnstable and Yarmouth officials have been working to extend the rail trail into the west side of Barnstable.
That significance is not lost on Polay, who said that he is excited to see this Sandwich piece come together.
“I think there's significant momentum happening between what we are doing in Sandwich and what’s happening in Barnstable, in Yarmouth and in Falmouth and Bourne and in Provincetown,” he said. “I think that a cross-Cape bike path is feeling much more tangible than it once did.”
The bikeways committee has now been shifting its focus on connecting Route 130 – and the end of the new trail — to the Cape Cod Canal trail, which will require help from the state.
Meanwhile, in Bourne, officials have been working for many years connecting Falmouth’s Shining Sea Bikeway to the Canal.
In Sandwich, the bulk of the Service Trail construction took place last year and it’s been open for several months, but the town was waiting to celebrate after the winter.
