The Shining Sea Bikeway is a rail trail in Falmouth, MA, in the northeastern United States. The path runs for over ten miles (16 km), from the Woods Hole Ferry terminal in Woods Hole to North Falmouth. Nearly a mile of the trail is along Surf Drive Beach on Vineyard Sound. The northern half of the Bikeway is particularly beautiful, running through extensive salt marsh, cranberry bog, and farmland in use since the 18th century at the historic 1775 Bourne Farm.
There are several public parking areas for access, in particular on Depot Ave in Falmouth and County Road in North Falmouth.
The trail was the southern portion of the Plymouth and Vineyard Sound Railroad, which was later absorbed by the Cape Cod Central Railroad. The creation of the trail began in 1977, when the Town of Falmouth purchased the Woods Hole portion of the rail line from the defunct Penn Central for $329,000. In early 2009, the town of Falmouth completed the extension of the trail northward an additional eight miles (13 km) along the abandoned rail line, to a total of 10.7 miles (17.2 km), terminating at County Road, North Falmouth, close to the adjacent town of Bourne. Rail service south of North Falmouth ceased in 1989 but the northernmost half mile of the Bikeway runs adjacent to track that continues to be used to haul trash from the western portion of Cape Cod, which is collected at the Upper Cape Regional Transfer Station on the grounds of the Massachusetts Military Reservation.
Read more about Shining Sea Bikeway: See Also, External Links
Famous quotes containing the words shining and/or sea:
“Ask every person if he’s heard the story,
And tell it strong and clear if he has not,
That once there was a fleeting wisp of glory
Called Camelot ...
Don’t let it be forgot
That once there was a spot
For one brief shining moment that was known
As Camelot.”
—Alan Jay Lerner (1918–1986)
“If I were as I once was, the strong hoofs crushing the sand and the shells,
Coming out of the sea as the dawn comes, a chaunt of love on my lips,
Not coughing, my head on my knees, and praying, and wroth with the bells,
I would leave no saint’s head on his body from Rachlin to Bera of ships.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)