On Sunday October 1, 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., the Middlesex Greenway Coalition teams up with the Metuchen Environmental Commission for a walk and rally to support extending the Middlesex Greenway to the Dismal Swamp, for National Public Lands Day. The walk will begin at Trailhead Park, it’s at the western end of the Greenway, Middlesex Avenue, Metuchen. Activities include guided walks on the Middlesex Greenway, tables for community fitness and outdoors groups interested in the Greenway as well as food trucks and live music. This event is open to members of the public and interested fitness and outdoors groups. Children and families are of course most welcome! Special invitees are United States Congressman Frank Pallone will attend, and invited United States Senator Cory Booker.

This Walk/Rally is sponsored by The Middlesex Greenway Coalition and participated in by the Metuchen Environmental Commission and the National Park Service.

National Public Lands Day is an annual event, celebrated across the country for over two decades.  It is the largest single-day volunteer event for public lands in the U.S.A.  Other events are being held nationwide on public lands large and small, from national parks and forests, wildlife refuges, historic sites, state parks, and local and regional parks and gardens.  Public lands make up 30% of the land area of the United States.

The Middlesex Greenway is the newest Middlesex County Park.  It was created on the right-of-way of the former Easton and Amboy railroad, which once crossed New Jersey from Easton, PA to Perth Amboy, NJ.  The Greenway runs 3.6 miles through the Townships of Woodbridge and Edison and the Borough of Metuchen, from Crows Mill Road at its eastern end to Middlesex Avenue at its western end.  The land was purchased and the Greenway was built by Middlesex County, N.J., after twenty years of advocacy by the Middlesex Greenway Coalition and other interested residents.  Unused portions of the rail line could be acquired to extend the Middlesex Greenway east to Raritan Bay at Perth Amboy and west to the large freshwater wetlands of the Dismal Swamp.  This event intends to show public support for this extension.

* National Public Lands Day is on Saturday, September 30, 2017.  Since that day is Yom Kippur this year, we have scheduled our event the next day when more of our community can attend.

 

Robert Menendez – US Senator for New Jersey

Woodbridge Mayor Antonia Ricigliano

Middlesex County Freeholder Director Christopher D. Rafano (center) cutting the ribbon, together with county and local officials.