Community Corner

History and Geology Highlight Chester's Trail Plan

Trail enhancement to boost business traffic, bank on historic landmarks and offer residents and visitors ways to reach the paths beyond Chester.

They packed the to view the slides, to participate in the fair where a series of maps were on display and manned by volunteers who could answer questions. But the highlight of the evening was listening to the recap by Jon Wagar, a member of the trails team and a Conservation Resources consultant.

The plan was for the team, that included Edward Ng, Marla Jackson, Doug Carmel, Maxine Finney, Julie Gause, Bill Foelsch, and Nathan Charron from North Jersey RC&D to enhance the trail system in Chester into a marketable and protected resource.

Chester has an expansive area of public parks, open space and farmland that have been preserved throughout the area. According to Wagar, 62 percent of the land area in Chester is preserved as farmland or open space. In addition to maintaining a scenic, rustic atmosphere, this amount of preserved open space means that Chester will soon reach complete build-out that is, virtually all available land will have been either developed or preserved. As a result, there will be very little new development that will change the character of the landscape.

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“I thought we had a lot of open space in Mendham,” Wagar said. “But we have something like 22 percent. 62 percent is astonishing. You don’t see those kinds of numbers outside of the Pine Barrens.”

Wagar said that it was very important to the project team that the public have a lot of input on the process, and after the first meeting they took much of the feedback to heart, incorporating it into their plan.

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The full details of the presentation can be found on the Chester Trails webpage, but the primary points are:

1)  Creating Regional Trail Connections to better link Chester trails to other existing and emerging trail networks in Morris and Somerset Counties and beyond.

2)  Creating local trail connections to ensure access to the thousands of acres of parks and open space in Chester.

3)  Creating safe areas for walking and biking within existing parks and connecting neighborhoods to trails by safe pedestrian and bike friendly lanes along local, county, and state road.

4)  Improving the conditions of existing trails.

5)  Promoting Chester Trails through a series of theme trails, new informational brochures, new kiosks located in strategic locations, monthly trail events, and a network of volunteer trail stewards.

Some of the more interesting points included the extension of the Patriots Path through downtown and a geology themed trail and history themed trail, which leverages the natural resources and cultural history of the area as well as the geography.

“On this history trail there is a strong house where people would run to if the Indians or Torries were attacking,” Edward Ng said. “There is also a virtual history trail that has been put together by the .”

Also in the works is a farming heritage trail and increased promotion of the trail enhancements through social media, QR code placement and webpage updates.  


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