Thanks to the work of bike-ped activists in Brattleboro, the select board voted to support the creation of a new bike-ped path that will eventually connect downtown with a network of rail trails that goes to Keene and beyond. The Brattleboro select board is the equivalent of Northampton's mayor and city council combined.

A front page article in the November 5 edition of the Brattleboro Reformer daily newspaper was headlined, “Plan approved for new Connecticut River trail. Walking path should be usable by spring.”

Steve Shriner is on the board of the group that will build the Vermont part of the trail. The group has web site at https://WestRiverTrail.org. On November 7, Shriner told the Valley Post, “While we are hopeful that we can open the trail next spring, we are just now starting the detailed scoping and design process which will include identification of state and local permits needed to make this a reality. This will drive the time frame. We will also need to fund-raise to make this happen as it may be quite expensive based on the outcome of that process."

This Valley Post reporter and his wife rode their bicycles (not ebikes) from Brattleboro to Keene and back, entirely on rail trails, over several days in fall 2024 and spring 2025. The bridge over the Connecticut river, which was used by trains until it was abandoned, needs repairs. It's passable but seems dangerous.

Shriner's group will fix the bridge after it builds the trail from downtown to the bridge, a distance of about a mile.

A few short sections of the rail trail route that goes from that bridge to Keene are still closed due to the 2023 floods in Vermont and New Hampshire that made page 1 of the New York Times. According to this web page, the damage will be repaired one day:

https://www.nhstateparks.org/find-parks-trails/recreational-rail-trails/...

As of April 2025, all of the closed sections were passable. It was also easy to backtrack and ride on the shoulder of a paved road to get around the closed sections.

Information about the other rail trail that one rides on to get from Brattleboro to Keene is at:

https://www.nhstateparks.org/find-parks-trails/recreational-rail-trails/...

One of the most popular hiking trails in the county that's home to Brattleboro, the Bald mountain trail at Townshend state park, is also still closed due to the 2023 floods.

As of 2025, less than 2 percent of federal transportation funding goes to bicycling and walking infrastructure, such as sidewalks, crosswalks, walking trails, and bicycle paths, according to Google AI.

Amherst has a bicycle path alongside University Drive, home to the Big Y supermarket. The path is separated from cars by a physical barrier.

The Brattleboro select board vote was on October 21.

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On November 5, CNBC reported that workers at Starbucks have voted to go on strike starting November 13 unless the company signs a union contract first. The strike has no set end date. In February 2025, the Valley Post spoke with a Starbucks worker in Northampton, Ari Vaccaro. “We get $15.49 an hour,” Vaccaro said. “We can't live in our town on that. The CEO of Starbucks makes $50,000 an hour. We're short-staffed so it's stressful. I live in Northampton. I am from here. About 15 or 20 people work in my store. Some of them have been working for Starbucks for 12 to 17 years. They support the union.... The only way we have power is if we unite.”

The workers have a web site at https://sbWorkersUnited.org.