Sudbury – Media Nation

Checking out the Mass. Central Rail Trail from Sudbury to Hudson

Along the Mass. Central Rail Trail in Hudson.

A few weeks ago and then again on Saturday I headed toward the southern end of the Bruce Freeman Rail Trail to explore the Massachusetts Central Rail Trail.

Those working on the Mass. Central hope to build a 104-mile bike path connecting Boston and Northampton. They’ve got a long way to go. On Saturday I turned left at the end of the Bruce Freeman and rode east along about a mile and a half of recently paved pathway before hitting the end in Sudbury. I understand that if I’d wanted to snake my way around I could have picked it up again and headed toward Wayland.

Instead, I turned around and rode west, pedaling about six and a half miles from the Bruce Freeman’s southern terminus to where the paved section ends at a parking lot in Hudson. From there I picked up the Assabet River Rail Trail and rode a half-mile, turning around on Main Street just outside downtown Hudson. All told, I rode a bit more than 21 miles, including a short stretch along the Bruce Freeman starting at the Broadacres Farm parking lot in Sudbury.

Heading west along the Mass. Central is an interesting ride, taking you past McMansions, followed by more modest homes, and then finally an industrial area. You’ll head through wooded areas and open fields, too. It looks like a paved stretch from Boston to Northampton is some time off in the future, though. As advocates say, “It won’t be easy. While much of the old right of way is passable to a dedicated traveler today, in part the ownership is not clear.”

But they also say that 63 miles are now open, including the final stretch to Boston, which begins at Brighton Avenue in Belmont, runs southeast along the Fitchburg Cut-Off, crosses the Minuteman Bikeway, and then follows the Alewife Linear Park and the Somerville Community Path most of the way to the Museum of Science. From there you can pick up the Charles River bike paths, which can take you as far as Waltham.

What’s nice about the Bruce Freeman and Mass. Central is that they are not as crowded as the Minuteman, which tends to be choked with bikers, scooters, skateboarders and pedestrians. Since they’re newer, they’re also in a better state of repair. On the other hand, I can ride my bike from my house to the Minuteman. If I want to head out west, I have to drive there.

At the southern terminus of the Bruce Freeman Rail Trail.

A reminder that the Mass. Central follows an abandoned rail line. In Sudbury.

A bucolic view just a short distance from busy Boston Post Road (Route 20) in Sudbury.

The Sudbury leg of the Bruce Freeman Trail is open, sort of

The end of the line, just a few minutes north of Boston Post Road

The Bruce Freeman Trail, a bike path that currently runs from Lowell to Concord, is about to get a lot longer. On Saturday I rode from Acton south to Powder Mill Road in West Concord, where the trail was closed, as it was last year. This time, though, I could see that there were people on the other side using it, so I schlepped my bike over the road and back down to the trail. From there the trail continued another 5 miles into Sudbury, where it came to a dead stop just a short distance from Boston Post Road.

I can’t imagine why the opening at Powder Mill is still closed off. The Sudbury leg, which brings the total length of the trail to about 21 miles, is fully paved and fenced and looks like all it needs is a few finishing touches. There were as many people using it south of Powder Mill as north of it. In any case, I’m sure it will be officially open soon. Construction continues, and the next step will consist of building it out from Sudbury to Framingham.

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The Post’s data on hospice care should spur local editors

Click on image for interactive map at washingtonpost.com

If I were running a news organization that covered Sudbury, Bedford, Amherst, Worcester, Northbridge, Taunton or Fall River, I’d be taking a close look at a database published on Sunday by The Washington Post.

According to an investigation by the Post, one in six hospices in the United States did not provide crisis care to their dying patients in 2012. “The absence of such care,” wrote Post reporters Peter Whoriskey and Dan Keating, “suggests that some hospice outfits are stinting on nursing attention, according to hospice experts. Inspection and complaint records, meanwhile, depict the anguish of patients who have been left without care.”

And, indeed, Whoriskey and Keating offer some horror stories, starting with 85-year-old Ying Tai Choi, a Tampa, Florida, woman whose nurse abandoned her an hour before she died.

What gives the Post’s investigation value beyond its immediate impact, though, is that the paper uploaded the database it used to carry out its reporting. The Post says it analyzed Medicare billing records for more than 2,500 hospice organizations as well as “an internal Medicare tally of nursing care in patients near death and reviewed complaint records at hundreds of hospices.”

By showing its work, the paper has provided valuable leads for follow-up stories by news organizations across the country.

According to the database, 16 percent of 43 hospice facilities serving 22,865 patients in Massachusetts reported providing no crisis care in 2012. That percentage is right around the national average, though it is higher than any other New England state.

Under Medicare rules, a hospice must be able to provide crisis care to its terminally ill patients, which the Post tells us is “either continuous nursing care at home or an inpatient bed at a medical facility.” The Post is careful to point out that the mere fact that a facility did not provide crisis care in a given year is not evidence that there’s anything wrong. It’s possible that none of its patients needed it. A further explanation:

The absence of crisis care does not necessarily indicate a violation of the rules. But hospice experts say it is unlikely that larger hospices had no patients who required such care.

In other words, the database provides questions, not answers — precisely the information news organizations need for follow-up reports at the local level. Investigative reporting is expensive and time-intensive. The Post’s hospice story provides journalists with a great head start.