Cross Haggetts Pond Road at the new flashing beacon, park in the lot that wasn't there two years ago, and you're on pavement within a few steps. Eight feet of fresh asphalt runs flat and straight for six tenths of a mile, threading between trees to a boardwalk that opens onto the pond. It reads like the simplest kind of town improvement: old railbed, new trail, nice view at the end. It is not that simple, and knowing why makes the walk more interesting.
A Decade Before the Pavement Went Down
The idea started in the fall of 2015, when members of the Andover Commission on Disability asked the town for an accessible outdoor space they could use with friends and family. The commission reviewed the town's trail network and landed on the old railbed at Haggetts Pond the following year, largely because a former rail line offers the gentle, consistent grade that a paved accessible trail needs. In 2017, a study from the Institute for Human Centered Design, the same organization that runs the New England ADA Center, laid out a design guide built around input from two dozen residents with a range of disabilities.
Then it sat. By 2022, the Commission on Disability was telling the town it was still out of compliance with Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act and that the Haggetts Pond project hadn't moved. Design work picked back up, a MassTrails grant came through from the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation, and the Andover Conservation Commission approved permitting for the project on October 10, 2024.
That approval was supposed to be the hard part. It wasn't.
The Fight That Nearly Killed the Project
A group called Friends of Haggetts Pond had formed to oppose the paving, and their objection wasn't really about whether Andover needed an accessible trail. It was about what "accessible" should mean on land that borders the town's primary water supply. They argued that pouring asphalt through wetland-adjacent habitat did more environmental damage than the benefit justified, and they took their case first to a special town meeting, where they tried and failed to change the zoning bylaws that would have blocked the paving, then to Essex County Superior Court.
The lawsuit came close to working. A judge weighing an injunction request noted that if construction stalled past June 30, 2025, Andover stood to lose the $500,000 state grant funding the project entirely. The judge ruled against the injunction the Friday before Memorial Day weekend in 2025, and crews were on site paving by the following Tuesday. The original packed dirt path closed for construction days later.
That detail matters more than it might seem. The trail residents are walking today didn't replace an empty lot or an overgrown thicket. It replaced a dirt path that people were already using.
Two Versions of Accessible
Here's the part that gets lost once a ribbon-cutting happens and the story becomes a good-news item: the unpaved Haggetts Pond trail was already serving as an informal accessible route before any of this started. Some longtime users, including walkers managing balance and joint issues, had relied specifically on its flat, natural surface. In public comments during the debate, some of them argued that paving it would take that access away from them even as it created a different kind of access for wheelchair users, stroller-pushing parents, and road cyclists.
Town officials framed the project as expanding access, not trading one group's access for another's. At the ribbon-cutting on May 1, Town Manager Andrew Flanagan told the crowd gathered at the trailhead:
"This project is about access and it is about opportunity."
Both things are true at once, and that's worth sitting with if you're a regular user of Andover's trail system. A paved surface that works well for a wheelchair or a road bike can feel harder underfoot for someone managing joint pain who found the give of packed dirt easier to walk on. Andover didn't solve accessibility with this project. It picked a version of it, funded that version with a state grant tied to a hard deadline, and defended that choice through a lawsuit. The trail is genuinely more usable for more people than it was before. It is not accurate to say it's more accessible for everyone who used the old path, and nobody covering the opening seems to be saying that part out loud.
What's Actually There If You Go This Fall
The finished product, at least this first phase of it, includes:
- A 0.6-mile paved path, eight feet wide, running from Haggetts Pond Road to a boardwalk and scenic overlook of the pond
- A new parking area directly on Haggetts Pond Road, across from the trailhead
- A rapid flashing beacon at the crosswalk connecting the parking lot to the trail entrance
- A bench along the route dedicated to Justin Coppola Sr., recognized for 25 years of service on the Andover Commission on Disability
- Interpretive signage that town officials said this spring was still being finalized, along with a bike rack and a few additional benches
State Sen. Barry Finegold, Select Board members Ellen Townson and Alex Vispoli, Deputy Town Manager Mike Lindstrom, and project manager Joe Assenza all spoke at the May opening alongside Flanagan, which gives you a sense of how much political effort went into getting six tenths of a mile of pavement built. What you're seeing now is also just the first section. Reporting on the opening noted the paved stretch connects to a remaining portion of the old railbed that hasn't been developed yet, so this trail is likely to get longer, not stay put at six tenths of a mile.
Before You Go
Haggetts Pond is Andover's water supply, so this is a look-but-don't-launch-a-kayak kind of destination. There's no swimming beach or boat ramp here, just the trail and the overlook. If you're bringing a dog, pack out your own waste bags. Some residents flagged during the debate that the trailhead didn't have trash barrels at either end, and nothing in the town's updates on finishing touches suggests that's changed.
If you've walked the old dirt path at Haggetts Pond for years, the new version will feel different underfoot, and that difference is the whole story here, not a footnote to it. If you've never been, you now have a flat, well-marked half hour walk with a genuinely good view at the end and a real reason to know how it got there.
Andover has more of these stories tucked into its trail system than most people realize, from the Bog Trail at Ward Hill to the paddling routes along the Shawsheen River. If you're the kind of resident who likes knowing the backstory behind the places you walk, or if you're weighing what life actually looks like in a town like this before you buy here, our Andover neighborhood guide goes deeper into what daily life looks like on this side of the Merrimack Valley.
And if Haggetts Pond has you thinking about what it would take to live closer to it, DiPietro Group Real Estate knows this market block by block. Schedule a free buyer or seller consultation whenever you're ready to talk specifics.
