I like trains just fine, but I like bicycles even better, and the Nashua River Rail Trail (paved) and the Mason Rail Trail (unpaved) are two of my favorite places to ride a bicycle. Maybe someday they will be connected, but don’t count on it.

The two trails do connect, in the sense that both of the original railways (ye old Worcester & Nashua and Peterborough & Shirley lines) pass through Ayer, Mass. The Nashua River trail starts (or ends) at the Ayer MBTA station.

The unpaved rail trail that runs through Mason, Wilton and Greenville is the northern end of the wildly misnamed Peterborough & Shirley line, which also passed through Ayer (but never set footings in Peterborough or Shirley). The old rails and ties remain rotting in place south of the Massachusetts border, however, making the rail bed all but unrideable (one could grind through it, but it would be no fun, so why bother?)

A proposal to pave 3.3 miles of that line, from Route 13 in Townsend Center to Townsend Road in far west Groton, has been gathering steam for some time now.

The Squannacook River Rail Trail Committee has organized a meeting June 12 at the North Middlesex Regional High School in Townsend for people to learn more and speak about the proposal.

There’s even organized opposition, strange as that may seem to the thousands of cyclists who enjoy existing rail trails. Driving along Route 119 this weekend, I saw a dozen or so lawn signs opposing the idea.

You can learn a lot about the proposal on the committee’s Web site. For instance, I learned that concerns about habitat for the endangered Blandings Turtle are the main obstacle keeping the rail trail from continuing further into Groton… also, the rail line remains active south of the Hollingsworth and Vose Co. plant in West Groton (from there to Ayer). Bikes and trains don’t play nicely together, but it’s a relatively short and scenic ride from West Groton to the Nashua River Rail Trail crossing on Broad Meadow Road.

Bicycles and cars get along only slightly better, and concerns about vehicular traffic at the Route 13 crossing and ATVs in New Hampshire are the main reasons why no one has proposed extending the trail further west and north to the state border. I also learned that construction of the paved trail would be funded by a $4 million Congressional “earmark,” but that the towns would become responsible for maintaining it.

Last but not least, I learned that a local realtor conducted a survey that found that homes near the Nashua River and Minuteman Rail Trails sell more quickly, and for more money, than other homes in the area. At least one developer in Nashua had figured that out already; we have Paradise Homes to thank for paving our end of that trail.

One of the folks behind the Squanacook Rail Trail Committee, Bill Rideout of Townsend, was kind enough to write back in answer to some questions that I’d had before I studied their Web site more carefully. Rideout writes that some Groton townsfolk are looking into whether an alternative route could be found to link the two rail trails in town, sparing the turtle lands. Such a path might cross the Nashua River “using the old Fitch’s Bridge in Groton, if it is restored as is now planned,” he writes.

While Rideout makes no claim to speak for opponents of the project, he says it’s his impression that some people are worried about crime, trespassing, litter and a general decrease in property values.

As someone who rode the Nashua River Rail Trail for years before it was ever paved, I can say for what it’s worth that it looks a lot nicer, and seems a lot safer now. Abandoned rail beds tend to attract illegal dumping, ATVs and shady characters like me. Rail trails draw parents teaching kids to ride bicycles, recreational cyclists, dog walkers, parents with strollers… people from the neighborhood.