Helping Plan for the Future
Both Exeter and Dover are working on policy with the future in mind, and Strong Towns Seacoast is participating in those efforts
2026 March Meeting Details
Our in-person meetings are where we gather to discuss issues that we observe in our local towns and progress we have made on active projects. Join in for the conversation and let me know if you want to bring a topic of your own.
Exeter Meeting
Wednesday, March 4th 6:30PM
Exeter Library
4 Chestnut St, Exeter, NH
Seacoast Meeting
Monday, Monday 9th 6:30PM
Juniper Kitchen
6 Third St, Dover, NH
Seacoast Social
Monday, March 9th, immediately following Seacoast meeting (~8PM)
OTTO Pizza
431 Central Ave, Dover, NH
Dover Community Trail Snow Cleanup
Saturday, February 21st, 12:30PM
Meet where the trail crosses Folsom St
Exeter Mountain Bike Trails
At our Exeter meeting this month we had Toby Ferdyn with Fork Rock Riders come by to discuss their efforts in preserving mountain bike trails in Exeter and the challenges that come with it. With over 2,000 members, this group advocates, fund raises, and performs trail work on privately held parcels and with permission on town owned lands. to discuss their efforts in preserving mountain bike trails in Exeter and the challenges that come with it. Our hope was to identify overlapping goals between our two groups.
Recreation seekers are still mourning the loss of the Rugg Property which fell through at the last hour. Despite the deal falling through, Fort Rock Riders appealed to the town’s conservation commission to inventory and draft a master plan for Exeter’s trail network. Once complete, Fort Rock Riders, with the assistance of the town, look to build out a variety of different trails with various difficulty.
Of particular note, Fort Rock Riders is interested in establishing a network of easy or accessible trails to facilitate access to different parts of the network from different trailheads. As it stands currently, most of the trails are far too technical for anyone other than experienced mountain bikers.
One of the primary challenges we discussed was parking at the trail heads. Because Exeter doesn’t much bicycle infrastructure or safe areas to use bicycles as transportation, the safest way to arrive at this recreational spot is by automobile. We talked about ways of connecting nearby parking lots or even the downtown to this location. Connecting these trails to destination points combined with the group’s effort to make some easier trails would effectively create an accessible transportation network between Exeter and Newfields.
Exeter Complete Streets Update
Strong Towns Seacoast has been deeply involved in the steering Exeter’s Complete Streets Design Guidelines to ensure that all users, abilities, and modes are thoughtfully included in future roadway redesign projects. Although this document is not perfect, it represents meaningful progression for Exeter in accessibility, safety, and balancing automobile traffic throughput with other modes of transport. Exeter’s progress in finalizing a complete-streets plan reached a major milestone mid-February. After iterating on the Complete Streets Design Guidelines, Exeter’s Planning Board received feedback on their latest document draft from the Principal Transportation Planner at Rockingham Planning Commission.
The Planning Board gave a warm response to the document and recognizing that the streets in Exeter are not safe. During public comment, two residents called on the town to take action to remedy problematic intersections. Strong Towns Seacoast will continue to advocate for all users, all modes, and importantly, all abilities to be able to safely move through town. If you share these concerns we encourage you to share it with the Select and Planning Boards as well as the Department of Public Works via phone or email.
Clearing the Snow
After releasing our previous newsletter, we decided to step up and take action on clearing snow off of some of Dover’s pedestrian infrastructure. Along Dover’s Community Trail there is a section at Scenic Drive that weaves between two fences. It has been filled up with snow, making it difficult for pedestrians to pass, and fairly impossible for cyclists, strollers, and disabled users.. We will be out there this upcoming Saturday (February 21st at 12:30pm) with a snow blower and some shovels doing the work. If we make good time on the effort, we might also do the stairs that lead from the Community Trail to Silver Street. We welcome anyone to join us and help out and if you have extra shovels/scrapers, please bring them!
Dover’s Master Plan
At our Seacoast meeting we talked about Dover’s upcoming Master Plan updates for its Land Use and Transportation chapters. At the time of the meeting the Land Use chapter was going to a final public hearing the following Tuesday, so we discussed it and myself and one other member prepared remarks for that hearing. We asked the city to make a few changes, but ultimately, the Planning Board decided to adopt the document without our recommendations.
While we were hopeful for a different outcome, I took this as a lesson on how to handle influencing the Transportation chapter. I reached out to Donna Benton, Dover’s Director of Planning, and asked how Strong Towns Seacoast can be a part of preparing the document that will end up being voted on. With the information she provided, I applied to be on the steering committee for the Transportation Chapter update and will hopefully be one of the residents selected to be included. Instead of waiting for a public hearing to ask for changes to an already defined document, we are trying to be involved at a much earlier stage.
Dover’s current Transportation chapter has many ambitious goals such as multi-modal streets and being a city where car ownership is optional. Over the last decade of having this vision for Dover’s future, I don’t see much forward momentum towards meaningfully achieving these outcomes. I don’t blame Dover here, there are tools that have been embedded in the process and work against the outcomes that Dover is seeking. Perhaps I should write a more detailed article on this, but things like the Manual of Uniform Traffic Control Devices (MUTCD) and a hierarchical street classification both contribute to automobile-centric designs. Because of this, I suspect that any Master Plan document will struggle to overcome the inertia of federal and state transportation standards which primarily value automobile movement. Nonetheless, if I am selected for this committee I will continue to push for a transportation system worthy of a Strong Town.
Conclusion
Exeter is just starting its work towards acknowledging that streets should be designed for everyone, and Dover is over a decade into that effort. Sadly, it’s a difficult nut to crack and Dover’s present transportation system is still heavily biased towards automobiles, even in its downtown. It requires changing the conversation on who streets should serve and valuing the movement and safety of people first, not just automobiles. Even more challenging, you have to go against the grain of accepted standards and financing mechanisms. Even if a city wants to change, the momentum of current practices pushes against it. Changing policy is the work, but changing the way we talk about these topics is the challenge and Strong Towns Seacoast is trying to do just that. If you want to help change the conversation, please join us at one of our monthly in-person meetings!