Swampscott Rail Trail with your dog: the town leash bylaw

The leash rule comes from Swampscott's general bylaw on dogs, not from a sign at a trailhead. No dog may be at large anywhere in town except on its owner's premises, or on someone else's with their knowledge and consent. Everywhere else, the bylaw says, a dog must at all times, 24 hours a day, be controlled or restrained by a chain or leash and stay under the direct control and supervision of its owner or a designee. Neither exception covers a public trail, so the leash stays clipped on from the Marblehead line to Bradlee Avenue.

The same bylaw sets the clean-up duty. Anyone with a dog on a sidewalk, street, park or other public area must carry a means of picking up its feces, remove what the dog leaves and take it somewhere meant for disposal, and the fine is $50 per offense. The Board of Health adds a second layer. Its regulation on dogs on town-owned land, posted in November 2020, names the places closed to dogs, from playing fields and playgrounds to Phillips Park, Windsor Park and the cemetery, and the rail trail is not among them. Parks it does not prohibit stay open to leashed dogs whose owners can collect the waste.

Past Bradlee Avenue the trail is a plan rather than a path. When it is finished, the town says, the Swampscott Rail Trail will be a two-mile, off-road shared-use path from Bradlee Avenue to Stetson Avenue, inside the National Grid utility corridor that was once the Marblehead branch of the Boston & Maine Railroad, which ended service in 1959. The plans carry trail users over Paradise Road, Route 1A, on a pedestrian bridge, and the Stetson Avenue end sits three blocks from the Swampscott commuter rail station.

The project has moved in stages. Town Meeting approved design and easement funding in May 2017 by 210 votes to 56, and a town-wide election that June backed the decision. The remaining segments were programmed in MassDOT's Transportation Improvement Program in 2022, a 99-year ground lease for the corridor was secured between 2021 and 2023, and a peer review was finished in 2024. The town's schedule lists every later step, from accepting the 25 percent design to starting construction, as to be determined, and it describes nothing beyond Bradlee Avenue as open trail.

Stone dust is fine crushed rock, and on a dry day a low-slung or long-coated dog carries a layer of it home on its legs and belly; after rain it clings between the toes. A rinse at home handles the paws. For the whole coat, our bath and brush is a warm wash, a full blow-dry and a brush-out with no haircut, priced by size: $55 up to 25 pounds, $65 for 26 to 50, $75 for 51 to 90, $85 over 90 and $95 for an extra-large dog with long hair.

Grooming needs no evaluation, so you can book online or in the Dogtown app and come straight to 210 Eastern Ave. Swampscott is outside the four Pup Van towns, so plan to drive up Route 1A and Route 128, about 40 minutes outside rush hour by our estimate, or ask us about pick-up. Nail clipping adds $16 and Shed Release $10 for a double coat that is letting go, and once your dog has had its free evaluation, a bath can ride along with a daycare day.