By Devon Cormier
Staff Writer

Sandi Van Scoyoc has won New Boston a grant, but she’s the first to admit her reasons aren’t all selfless.

“When I first moved into town, I could walk into the town center,” said Van Scoyoc, who lives just 1 mile out of the village. “I can’t do that anymore and it’s always been my dream that I could someday walk to town again.”

Van Scoyoc secured a grant that will set a process in motion to make New Boston center easier to get around in. New Boston was one of three towns to win a grant for the New Hampshire Celebrates Wellness program called “Livable, Walkable Communities.”

The program is aimed at making communities in New Hampshire more accessible by bicycles and pedestrians to encourage more everyday recreational and physical activity.

“We were looking for communities that have some issues,” said Executive Director of New Hampshire Celebrates Wellness Terry Johnson. “There are areas in town where traffic moves fast and where there isn’t great pedestrian access, so we established that they had a need.”

The program generally costs towns a pretty penny, but Van Scoyoc’s grant application had a strong point – a steering committee named and ready to go.

The steering committee for the program is called the Foot Traffic and Road Safety Committee, and it was born out of the New Boston Speaks event.

New Boston Speaks drew hundreds who came to talk about issues or concerns they had about town. The people in attendance then broke into different focus groups. This committee was one of them.

“We came together for the first time and looked through all the data from New Boston Speaks,” Van Scoyoc said. “People said they wanted downtown to be safe as a pedestrian area. They wanted safe walkways for children to get to and from school. They wanted clear and safe crossing areas. We lumped these ideas together and said, ‘What can we do?’”

After a career in public health, Van Scoyoc knew the answer to that question. She recalled hearing about the “livable, walkable” program and immediately decided to look into it. When she heard the price for the program, she nearly gave the idea up until it came to her attention that as a pilot, New Hampshire Celebrates Wellness was offering grants for the program to three communities.

“I thought ‘Why not New Boston?’” said Van Scoyoc. “We have just as many needs as other communities.”

Nashua, Berlin-Gorham and New Boston all snagged a spot in the pilot. The towns don’t receive any money for winning the grant, but they get to participate in the yearlong program for free and retain the help of Johnson and his staff. Now Van Scoyoc is gearing up to get the community involved.

“We will start with community forums,” Johnson said. “We will look at what areas of New Boston are not livable and walkable in terms of sidewalks, connectivity to parks, schools, and stores and places. We will look at how people can get around town better by walking or by bike and rely less on autos.”

The forums will focus on making it possible to walk within a one-mile radius of the town center. The end result will be an action plan about how to make New Boston easier to access.

“I’m just hoping that more people in the community will want to get involved,” Van Scoyoc said. “I’m very excited about the enthusiasm around this project.”

After the recommendations are made, Van Scoyoc said funding options will be considered. For the past year she has been looking into different grants and programs that help communities create a livable and walkable environment.

“There are funding possibilities,” Van Scoyoc said. “I’m pretty optimistic that this committee will be very successful.”

The first forum is expected to be sometime in April. Van Scoyoc said there are currently 10 members of the committee and she hopes more residents will get involved as the process gains momentum.