There's a lot of interesting old rail beds in the Bedford through Lowell area which got converted to pedestrian and bike paths.

Indeed the route I mentioned above (what used to be the Lowell and Framingham Railroad) is slated to become the Bruce Freeman Rail Trail (http://www.brucefreemanrailtrail.org). Based on your geographical description it sounds like we're talking about the same thing. According to their own timetable the first phase should be finished any day now.

But as far as the New Deal, while I usually go libertarian this would be a very good time to bring back the WPA. The infrastructure is crumbling, and people need jobs.

Yeah, and this time lets do it favoring trains instead of cars, since we're spending the money anyway.