Planners are deciding how to best connect the Bloomfield Greenway to the roughly 50-mile Farmington Canal Heritage Trail, part of a longer-term plan to link Hartford and East Hartford to Connecticut’s premier bikeway and paved walking path.
Trail developers this month hosted Hartford, Bloomfield, Simsbury and East Hartford residents at informational meetings about the plan that could change the face of bicycle commuting in central Connecticut for decades.
As contractors complete a multipurpose trail link from Bloomfield into Simsbury’s Tariffville section, the next step is to figure out how to continue it to meet the Farmington Canal Heritage Trail, which runs north-south about a mile to a mile to the west.
There is no simple and available east-west path, though, and designing the route requires accounting for private properties, high-traffic public roads, the Farmington River, steep changes in elevation and more.
So at information meetings this month, the Capitol Region Council of Governments is inviting residents to put forward ideas. The next sessions are April 18 at 4:30 p.m. and 6 p.m. at the Keney Park Pond House, 323 Edgewood St., Hartford, followed by April 26 at 4:30 p.m. and 6 p.m. at the Alvin and Beatrice Wood Human Services Center, 330 Park Ave., Bloomfield.
Planners from VHB, a consultant for CRCOG, are narrowing down more than a dozen options.
“It needs to be off road and connect to local amenities. We want it to be well designed and attractive so people use it,” said Mark Jewell, a senior planner with VHB. Affordability is also a concern, he said, since construction is largely funded through federal and state grants.
Currently the Bloomfield Greenway starts at Day Hill Road and runs mostly along Route 189. Contractors are extending it northward along Route 189 into Simsbury’s Tafiffville section, where it will end just short of the Farmington River crossing and just a couple of blocks east of Tariffville Elementary School.
Continuing it farther west to reach the Farmington Canal Heritage Trail is more problematic. Planners have already created and rejected options that would require two new bridges over the Farmington River, wetlands encroachment at Tariffville Park or long, winding routes that backtrack into East Granby.
Some of the options they’re still considering would connect to the Tariffville Park entrance, then either follow an old railbed southwest toward the main trail or pursue a different route toward the southwest.
At a public meeting in his town, Simsbury Public Works Director Tom Roy emphasized that the ultimate solution must work for a variety of users.
“This is a multipurpose trail for walkers, cyclists, joggers, runners, dog walkers,” Roy said. “It’s meant to be a multipurpose trail, its not specifically for bikers or walkers. It’s for everybody.”
Consultants have done about 95 percent of the design work on a connector from the Farmington Canal Heritage Trail to Simsbury’s Curtiss Park, a large recreation area on the opposite side of the Farmington River. So one option for the Bloomfield connection would be designing a trail link between Curtiss Park and Route 189 in Tariffville, where the Bloomfield Greenway will end after this year’s construction, Roy said.
Before construction bids go out, planners want to hear from walkers, cyclists, homeowners along the route and others about their reactions to various options.
First Selectman Wendy Mackstutis praised Roy, CRCOG and the East Coast Greenway leadership for progress.
“They have been working hard to connect Bloomfield to Tariffville to Curtiss Park to Route 10, to connect everybody together so we can bike and walk and get places from here to there,” Mackstutis said.
Roy said the bike trail system serves a variety of needs.
“The East Coast Greenway brings people to Simsbury. When they come to Simsbury to ride, they come with money to shop, to buy coffee, they come with money to go to restaurants,” Roy said.
Bruce Donald, regional manager for the East Coast Greenway Alliance, said the long-term goal is an active transportation corridor for the region, a local amenity, and a source of economic development.
“The stated intention 30 years ago was to be the urban Appalachian Trail to go through the cities and connect the population centers,” he said. “This was always called the Hartford Connector. That’s really what is it, we’re connecting the capital city and so much more.”
Donald’s organization envisions linking the Airline Trail and other smaller trails on the eastern end of the state to the Farmington Canal Heritage Trail, which links about 15 towns between New Haven and Suffield. A s a connector the Greater Hartford would open extensive commuting, riding and hiking options.