New Haven Independent

Posted by: DingDong | February 21, 2008 9:01 AM

How about the other end? Right now the trail ends at Hillhouse but is planned to go further. Is there any schedule for when the southern end is going to be extended?

Posted by: Ned | February 21, 2008 9:19 AM

The first section of the trail is not complete from State St. to Munson St. - there is a chain link fence, blocking the trail, where the trail goes under Hillhouse Ave.
The paved portion of the trail begins at Hillhouse and then, about 200 feet north, passes through a short sand trap (prone to flooding during rain - it was a canal...), under Prospect St., otherwise, except for the broken glass and muggers, it's all good.

Posted by: on whalley | February 21, 2008 10:13 AM

It's nowhere near complete. The small downtown section doesn't even come close to connecting to where the trail picks up in Hamden then there's still the abrupt dead end in Cheshire and the actual Farmington portion of the Greenway is just floating all by itself.

It's nowhere near complete. Don't even mention it's incorporation into the East Coast Greenway.

If you look at only the "Farmington Canal" route on and off road you still have a healthy gap right where New Haven sits.

Farmington Canal Greenway:
Simsbury-Avon section; 8 mi
Avon-Farmington section; 2.3 mi
Hamden section; 4.7 mi
Hamden-Cheshire section; 8 mi
Southington section; 8 m

It's a great idea but it's all been so half-assed and it seems like there never was a solid plan for implementation. We should just have Trump build it. We'd have a nice off-road non-motorized clearly marked route from Maine to Florida in Summers time. Rather than waste money with local and state government mess we present traffic estimates, allow advertising revenue along the route and get this thing done private sector. Hippies and grants won't get it done for another 100 years if they don't just give up by then.

http://greenway.org/

Posted by: charlie | February 21, 2008 10:13 AM

From what I've heard, the section from Hillhouse to the waterfront is either designed or in the design process. That means it is probably between 1-4 years out.

The Hamden section, from New Haven line to where the trail currently ends at Connolly Parkway in Hamden, was designed simultaneously with the New Haven section and should be completed by next year. It is going to take a little longer than the New Haven part just because it is more complicated.

My advice is to call Lieberman and Dodd and thank them for the $8M or so in federal transit funds that allowed this trail to be built, but please mention that it is still a shame that less than 1% of transit funding goes to nonmotorized transportation (which is pretty much the only thing out there that could actually end our dependence on foreign oil).

Posted by: Nestor Makhno | February 21, 2008 2:40 PM

This is good news. However, Commissioner Smith's concerns are warranted. There's a reason cyclists call it the Ho Chi Minh trail. Sections are sketchy.

Posted by: Esbe | February 21, 2008 11:08 PM

Charlie's right about the New Haven-Hamden connection -- all the money is there and a continuous trail from New Haven to Chesire will be in place, one hopes in 2009. The new Hamden section will feature a cool bike bride over Putnam Ave, I believe.

Yale is committed to finish the trail to the "end" of the canal at Orange and Grove (behind NMS.) The current chain-link fence at Hillhouse is there because the bridge above is being replaced.

The FBI building at Grove and Orange destroyed the canal right-of-way from Orange to State, where it would meet the active Amtrak rail line. How the trail will connect with the Harbor is a tough decision -- I would be surprised if it is done in a mere 4 years, but if it connects to a Harbor trail (connecting Lighthouse Point to West Haven), ,I would be thrilled.

Posted by: transit user | February 25, 2008 7:55 AM

The photos of the young African-American women posing as soft-porn stars while so many have supported the campaign of Senator Obama who wants to liberate his people from such offenses or should want to anyway needs to be examined.

Also the millions of Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro's federal earmark dollars spent on these trails (her only non-auto transportation accomplishment when Metro-North and Amtrak service suffers) is wasted when fences at worst and lack of sidewalks at best cuts them off from economic development and community resource venues.

The fences and lacking sidewalk connectors leave the trail investment utility very low and earmarks our tax dollars on this effort just to weekend bike riders rather than as a smart alternative to cars transportation investment for bike riders, pedestrians and transit users who can use them to walk from the bus or train to their destination.

For example, a few months ago I could walk the trail from Hillhouse Avenue to Ashmun Street then walk over to the New Haven Free Book Bank. The other week my trip was impeded by a newly built fence blocking the sidewalk. I walked along an uneven path in a small park from the trail to the book bank.

Similarly, the Hamden trail on Dixwell between Skiff and Connolly blocks access to the stores and restaurant with fences.

A similar fence was built along the Vision Trail to Long Wharf but it is now in a terrible state of disrepair.

Why do we need to spend our tax dollars to build fences bordering any part of the trail? Will criminals use the trails to access places they can burglarize from them? Or will
trail users be victimized by thugs coming at them from points along the trail?

Even asking those questions, the tax dollars wasted on those fences citizens cut holes through anyway does not make any kind of sense.

I still think the earlier idea to turn the trail into a light rail line was of more utility for a wider variety of citizens than the rail to trail plan actualization.