Willie Blue Tunnels Forward

Amidst the dozens of cyclists pedaling along the downtown stretch of the Farmington Canal Heritage Trail on Thursday, one sped past the rest. Willie Holden pressed down the recently opened trailhead in a blaze of blue, as Laura Mead explored the tunnel for the first time.

The 80-mile trail running from Northampton to New Haven originally served as a waterborne transportation system in the early 1800s and later a railway, before becoming a pedestrian path in the 1980s.

In May, the city completed four years of construction on the trailhead, known as Phase IV of the trail’s New Haven stretch. (Planning for the construction began in 2009.) Riders on Thursday were making good use of the popular route.

Despite his speed, Holden has been focused on slowing down. ​“I’m retired, so I can take it easy,” said the former Sikorsky Aircraft mechanic. He spends a few hours each week riding the trail between New Haven and the Hamden Stop & Shop, where he often stops ​“to breathe and grab a cold drink.”

Holden has lived in New Haven for over 50 years but only began to ride the trail in 2023, when he decided to purchase a motorized Scorpion model from Juiced Bikes.

“I saw an ad for the bike on my phone, and decided to try it out,” he said. ​“I didn’t know that they had renovated the route until I was walking to the fish market [at Hong Kong Grocery on Whitney Avenue], and I saw a woman coming up from under the road. I came down here and found out they had made a whole new tunnel.”

As Holden kicked off towards Hamden, his ​“WILLIE BLUE” vanity plate glinted in the tunnel’s overhead lights.

Under the shaded overhang of the trailhead’s entrance, Jerome Butler wiped his forehead as he started his walk home. A New Haven native, Butler first discovered the trail through his girlfriend, Shirley Lin, who relocated from Taiwan in 2021.

“We met up there, actually,” Butler pointed at Whitney Avenue, which runs perpendicular to the trailhead. ​“Walking around New Haven was her thing. That’s how she learned the area, and so she was the one who introduced me to the trail in 2021, when they started construction.”

Since moving in together on Bradley Street — and, as of this week, Chapel Street — the couple aims for 10,000 daily steps together, exploring routes in New Haven and Cheshire. ​“I’m on a 74-day streak!” Butler said. ​“We prefer the mornings and evenings when there’s less people, but right now, I’m just walking back from lunch with her.”

“And this tunnel is great. It’s shaded and safe, because it’s well-lit… and I didn’t know any of this,” Butler glanced at the wall plaques, detailing the trail’s history as a canal. ​“It’s super cool.”

Laura Mead, a project architect at Pirie Associates, stopped to glance at the informational paneling as she finished up a work call. A 2017 graduate of Yale, Mead was aware of the trail, but never explored it herself until she needed a quiet place to talk.

“This is my first time on the canal, and it’s just lovely,” Mead said. ​“I didn’t expect it to be such a nice day, so it was busy and there was a bit less privacy than I would have liked, but I like that it’s such a straight path.”

Mead’s first time on the trail contrasts with her experience of the tunnel’s construction: ​“I knew it was here because we could hear the drilling at my office,” which sits just a block from the trailhead.

When asked for her professional opinion of the renovation, Mead had only a few notes. ​“I would definitely consider more signage. There’s not much guiding people down here,” she gestured to the trailhead’s Orange Street entrance.

By the end of her call, Mead had made it to the portion of the trail adjacent to Yale’s Benjamin Franklin and Pauli Murray residential colleges. For her next visit to the trail, she intends to go a bit further. ​“I’ll definitely be back. I’m noticing all of the little shortcuts that [the trail] makes, so I want to explore more.”