Allan Appel Photo
The jungle at Orange and Grove will become the plaza where the underground portion of the trail rises to the street.
Get ready to finish that stroll or bike along the Farmington Canal Heritage Greenway Trail rather than having to stop at the gated tunnels below Whitney Avenue.
After more than a decade of planning and work, the final leg (“Phase Four”) of New Haven’s portion of the greenway trail has received its final approval.
The City Plan Commission unanimously approved the final phase’s plan at its meeting Wednesday night.
From an entry plaza at Grove Street the trail will continue at street level via Grove, Olive, Water, Brewery, and Sargent. Pedestrians will use new city sidewalks marked by embossed canal pavers, and bicyclists will follow “sharrow” marked bike lanes. At Water Street pedestrians will take the north side on new sidewalks, while bicyclists will be able to use a dedicated bike track on the south side. The latter will be built in sections a block at a time down to the new boathouse, juggling schedules with the state Department of Transportation (DOT), which is using streets now for its re-do of the Q Bridge. City traffic chief Jim Travers envisions a dedicated bike track all the way to East Shore Park.
The federal government will pay for most of the $7 million final phase, officials said. The city’s 20 percent portion is largely underwritten by Yale.
Looking east along Grove where the trail runs on the surface.
According to the plan, the trail will rise slowly from the underground gated portions to street level and contain seating, bike racks, and signage. This plaza will be open 24 hours a day, with exiting at the Park of the Arts behind the Neighborhood Music School via steps and ramps. “So no one is trapped,” said Anne Hartjen, the new City Plan staff coordinator.
“Within the tunnel, pedestrians and bicycle traffic will be separated via an inlaid illuminated green line and two ramped walkways. Historical information will be presented via illuminated panels placed within tunnel niches at the eastern end,” reads a section of the City Plan staff report.
From the plaza, the trail will run on street level, with a series of sharrows, along sidewalks that include specially marked Farmington Canal pavers, will appear along Grove down Olive to Water, and along Water to Brewery, looping around Sargent Drive and arriving at the harbor adjacent to the future boathouse at Canal Dock Road.
Click here for a previous report on a presentation to the Board of Aldermen of the final-phase plan, which includes the first-ever in the state-dedicated bicycle track along at least a block of the Water Street portion of the route.
No Low Line … Yet
City Plan commissioner Adam Marchand, a Westville alderman, asked if consideration had been given to activist Chris Ozyck’s suggestion to have more of a “low line” to the harbor by running the trail instead along the Amtrak rail bed, thus avoiding surface traffic, especially along very narrow Olive Street.
Click here for an article and a tour of Ozyck’s “secret” path.
Marchand with Miller.
The city would have to negotiate with Amtrak. “We’re open to it, but Amtrak negotiations can go on forever,” said Hartjen.
City Engineer Dick Miller, who was attending his last City Plan meeting before retiring and received the accolades of his colleagues, concurred. “Negotiating with Amtrak is tough,” he said.
City Plan Director Karyn Gilvarg said the plan is 90 percent complete design-wise: “we’re within weeks of signing all the rights of way.”
Why not bring the site plan to the commissioners then, when all the rights of way have been inked? asked Commission Chairman Ed Mattison.
Gilvarg said she wants to go to bid soon so construction can begin in the fall, with a hoped for ribbon-cutting in the spring of 2016.