Paul Bass Photo
Use of the Farmington Canal Heritage Trail has more than doubled in Hamden and risen more than 50 percent in New Haven in the Covid-19 pandemic, with regulars strolling or biking more and newcomers like Richard Maduka (pictured) discovering the path for the first time.
The statistics, comparing March 2019 with March 2020 figures, are contained in a report on the statewide usage of the trails issued by the Connecticut Trail Census, a group operating out of the University of Connecticut.
The lion’s share of the new users hopped on for a bike ride or a jog or a six-foot-apart stroll after March 20, when the state stay-at-home mandate went into effect amid the spread of Covid-19.
The data is based on results from infrared counters along the trail, which showed usage on the Hamden portion in March 2020 is up 177 percent over the previous March.
Usage on the New Haven portion of the trail rose 55.67 percent.
“In New Haven the increase was very substantial but less for two reasons. Ours is used much more for commuting than other trails in state,” which are primarily for recreation, said Aaron Goode, who is the coordinator of the New Haven portion of the census.. “So the commuting is down, but the recreational use in New Haven is up so much and that outweighs the decrease in commuting.”
Maduka, a surgical resident at Yale New Haven Hospital, was listening to NPR and jogging to the trail’s Thompson Street intersection in Newhallville Sunday from downtown.
“I never use it before” the pandemic hit, he said. “I just went to the gym and used the treadmill.” Now the gym’s closed. Amid all stress of working with Covid-19 patients (“It’s hard; I can’t lie”), Maduka makes time to go jogging three times a week. “It’s a real nice trail I didn’t know existed,” he said.
The trail’s Thompson Street intersection Sunday.
The Farmington Canal Heritage Trail sits on the remains of a canal route that extends from New Haven at the coast up through Northampton, Mass. Eventually that canal became a railway. As the railway fell into disuse, advocates began turning these railways into trails as part of the Rails-To-Trails movement.
Goode also noted that the impressive increase in use comes despite the fact that many users of the trail had been Yale students and staff, who have largely left town.
The data didn’t surprise Derek Bereski (pictured), who was out Sunday for his regular 10-mile run (to be followed by 15 miles on the bike) on the Hamden portion of the trail. He’s been noticing more people coming out since the pandemic hit.
“Two weeks ago it was really crazy,” he reported, but overall he feels safe. “You get a couple of bicyclists who go too fast; they cut in the middle Some kids kind of go over to the middle, but they’re kids.”
Rachel Laff and daughters Gwendolyn and Corrina Martin (pictured) were among the newcomers. They came over to the Hamden portion of the trail from their home in North Haven. “Since we can’t go to parks, this is the only place where we’re not tempted by a [closed] playground,” said Laff, a Veterans Administration Hospital physician.
Plus the trail was a good spot for Gwendolyn to learn to ride her bike without training wheels. She seemed to take to the challenge.
Gool and Douglas Clementsen (pictured) were on the trail for the first time. They came up from Shelton to check it out for their daily stroll. Douglas said he plans to return with his bike.
Goode, who is also a board member of the regional Farmington Rail to Trail Association and the New Haven Friends of the Farmington Canal Greenway, said total trips documented by the sensor as well as by personal observations were 120,000 in 2019, with 5,000 in March.
“This year 2020, there were 10,000 trips in March,” he said. “In granular data, a lot of that was after the stay home stay safe order issued by March 20. People can’t go to the gym any more, then you see the numbers spiking on all trail including ours.”
On two of the state’s busiest segments, the Naugatuck River Greenway in Derby and Ansonia and the Still River Greenway in Brookfield, recreational use has been so intense, it compromised the six-feet-apart rule, and portions of those trails have had to be shut down.
That’s not the case or danger in New Haven, Goode said.
“From my perspective, people are practicing adequate social distancing,” Goode reported. “I think it would be unfortunate to close or restrict it in any way.”
The infrared counter is located where the trail crosses Thompson Street, one block past Science Park, near the Learning Corridor, where Goode and his colleagues are installing a new water fountain and seating.
It’s mounted about three feet off the ground, “It’s not going to get a dog or squirrel, but it’s low enough to count a baby in stroller and little kid,” he added