River Trail’s 2nd Leg Comes Into Focus

So long to the ziggurat of discarded tires and the dumped detritus of a section of abandoned street that pours dirty storm water into our harbor and Long Island sound

Hello to a beautiful pocket park full of green infrastructure, a pollinator garden, and lots of kids playing in it, having fun, and learning science.

That vision was evoked for one of the key spots along the proposed southern segment of the Mill River Trail, whose features were unveiled on a brisk Friday afternoon preview walk organized by folks from Connecticut Fund for the Environment/Save the Sound and local advocates of the Mill River Trail.

The Mill River Trail is a walking and biking path envisioned to connect Whitney Dam on Whitney Avenue and Criscuolo Park on James Street.

This summer the ribbon was cut on the completion of the first or northern leg of the trail, a stone dust or cinder surface suitable for walkers or bicyclists that snakes dreamily along the east side of the Mill River from the Chapel Street Bridge right up to the train overpass 25 yards from Humphrey Street.

The stretch of the newest segment-in-progress from Grand Avenue to Chapel Street and its terminus at Criscuolo Park by the Sound follows the path of the Mill River but obviously much of it is an urban trail whose aim in no small part is simply to remind you that a river is nearby, even if in segments it is not visible.

A group of 25 people led on Friday’s tour by Save the Sound’s Nicole Davis, turned from Grand onto Haven Street. The trail here is basically the sidewalk on the eastern side, because, Davis said, it simply was in better shape than the other side.

All along the trail little ​“Mill River District” signs placed atop the regular signage poles mark the way.

Haven Street soon meets the abandoned final section of Exchange behind the John S. Martinez Magnet School playing fields, where the ​“green infrastructure park” will be built.

“None of the water from the path itself will make it to the river,” said Davis. Instead, it races along the impermeable surface of the street and will end up, down the incline of Haven into the green pocket park with its swales and other naturally filtering infrastructure.

Currently, Davis added, there’s often such a rush of storm water down Haven that it floods onto Martinez’s playing fields. But when the project is complete, that will no longer happen.

Fair Haven activist lee Cruz pointed out that within two blocks from the site of the proposed green infrastructure park there are five schools, two public, one private, one charter, one parochial.

Imagine, he said, all the kids who would be able to come here and ​“engage in science and see how communities change.”

Before the group made the turn to cross the fields, activist Aaron Goode praised the trail. He especially noted the planned green pocket park, which faces English Station, as striking a modest green blow against ​“a weapon of mass contamination.”

The trail exits the playing field and crosses onto Mill Street behind the Martinez School.

But you don’t cross at any old intersection. This one is piscine thanks to an art project executed by some of the students that Lee Cruz had spoken about.

With funding from Recreational Equipment Incorporated (REI), local artist JoAnn Moran worked with kids from the John Martinez School and the Cold Spring School and executed perhaps the city’s first storm drain art project.

Working quickly and in cold weather, Moran said, she and the students finished one side of the street. The fish also made it across the intersection. The storm drain on the other side of the street will be artistically enhanced by kids in the warmer weather, she added.

The final section is a brief two-block walk down Mill Street, with Criscuolo Park, the harbor and Sound, and elegant new Pearl Harbor Memorial Bridge all in scenic view.

There in the park the Mill River Trail unofficially joins part of the 5.8 miles of walking trails that Cruz and the Chatham Square Neighborhood Association have laid out in loops through Fair Haven.

With all those views in the background and the monument to the colored Civil War regiments who had trained nearby, Davis said, ​“Thanks for being the first people to pioneer the Mill River Trail.”

Macdonald said the hope is, subject to funding, to have the pocket park and much of the trail completed in 2020. J.R. Logan said the city has sent bids out to complete the small stretch at the other end up to Humphrey Street.

Everything takes longer than you hope, but projects are happening, he added.