It’s a short extension of a long trail, but it’s an important one.
Public officials and cycling advocates tossed shovels full of dirt Monday [Sept. 13] to celebrate the start of construction of the city’s final leg of the Farmington Canal Heritage Trail—which when finished in December 2022, will finally connect downtown to Long Wharf…
…Phase IV, which has been in the works for a decade, will see the below-grade section of the rail trail paved, landscaped, and opened to the public from its current terminus on Temple Street down to Grove Street. The trail will then rise up to at-street level beyond the Grove Street garage…
Thomas Breen, New Haven Independent, September 13, 2021
This approximately 900 ft. segment will be a combination of trench and tunnel, as it passes under two mostly developed blocks to emerge near the corner of Grove and Orange Sts. The route from there to Long Wharf will be, for people on bike, a combination of sharrows and cycle tracks: sharrows for 2 blocks on Grove St. and for ~1/2-mile south on Olive St.
On Water St. (US-1), cycle tracks are planned for the one long block between Olive St. and Brewery St. While there is a sidewalk on the north side of the street, a sidewalk is planned for the south side as well, which abuts the elevated Oak St. Connector to I-95. There is a grass berm between the street and the Connector’s retaining wall. This context — a street next to a highway — is one that typically lends itself well to adding utilitarian (if not visually interesting) trails, cycle tracks, and sidewalks. This particular stretch has the undeveloped berm and, presumably, already existing right-of-way between the street and highway. In fact, a raised cycle track exists heading east from Brewery St. to East St., under I-95. This connects to an on-street, two-way cycle track on East St. Brewery St./Sargent Dr. itself has a two-way cycle track. Both cycle tracks were built by CTDOT and lead to Long Wharf. Finally, there is the Vision Trail, as shown in the City’s project map below.
For more info, see this City of New Haven web page.
2023 should be a good year for walking and biking on the FCHT, which is part of the East Coast Greenway. With Phase IV in New Haven complete, it will be a little bit easier to get to the coast.
Jeff Brubaker 