Plainville Greenway Alliance

Steve, Kathy and Jim have just completed six half-hour shows about cycling to be broadcast on Nutmeg TV (see the poster above). Watch them and give us your feedback. Our biggest concern is that they were all shot in the studio and we would really like to include some live on-trail and on-road footage. So, one of our members is completing training at Nutmeg as a Producer and we will soon be planning the next batch of shows. In the meantime, let us know what you think by adding a post here. The shows may be seen weekly on Nutmeg TV (Comcast Channel 5 in Avon, Berlin, Bristol, Burlington, Canton, Farmington, New Britain and Plainville, and via AT&T Uverse in the rest of the state beginning WED 15 JUL at 7PM, and then repeat for six more weeks after that at the same day and time.  Enjoy the summer weather and be smart about your fun cycling. Happy trails.

Rail-with-Trail? Do these really exist? Yes they do and here are photos of two of them. The first is in Cumberland, MD and the other is in Maine. Both of these "rails" are occasional and moderate speed tourist trains and neither has any barrier to separate the trail from the rail. We have members who have ridden alongside rails with frequent, fast-moving freight traffic, and even faster passenger trains, all safely separated from the rails. There are more than 150 such rails-with- trails nationwide. So, what's the secret for getting them built? Actually there are two: first, effective barriers that make both cyclist and rail employees feel safer and, second, there exists legislation limiting liability for accidents along the shared right-of-way. Maybe a third one would be a railroad with strong community-oriented goals willing to work with a trail building organization like ours. We will need all these secrets in our bag as we get busy creating our rail-with-trail ...

Check out the photos of the new bridge over Salmon Brook in East Granby . This is the one that went through several iterations of design and bid, each time rising in cost, and for which funding was finally approved following generous support from trail supporters and the Farmington Valley Trail Council. Hope to see you there when the weather clears. We are getting closer to completing this vital trail from New Haven, CT to Northampton, MA.

Some good news! Word reached the Plainville Town Manager this week that the town has been awarded a $45,000 grant for a design study of the proposed trail. This was accomplished with the strong support of the Town Council, and the hard work of the Town Manager and State Representative Betty Boukus. Just to be certain he wasn't dreaming, Robert Lee called the State Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to confirm that the money was really there, and it is. The Town will need to review the requirements of the grant to be certain that all its terms are acceptable. The next step after that will likely be preparation of a Request for Proposals (RFP) and a list of potential design firms with experience in trail design. We are not sure of any more details yet, but this is truly good news.

Closer to home, we have finished our 9 month long effort to complete a map of the proposed trail through town. It is big. Really big. 15 feet in length and the first time we have been able to show our vision of the route the trail could follow. It is based on our primary assumption that the railroad ( PanAm /Southern) will keep freight traffic moving on the north-south line, currently serving 3 local businesses. To view this PDF file, go to this link, click on "Public" and open the PGAFinalRouteMap and view it in Adobe Reader . Tell us what you think by leaving a comment.

Here is a link to some photos of the installation of two bridges in Northampton, MA. We will put up another link for a new bridge in Hamden, CT when we get the latest video from there. These bridges are hugely important to the trail building efforts as they provide the most effective way to separate trail traffic from vehicular traffic on the streets they cross. Here in Plainville, our plans include a major bridge at the north end of the trail over Northwest Drive, an increasingly busier vehicular artery in town. Another bridge will be needed to cross the Pequabuck River about one half mile south of Northwest Drive, that is, unless the Pan Am/Southern Railway abandons the bridge they currently don't use over the River. Again, based on continued rail service on the north-south rail right-of-way, we have proposed another bridge over the "throat" of the rail yard at the east end that will carry trail traffic over the rails as well as provide a terrific vantage point for vie...