Plainville Greenway Alliance

This is work underway at West Main St. (Routes 68 and 70) in Cheshire on a streetscape improvement project, part of which is an improved pedestrian crossing at the location of where the Farmington Canal Heritage Trail will intersect with this busy road when it reaches here. The improvements should be finished this summer and will look like this in plan: (That's the island in the center of the roadway, with the future trail shown as a dashed line). This will permit a safer crossing for pedestrians and cyclists of this busy road. It's not ideal, but every little bit helps. The big news accompanying this stuff is that the section of trail south between here and the current trail end at Cornwall Ave. (and around the often irksome Dalton Co. property) is being designed by the CT DOT, while Milone & MacBroom of Cheshire is designing the section from here north to Jarvis St.. This would still leave a gap between Jarvis St. north to the ...

SUN was a beautiful day for cleanup along the trail! 150 volunteers showed up to enjoy the weather and rid the trail of trash. For a first hand report from the field, click here and then click the arrow button to watch a short video from which this screen shot was captured (that's PGA member Judy Chatfield busy at work on the left. Well done Judy). Thanks to all who pitched in.

Where is this beautiful bridge? Actually, it is one of two such bridges within a mile of each other along the Cuyahoga Valley Recreational Area Towpath Trail in Valley View (just outside of Cleveland). I've posted about it back in 2007 (omigosh, 5 years ago!), but it seems important to do so again, as folks are studying the extension of the trail from Farmington to Plainville, and seriously considering an at-grade crossing of US Route 6 at New Britain Avenue, a serious safety issue to my thinking. Imagine you are a serious cyclist out for a fast ride on the trail in this area once it is complete, and you come to cross  Route 6 with its current push button signal activation (or even if the signal is successfully upgraded to permit detection of the cyclist by the loop wires in the paving). Most such cyclists will be sorely tempted to cross this high volume, high speed road against the red light, with the real possibility for an accident that would certainly be the cyclist's fault...

We finally got some respect! Our trail has been noticed by the Rails-to-Trails Conservancy (RTC), a national organization advocating for and assisting communities to build these wonderful trails, as a "Trail of the Month". They have published a story about the Farmington Canal Heritage Trail in their monthly, national publication, "Rails to Trails", which you can read in full by clicking here . It does a good job of covering the trail from New Haven (skyline photo from the trail on top) to the northernmost bridge just before the MA state line in Suffield (bottom photo). However, you will notice one glaring omission, failure to mention the critical 9.1 mile gap in the trail that includes all of Plainville. This is a little hard to fathom, since RTC staff have walked the trail here in town with us in the past and, when asked what RTC could do for us, were told, "help us to close this gap"! You will also notice that local spokespersons for th...

This is what the smart women rode back in the day when the bicycle was new. The guys liked a little more of a risk, so they rode the "high wheeler", alternatively known as the "bone shaker", or the "penny farthing" (the larger wheel in front being the "penny", compared to the smaller wheel in back being the "farthing", both coins of the realm in the UK at the time of the introduction of the bicycle).

Here it is, hot off the press.   This bridge was raised into place across Route 316 in Andover, CT, and will provide a vital link for users along the Airline Trail across this busy road. The bridge was mostly prefabricated off-site, with the final stages involving a shut down of the road on last FRI evening to allow removal of electrical and phone/cable lines and transport of the bridge to the site yesterday (SAT), when it was set into place by the oversized red crane you see in this photo. This was a giant step forward for this part of the East Coast Greenway (ECG) in Connecticut. Slowly, this 200 mile long gem is getting completed, thanks to the incredible perseverance of a few believers like Bill O"Neill (CT trail building Grampa from Manchester), Rob Dexter (hardworking ECG ambassador from West Hartford who manages to be in lots of key places along the ECG around the State). There are a few believers hoping for similar good things to happen to close the 9.1 mile gap in...