Plainville Greenway Alliance

Our Town Cyclists parade through downtown to promote trail By KAITLYN NAPLES   STAFF WRITER   About 30 bike riders joined Connecticut’s Department of Energy and Environmental Protection Commissioner Dan Esty in a 56-mile ride from New Haven to Southwick, Mass., two Saturdays ago, to promote the Farmington Canal  Heritage Trail.  “This is a great day to highlight the partnerships between government and town,” Esty said outside of Plainville’s Municipal Center where the riders stopped for a quick break in  their journey.  Mark Swanson, a member of Plainville’s Bicycle Friendly Committee, said he was happy to see the ride happening.  “It is exciting and nice to see the trail getting support from the state level,” Swanson said before joining the other riders. “This has been taking years and  years” to complete.  The Farmington Canal Heritage Trail is part of the East Coast Greenway, which runs from Florida to Maine. However, there are gaps along the way. In Connecticut

EDITORIAL WED, 3 JUL 2013, Hartford, CT Courant By Tom Condon The Farmington Canal Heritage Greenway is the most important recreational asset developed in the state in the past two decades. Or so I thought, despite never having been on the trail south of Farmington. Saturday, I got to bike the southern corridor. The whole trail is terrific, or will be, when we get those pesky gaps filled in. Dan Esty, the commissioner of the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection, along with a bunch of hard-riding trail advocates, rode the trail from New Haven to Southwick, Mass. They were ginning up support for closing the last two breaks in the Connecticut portion of the 84-mile, multi-use trail that runs from New Haven to Northhampton, Mass. The gaps are a 4.7-mile breach in Cheshire and a nine-mile pause in Plainville. So, short press conferences were held in those communities. I rode as far as Simsbury, 40 miles or so. The trail is a fortuitous accident of history. It b