Plainville Greenway Alliance

Bay Village and Rocky River are typical suburban communities on the shore of Lake Erie just west of Cleveland. For the last seven years, they have been quietly creating a highly successful biking culture among young people. I first encountered it in Bay Village in 2010, while I was riding there during a visit to family. I could not believe the great quantity of bikes I saw in front of two of the schools there (photo above). Now it has spread to Rocky River and beyond. Click  here  to read about what was happening in 2013.

Now that I have your attention, this really is the title of a recent article in the NYTimes about how motorists get away with murder, literally. But, before your blood pressure gets too high thinking about this sorry fact, read the article right through to the end; especially the end (click  here ). We cyclists bear great responsibility in how others perceive us. We are often our own worst enemy, blowing through stop signs and red lights with reckless abandon. So, if we want motorists and police to respect us and take us seriously as road users, we need to "ride different".

It's been more than 4 years since the Town completed the Master Plan Trail Study, but little has happened in that time. There are lots of reasons, none of them very good. But now is the time to act, while the political and funding climate still favors closing the gaps. Read here about Plainville's latest efforts to start closing the 4 mile gap here in town.

For each of the last three years, a small group of cyclists has been riding for one week on the East Coast Greenway, this summer from Hartford to Philadelphia. Click  here  to view a short YouTube video of this ride.  The ECG passes just beneath the Big Gray Bridge (George Washington) and right next to the Little Red Lighthouse in NYC.   

Just found on the web: a short, but very positive opinion by the Courant publisher about closing the gap here in Plainville. Click here to view.

They are smiling because they probably know something is up. Something that has been a long time coming here in Connecticut - full scale official recognition of and support for the Farmington Canal Heritage Trail (FCHT) by State planners and transportation officials. These happy cyclists, posing on the Flower Bridge over the Farmington River in Simsbury, are using the trail to travel from Hartford to New Haven today at the start of a weeklong journey to Philadelphia. They are using the part of the FCHT that is designated as a portion of the East Coast Greenway from Simsbury to New Haven. Much of their journey will be on-road, especially the 9.1 mile gap from Farmington thru Plainville to Southington. But that will change in the future as we advocates working with State and local officials find new and creative ways to complete this jewel of a trail that, when complete, will be 80 miles long and connect with the incredible trail system in and around ...

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, ...

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...

Here's a bold new idea for routing the Farmington Canal Heritage Trail through downtown New Haven. If you look closely at the photo above, you'll see a space between the tracks and the open area sloping down from the abutment along State St.. That's a service drive that Friends of the New Haven Farmington Canal Greenway are proposing to the City. But the City is nearing completion of engineering work on a completely different route that must be built or risk losing existing (and hard to come by) funding. Read more about it here . This is one of those situations that could be "lose/lose". If the City stops completion of engineering documents so that construction bidding and contracting cannot begin by 31 AUG 2013, they lose the $7.6 Million in funding earmarked for completion of the trail from Hillhouse Ave./Temple St. to Long Wharf. As the article states, the route proposed by FNHFCG is fraught with uncertainty: will the USPS agree to grant an easement t...

As seen in a recent edition of Minneapolis/St. Paul Magazine.

'Bicycle Friendly' Designation Gives Towns A Leg Up Pedal Power: South Windsor is state's second bicycle-friendly community November 23, 2012 On a recent Saturday, bicyclists from Simsbury, the state's first Bicycle Friendly Community, rode over to South Windsor to pass a symbolic torch to the second town to win the designation. Good for South Windsor — and why aren't more communities trying for this distinction? The bicycle-friendly designation is awarded by the Washington, D.C.-based League of American Bicyclists to communities — as well as businesses, colleges and entire states — that create a safe environment for cycling and encourage people to bike for transportation and recreation. Communities must apply for the designation and show effort in such areas as bicycling infrastructure, education, enforcement and planning. The awards are given at four tiers: platinum, gold, silver and bronze. Both Simsbury and South Windsor broke in at the bron...

I found this graphic in the JUL 2012 issue of Bicycling Magazine and really liked how it spelled out the basics of a Bicycle Friendly Community very simply. Of the 14 things illustrated here, perhaps the most important for Plainville might be (PLEASE NOTE: We already have bike racks on buses): Cyclist friendly cafes (Bolo, Dairy Queen, Central Cafe, J. Timothy's, Starbucks, Saint's, Pagliacci's, Cottage Restaurant, to name a few) Bicycle parking at as many destinations in town as possible (retailers like Gnazzo's, Big Y, and Walgreens; medical and dental offices; corporate employers like GE, Carlingswitch, Wheeler Clinic, among others). Bike boxes at certain major intersections like Routes 10 and 372, Whiting/West Main/East Main Streets, East St. and Woodford Ave., New Britain Ave and Cooke St. "Bicycle Trains" to Wheeler, Toffolon and Linden St. Elementary Schools (with appropriate bicycle racks for storage).  Bike share program like Simsbury Fre...

I discovered this on my ride to Cheshire yesterday. It's painted on the side of an active industrial building right alongside the trail. In fact, the white lettering in the upper left hand corner reads: "This mural is dedicated to the Town of Southington by the students of the 2012 YMCA's Fine art of Graffiti Class". What a cool gift. The only thing missing might be a bench where I took the photo from to sit and enjoy the artwork, you know, like in a museum.

I recently completed a cross country trip by train and car (no bike this trip), and enjoyed a fun dinner at Toro Bravo in Portland, OR. We tasted a brilliant, mouth watering array of tapas (small plates) while seated at the counter that looked directly into the food prep area where these dishes emerged from the ballet like movements of the professionals working there. But the big surprise for me, in addition to all the wonderful food, was the number of bikes out front on a really nice SAT evening in Portland. I guess I shouldn't really be surprised since Portland is one of the most bicycle friendly communities in the US. It's one thing to read about it, but something else to see it in person. Anyone care to join me for a ride to dinner at Fiore's IV or J. Timothy's here in Plainville?

I have a dream! One day, I'd like to see lots of kids in this town on bikes. With more kids biking, maybe more adults would be motivated to do so as well, but let's focus on the kids for now. How about a "Bike to School" month, maybe in MAY? There could be rewards for the student who bikes the most days, or the one who rides the farthest. The rewards could come from Plainville businesses, maybe a free pizza, ice cream, or a grand prize of a new bike. It's been done before, and I've seen it in Bay Village, Ohio, a village about the same size as Plainville, and just a little flatter. I was so impressed I took some photos like the one above, and wrote about it for a national cycling magazine. The photo here is taken at the Middle School, on a side street where the latecomers must lock up to the picket fence because the bike racks in front of the school and the picket fence along the main street are full of bikes, on both sides! You can read the article and see...

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).