The Shoreline Greenway Trail, with its paved path through the parks represented in orange. Credit: city of new haven To support a broader plan to connect New Haveners with the shoreline, local parks commissioners voted to allow the city to pave a multi-use path through East Shore and Fort Hale p arks. City Engineer Giovanni Zinn presented those plans to the Commission on Parks, Programs, Recreational Facilities at their latest monthly meeting last Wednesday, June 17. The park-path paving is part of a larger city project that will result in a 4.4-mile, car-free addition to the existing 25-mile Shoreline Greenway that runs from East Haven to Madison. New Haven’s addition would begin at Water/East Street and move through the East Shore neighborhood to the East Haven town line. The trail would also connect to the Farmington Canal Trail, which spans more than 80 miles from New Haven to Northampton, Mass. The city has received $7 million in federal funds and $2.3 million in state bond funds to complete the project. According to Zinn, the design is expected to be completed in September. Bidding for the project will occur in the fall and construction is projected to begin in spring 2027. The Elicker administration needed the parks commissioners’ approval last Wednesday because the proposed path for the Shoreline Greenway addition would move through East Shore and Fort Hale parks, connecting the two east-side public greenspaces. “It’s a great way to connect to the parks on the East Shore into the larger city network for active transportation,” Zinn told commissioners. While it wouldn’t be part of this project, he said, the city was already thinking about a method of connecting the trail to Lighthouse Point Park as well. New Haven’s 4.4-mile addition to Shoreline Greenway. Credit: city of new haven The proposed Shoreline Greenway Trail will enter East Shore Park and move along the existing park path, which Zinn said would not be touched. But the park path doesn’t reach the end of East Shore Park, so the city would create a path near the soccer park, along the trees to Woodward Avenue. The trail would then move on-road, to the end of Woodward Avenue, and then continue through Fort Hale Park. For the roadway portion, Zinn said, “There’s not really a ton of grading, just creating the roadway base, and then the three inches or so of asphalt for the tablets.” The trail itself, Zinn said, would be similar to the Farmington Canal Trail — a 12-foot, paved, multi-use path. “Slightly biased, I actually live right next to Fort Wooster,” said Zinn, who had biked through the proposed path with his kids. Having the gap between the parks fixed, he said, “would be very helpful for safety and for encouraging families.” The project will include the construction near Fort Hale Park of a low, approximately 30-foot boardwalk at the edge of a wetland along the roadway. (The city will request “Inland Wetlands” permission from the City Plan Commission for that project.) “The reason for the boardwalk is to preserve the wetland margin and to limit the disturbance during construction,” Zinn explained in a follow-up email response to questions. “The boardwalk skirts the edge of the wetland in order to minimize the impact of the boardwalk on the wetland as much as possible.” Along Fort Hale Park Road, the city will also be creating a retaining wall at the section where the road narrows significantly. “We have to cut the slope back a bit and do a fair amount of grading and construct the retaining wall in order to provide space for both the road to stay where it is, and also create a 12-foot mixed-use path,” Zinn explained to commissioners. The average height of the wall will be around 5 feet, with the tallest point being around 10 feet. “This is really exciting and ambitious,” said city parks commission member Emily Sigman. “I think it’s going to be a really great thing to be able to bike more easily in all of these places.” But, Sigman asked, “whose responsibility would it be to maintain the bike path?” Would that be the Parks Department’s responsibility for the portions in the parks, or would it be the Engineering Department? Zinn said that the Engineering Department doesn’t usually maintain paths. This path, given the fact that it moves in and out of parks, would likely be managed between Parks and Public Works, he estimated. “I think snow clearing is probably the biggest item, and that’s something that already is an incredibly shared responsibility among all the different departments,” Zinn said. “Other than that, I don’t think it encourages a significant amount of special maintenance beyond sort of what you would be doing in these areas already.” Parks Department Executive Director Max Webster said that the maintenance responsibilities of the bike paths in the “active transportation network writ large” still needs to be resolved, “and hopefully the greenways work overall is a catalyst for ironing out what those responsibilities are.” Sigman pointed to the bike path between Munson Street and Scantlebury Park. “I know that there was some repair done to part of it, but it’s a pretty dangerous bike path,” she said. There are large cracks in the path that people have put rocks in to make it better, and some have sprayed yellow paint to mark hazards, she said. “It’s really, really exciting to think about building new life paths,” Sigman said. Still, “snow removal is one thing, but what happens when there are big potholes or cracks? How can we make sure that those things get repaired quickly, so that they don’t become a hazard?” Zinn agreed. He said that the city is conducting “a bunch of” paving with the state, in conjunction with the raised crossings on the canal line. While there continue to be issues, he said, the city is continuously working to fill potholes — and more pothole equipment has come in. “So it’s something we continue to work on. If there are particular locations, feel free to reach out and just let us know particular locations that are of concern.” “The raised crossings are really great,” Sigman said. “It’s so exciting to see those, great work on that. It’s exciting to see the continued development of bike infrastructure in the city.” In the end, commissioners Sigman, Carl Babb, Harvey Feinberg, Kenya Adams-Martin, and Mary Ann Moran unanimously voted to support the paving of the Shoreline Greenway path through Fort Hale and East Shore parks. The post Shoreline Greenway Plan Advances appeared first on New Haven Independent. ...read more read less