After crossing the footbridge in foreground, the path around the Recreation Center property off Danbury Road would be extended by sidewalk improvements down Route 35 and a proposed extension along Farmingville Road would take it part of the way to a connection with the Rail Trail that goes from Halpin Lane to Branchville. —Macklin Reid photo
Long planned and ambitious in its vision, a walking, running and bike path will come before voters. It is seen as a key link in a larger long-term project that would eventually connect the Recreation Center in the Copps Hill area with the village and then Branchville via the existing rail trail.
“It could be a good 10 miles, round-trip,” First Selectman Rudy Marconi said.
“You have to walk in some areas, you bike in some areas, but it’s all in all a very good plan to get kids and people to move throughout town without cars — and it’s healthy,” said Parks and Recreation Director Paul Roche.
“The whole goal is to develop safe places to ride for families,” Roche said. “This isn’t for racers and real serious bikers. It’s more for families and the kids.”
The proposal to appropriate $1.25 million for “planning, design, acquisition and construction of Farmingville walk/bike path,” along with $150,000 for more routine sidewalk improvements, will come before voters as part of the May 12 budget referendum.
Of the $1.25 million voters will be asked to approve, $1.1 million is expected to be covered by a state grant that town officials say has already been secured — so the cost to town taxpayers is expected to be $150,000 for the design work.
Roche described the entire path as envisioned, starting at the Recreation Center off Danbury Road.
“The plan is that it’s going to go from here, across the new bridge, down to the corner by Pamby’s, across the street, go down Farmingville Road, and then there’ll be a walkway through the Great Swamp, behind the transfer station, and tie into the Schlumberger property,” he said.
“From there it ultimately connects with the rail trail, as well as a spur that will go off the back of Halpin Lane right up to Main Street.
“So ultimately you’ll be able to go from the Rec Center all the way to Main Street, and all the way down the rail trail to Branchville — without a car,” Roche said.
The concept dates back to 2003.
Town officials are clear, however, that the money coming before voters on May 12 isn’t expected to complete the trail that entire length — or even to complete the connection between the Recreation Center and the former Schlumberger property.
The $1.25 million would, however, advance the project considerably.
The rail trail currently exists. And so does the bike and walking path around the Recreation Center property.
According to Town Engineer Charles Fisher, the plan is to use Local Capital Improvement Program (LOCIP) money to complete the segments along Danbury Road, from just south of the new footbridge to the corner of Copps Hill Road.
The route would use the existing crosswalk.
The $1,250,000 on the referendum ballot would be used along Farmingville Road, and then for an elevated wooden bridge that would go into the state’s Great Swamp property.
The $1.1-million state grant would take construction along Farmingville Road and into the Great Swamp property — but not all the way through the swamp property to the envisioned connection with the Schlumberger property in the vicinity of the Goodwill trailer off Old Quarry Road.
“You’re going to go along the south side of Farmingville Road, along the Great Swamp via an elevated boardwalk, and the hope is to turn it into the Great Swamp property and carry it for some distance — as far as we can go with grant,” Fisher said.
Completion of the project — to the Schlumberger property, and then through the Schlumberger property to the rail trail with assistance from the developer of the coach home project off Sunset Lane — would be a future project.
“We know that the elevated bridge through the wetland, from Farmingville to the transfer station, will consume the largest part of the project financially,” Marconi said.
“It’ll be a bridge similar to that installed at the golf course, connecting the 16th hole to the 17th,” he said.
“It’s going to be like an elevated boardwalk,” Fisher said.
The plan is to cross Farmingville Road by Ligi’s Way, and then proceed down Farmingville Road some distance — Mr. Fisher isn’t sure yet how far, that’s part of the design work — before cutting through the Great Swamp property toward the back of the transfer station and Goodwill trailer.
Where the trail or bridge would leave the side of Farmingville Road and venture into and across the Great Swamp property will depend on where the best route through the Great Swamp property is.
“Not in the swamp itself,” Fisher said. “On dry land, in that swamp property.”
“We haven’t gotten into a lot of detail at this point,” Marconi said. “But it would be past the bypass road, Ligi Way, by at least 100 to 200 feet, at which point it would then cut across through the Great Swamp.”
While the specifics are vague, the vision is substantial — and it has support from the local bicycling community.
Jacquie Dowd, who with her husband owns the Ridgefield Bicycle Co. shop on Danbury Road, is a leader of the Ridgefield Bicycle Sport Club — a nonprofit group that promotes bicycling and has about 250 members.
“We do rides and runs and parties, basically get people together to ride bikes and have a good time,” she said.
“We have a basic mission: community, competition, camaraderie. We do group rides, we do runs, we do training sessions. People race together, do community rides together, we train together, we have clinics all the time.”
She’s very supportive of the trail project — a “multi-use path,” she calls it — and the larger vision behind it.
“We’re trying to get it away from being a ‘bike path’ — it’s really a mutli-use path,” she said.
Part of the multi-use concept is that various users “can pass each other safely, they can see each other coming, trail etiquette will be posted — who yields to who. Everybody yields to pedestrians,” she said.
The path would allow people to travel and get together, reach different places in town — without driving multi-ton vehicles that waste energy resources, pollute the air, and speed global warming.
“Connecting neighborhoods, connecting our town resources, making it possible for people to recreate and get around town without getting in their cars,” Dowd said.
“Walk, run, push a stroller, ride a bicycle. Go take a walk around the Rec Center, let the kids play in the playground, take an exercise class, walk back to town — without ever getting into your car. Go have lunch, meet a friend, enjoy the nature, enjoy the turtles — all those things you miss when you’re in your car.”