Category: News
City of New Haven Launches Plan to Expand Greenway Trails
From NCAT newsletter: The City of New Haven announced a plan to complete construction of its network of proposed and existing greenbelt trails, including adding a new corridor called the Crosstown Greenway Trail. The network buildout is scheduled for completion in 2030.
According to the city: “The purpose of the crosstown greenway is to provide a high-quality, protected east-west route through the City. On its way, it connects several green spaces including Edgewood Park, the New Haven Green, Wooster Square, the future Mill River Park, and Front St Park. It intersects three other Greenways, and is within three blocks of the Shoreline Greenway.”
At a recent press conference, New Haven City Engineer Giovanni Zinn joined with trail advocates and Mayor Justin Elicker to announce the plan and share the Greenways 2030 story map, presenting the key features of the project. The story map site includes a survey asking active transportation advocates to prioritize design and construction of the five greenway trails.
The city wants to hear from the public at two public meetings, the first at the Barnard Nature Center on Nov. 13 at 6 p.m., and then at the Salperto building in East Shore Park on Nov. 20 at 6 p.m.
Read more in the New Haven Independent
Farmington Canal Heritage Trail: Map, tips and highlights for your bike ride or walk
On the Fourth of July in 1825, workers in Granby broke ground on a canal that would stretch from the port city of New Haven more than 80 miles to Northampton, Mass.
Connecticut’s governor, it was reported, turned over the first shovelful of dirt. But the project was more or less a bust. Its backers were never able to turn a profit, and after some 20 years of operation, commercial use of the canal ceased, with the waterway replaced with a rail line.
The rail cars shipping freight north are also long gone, but after decades of construction and work by advocates, most of the route once plied by mules and horses towing canal barges and later locomotives is now paved asphalt used daily by cyclists, joggers, rollerbladers and other outdoors enthusiasts.
At Last, New Canal Trail Stretch Opens
Decades of advocacy, hard work, easement negotiations, delays, and persistence culminated Friday morning with a ribbon cutting in a tunnel under Whitney Avenue — marking the official opening of the final downtown stretch of the Farmington Canal Heritage Trail.
Mayor Justin Elicker, City Plan Director Laura Brown, U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro, Downtown Alder Eli Sabin, and Farmington Canal Rail-to-Trail Association Board Member Aaron Goode, among many other past and present city workers and cycling advocates, gathered in the newly renovated tunnel to celebrate the completion of what has long been known as Phase IV of the bicycle and pedestrian trail’s New Haven buildout.
The trail runs 80 miles from Northampton to New Haven, with unfinished sections remaining in Southington and Plainville.
Heritage Corridor: How the Farmington Canal Heritage Trail Is Sparking Connections and Community Prosperity in Connecticut
Since the 1990s, the Farmington Canal Heritage Trail has offered safe passage to people bicycling, running, walking, commuting and exercising across a growing number of Connecticut and Massachusetts miles. From the south, it rolls through Yale University’s storied campus before linking New Haven neighborhoods to Hamden, Cheshire and Southington. Farther north, a longstanding gap in Plainville is soon to be filled, before continuing up through Farmington, Avon and Simsbury en route to the Massachusetts border, where its Bay State miles are about two-thirds complete. In both states, it’s become a magnet for trail connections. (See sidebar.)
Developed piecemeal on a former canalway turned railway through citizen-led efforts, the trail has gained widespread buy-in from neighboring communities and state-level partners. It also serves as a key link along the ambitious East Coast Greenway, a 3,000-mile, 15-state project. In Simsbury, a trailhead sign lets hikers, bikers, runners, cross-country skiers and other trail users know the distance to each of the East Coast Greenway’s eventual endpoints: 706 miles to Calais, Maine; 2,194 to Key West, Florida. (The skiers might want to aim for Calais.)
This article was originally published in the Winter 2025 issue of Rails to Trails magazine and has been reposted here in an edited format.
Farmington Valley Trails Council TRAFx Counters
Volunteers currently maintain 6 trail counters to detect traffic in these locations.
This data has been used for the Canton/RT 44 Corridor Study, Simsbury LAW Bicycle Friendly application among others.
Want to know how well-used the trail is? Click here.
