President's Letter

Well, fall is here at last, and with it comes our usual mix of success, failures and stalemates in moving toward a completed linear park we call the Farmington Canal Heritage Trail and the Farmington River Trail.

There has been much excitement over the construction of the trail in East Granby and Granby. According to East Granby, King Construction was delayed with an unknown inspection problem with the state lab on the sub-base material and lost a number of weeks. Paving was planned for 9/24 but must be pushed back and then accommodated to the paver's (Galasso) schedule. Construction will commence again on EG-5 (the area from Simsbury around Imperial Nurseries (1.7 miles) then EG-4 (.85 miles to the Salmon Brook Bridge and above) and finally EG-1 (.87 miles) which is the gap above Copper Hill Road. The paving will go to the bridge abutments and stop. Given the delays it is uncertain whether EG-1 will get paved or not before the winter. It will not be passable from now on, as the town proposes to block the ends to keep people out of the construction. Final work such as fences, signage and our amenities like mile markers, benches and information kiosks will not be put in until early next summer.

The final Salmon Brook Bridge redesign drawings went to the state in late September and it is hoped that there will be no significant comments from ConnDOT. We have been told that IF the additional funding is in place and formal approval from DOT is secured the bridge can be re-bid. My guess is no earlier than after the holidays. If that is the case then the winning construction firm could use the dead time until March 31, to complete the demolition of the existing platform and the job could be completed relatively quickly.

I have too much experience to believe this, but I can only hope.

My article below explains the difficult to believe actions of DOT regarding the over-bid .35-mile Suffield piece to the border with Southwick, MA. It is a shame, and may put the Coca-Cola grant to the town in jeopardy as well. There is talk of trying to get DOT to allow the shorter bridge to just be paved over and not replaced - putting the funding back in the ball park, but there has been no word from them, and until there is the project cannot be re-bid. If you are a resident of East Granby, Granby or Suffield, I urge you to call or write your elected representatives to let them know that the trail is still in jeopardy and needs their help to ride herd on DOT and to provide funding. We are partnering with the Farmington Rotary Club and the Town of Farmington to put up a rest-stop pavilion at the new RT 4 parking lot on the River Trail. It will be sighted in back of the current oval sign in the lot between the fence and trail (both of which will be moved). It has been approved with thanks from the town, and the concrete pad should be in before the snow flies. We will be asking our members and friends for donations to help pay for the estimated $10,000 in materials that will be needed when we start construction in the spring. We will be putting up an information kiosk at the new trail head in Simsbury at the commuter lot on RT 10. We have already installed a few benches in the area.

As always you can find me at 860-677-9462 or at rbd1414@hotmail.com.

Bruce Donald
President
www.fvgreenway.org

So You Want to Build a Bike Trail in Connecticut
Written for the Hartford Courant.
By Bruce Donald

In 1992 our organization along with the Six Town Committee developed a proposal for the Farmington Valley Greenway, which is the northern section of the Farmington Canal Heritage Trail stretching from New Haven to Northampton, Mass. The spur was federal transportation funding that would pay for 80% of the project. The State has never provided meaningful funds to build trails, so individual towns had to find their 20%. The federal funding is administered through ConnDOT giving them effective funding control through review and approval of construction design.

There isn't a simpler construction project. The abandoned railroad right of way is owned by the State. The grade is established, so few environmental issues are involved. Just pick up the rails and ties, lay a gravel base on the existing grade, pave a 10-foot-wide strip, and install protective fencing where needed. By 1996, several sections had been designed, approved, funded and constructed in Farmington, Avon and Simsbury.

It now takes a minimum of four years for the federal funds to be awarded, at which time the 80/20 budget split is set. Then the design process sits at ConnDOT taking anywhere from three to seven years before a town can produce a bid package. Ludicrous bridge design standards, unneeded engineering and other associated costs (billed against the projects by ConnDOT) dramatically bloat the budgets. As a result, the original federal funding dwindles as a percentage as construction costs skyrocket.

An occasional state bonding and small DEP grants have helped to cover the shortfalls in some cases. Gaps continue to exist in towns with smaller populations and less ability to cover budget shortfalls. This summer, the towns of East Granby and Granby, armed with two-year-old cost estimates from ConnDOT, were shocked when the low bids were 40% above the Town's budgeted $1,572,500. This additional cost was primarily fueled by over-designing the Salmon Brook Bridge and a requirement that the paving be "superpave" a bituminous material unsuited to trails.

After meeting with the town, ConnDOT allowed the paving portion of the contract to be awarded. The paving totals 5.6 miles (1.2 miles in Granby) at a cost of $980,000. They were then asked to approve a supplemental appropriation of $500,000 to allow the bridge project to proceed as designed. Only $100,000 was approved, and the only alternative was to reject the bids and redesign the bridge. The town hopes to drop demands such as a 13' width and bearing replacements (only needed for train traffic) that require costly additional steps. The "new" bridge would include an 11' width, no bench seat projections (as on the Farmington River Bridge), no paving on the concrete, and a replacement of the proposed fencing with chain link fencing. It will be functional and ugly - gracing one of the most picturesque spots in New England. This may bring the price of the bridge down to a proposed $600,000 for essentially decking a 270' span. If the redesign is approved in a timely fashion, it could go to bid for construction in 2008. Unfortunately we are fully aware of the "timeline" kept by ConnDOT. We keep our fingers crossed that inflation and time will not wipe out the prospective gains from the redesign.

If that story is not enough, the Town of Suffield must reject their bids for the .35-mile gap left to the Mass. border because of massive cost increases for tiny bridges at Palmer Brook and Mountain Brook. These prefabricated bridges rated at 6 tons were specified by ConnDOT to replace existing train bridges rated at over three times that amount. The budget was $315,000 but the lowest bid came in $105,000 higher. ConnDOT has not seen fit to work with Suffield on this, and the rejected bids will only mean more cost to the town in the future.

Fifteen years later, a trail that is universally acknowledged as a stunning success and a major tourist attraction, amenity, and transportation enhancement for the entire region is once again being held hostage by ConnDOT. The trail seems to be hopelessly stalled just short of completion. A simple, beneficial project is being swept under the rug and once again the opportunity for Connecticut to shine has been lost.

Transportation and ConnDOT
FVTC Staff

The Rails to Trails Conservancy "Trail Link Conference" in Portland, Oregon this summer outlined the 2010 Campaign for Active Transportation. Active transportation essentially is walking or biking for daily travel. This meeting was in direct response to the success of a pilot program funded by the federal SAFETEA-LU transportation funds in the last Congressional budget. The campaign intends to promote biking and walking as a standard mode of transportation in communities across the country. Four communities across the country (Marin, Minneapolis, Sheboygan and Columbia) were selected to participate in the federal non-motorized transportation pilot program. Such is the interest in their notable successes across the country that even Hartford sent a planner to the meeting in Portland. He noted at a recent Bike/Ped Planning Committee meeting hosted by the Capital Region Council of Governments that while he attended the conference on behalf of the City of Hartford, it became clear that a local active transportation initiative should be region wide. The FVTC and a number of other stakeholders have joined a new regional Active Transportation Committee for this project, which has a goal an Active Transportation Vision/Plan to be in place by January or February of 2008.

Unfortunately this ad hoc work flies in the face of the transportation monolith known as ConnDOT. In fact at times it gets very frustrating indeed. A number of bike and pedestrian advocates over the years have heard DOT staffers say to their face that the agency is an advocate for motor vehicles only. The Bike/Ped Planning Committee sent a letter to the DOT Reform Commission recently and it is worth examining some of the points they tried to make:

• A Regional Bicycle Plan was completed in 2000, and the Regional Pedestrian Plan was completed in 2005. They were not implemented.
• The committee seeks assurance that the DOT is administratively and structurally capable of addressing bicycling and walking as integral parts of our state's transportation system.
• Bicycling and walking need not be looked at merely as recreational activities, but as integral parts of a well balanced transportation system. In locations in our region where trails have been built, commuting by bicycling has increased ten-fold. The state has adopted a forward thinking responsible growth program, bicycling and walking are extremely important elements in such a program.
• DOT should consider every transportation project (including repaving) as an opportunity to improve pedestrian and bicycle safety.
• DOT should take a leadership role in developing a statewide network of bicycle paths and lanes.
• DOT should develop a new Design Manual, along the lines of the progressive manual developed in Massachusetts that clearly identifies how bicycles and pedestrians can be safely accommodated in the transportation infrastructure.
• DOT should take advantage of the ability to use flex funding to enable more investments in bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure. (DOT has dictated a policy to CRCOG which requires that no bicycle projects be considered for funding out of CRCOG's STP Urban funding, even though federal law allows this).
• DOT should have a process that insures that all projects are reviewed for bike and pedestrian safety.
• This should be a formal review and should make use of the expertise of the State Bicycle and Pedestrian Planner.
• DOT should take bicycle and pedestrian safety seriously. Statewide pedestrian and bicycle safety campaigns, much like the ubiquitous and successful "Slow Down for Work Zones" campaign, should be implemented.

Helmet Not Necessary?
Read This First
By Joy Himmelfarb

As an avid cyclist, I spend a lot of time `out there' on the roads and on the rail trail. This season I have noticed, with increasing alarm and amazement, that there are more riders than ever without bike helmets. Many of them are kids below the age (15) for which Connecticut's admittedly toothless law mandates helmets. What is happening here?

Even more distressing are the families out for a ride: the kids are helmeted, but Mom and Dad are bareheaded. In this classic `Do as I say and not as I do' scenario, parents are teaching their children that i's ok to take needless risks once they are adults. Is this really the message we want to send our children?

While it's true that we can't tell others how to live their lives, we really need to speak out. Adults who ride without helmets are imprudent, but they are adults. Adults who let children ride without helmets risk their children's futures.

There's more. I see helmets worn loose, helmets with dangling, unbuckled chinstraps, helmets sitting too far back on heads, helmets slipping sideways to rakish angles, helmets swinging from handlebars, and, my personal favorite, helmets held together with duct tape. All of these are useless as protection.

Probably other helmets have invisible flaws, like age-deterioration: a helmet should be replaced after about five years. Most new helmets I have looked at recently have manufacture dates inside. Furthermore, any helmet is essentially a single-use entity: once it has been hit hard its functional life is over.

Several years ago, I was in a catastrophic cycling accident. My helmet shattered - not my head - and unquestionably saved my life. Recovered from my physical injuries, I was neurologically sound and able to return to intellectually challenging work. This would certainly not have been the case without a properly-fitted, durable helmet. (Full disclosure: I can no longer beat my grandson, CJ, at checkers. Actually, I don't think I ever could.)

People offer bizarre reasons for not wearing helmets, such as, "I like to feel the wind in my hair". Aversion to `helmet hair' was cited by my haircutter. Incomprehensibly silly statements like these leave me breathless. To people who say they are `only riding on the trail,' as if that somehow eliminates all the surprises from their rides, I say this: "You don't have to fall far to change your life."

Bicycling is a wonderful sport and a big part of my life. I have been riding since I was a child and mean to continue. Some of my cycling companions are in their eighties and I intend to be just like them. Riding responsibly means, among other things, riding defensively and intelligently. Wearing a helmet is a key element of my plan.

Here is a website that contains information about buying, fitting, wearing, and testing cycling helmets and much, much more: www.bhsi.org. Please visit it, read the information, and pass the URL along to all your cycling friends.

And have a great ride.