With residents of Guilford currently engaged in a heated debate over the first section of the Shoreline Greenway Trail (SGT) in their town, First Selectman Tom Banisch would like to hold public meeting in Madison to give residents a chance to discuss the trail before any more sections are built.

The SGT is a planned, 25-mile continuous path designed for cyclists, walkers, and hikers. Once completed, the trail will span five towns, with Lighthouse Point in New Haven marking one end and Hammonasset State Park in Madison marking the other. The Hammonasset section of trail in town is already completed, but in light of the issue in Guilford, Banisch, who spoke with a Guilford resident who strongly opposes the proposed Guilford section of trail, said it is time to have a conversation.

“As I see the conversation developing over in Guilford, I realized it was a good idea for us to have a conversation in advance of the point where they are getting ready to break ground,” he said. “We have done some preliminary engineering, but I think it is time for us as a town to have the conversation and let some people ask questions.”

The next proposed section of trail, which is still in an early stage according to Banisch, would stretch from Nathan’s Lane to the East River Bridge, ideally connecting with the heavily disputed proposed section in Guilford. If built, this section would bookend the town, but Banisch said there are questions over how to connect the sections.

“I started thinking about what I know about the trail in Madison, that they got to Liberty Street and then the neighbors, from what I understand, put together a petition to keep it off Liberty Street,” he said. “This is not going to be an easy thing, depending on how it goes.”

The section from the East River Bridge to Nathan’s Lane would cover approximately 4,000 feet according to SGT vice-chair and chair of the Madison group for the project Virginia Raff. The group had intended to construct more trail between Scotland Avenue and Lovers Lane near the town center, but instead is now prioritizing a section near the East River for financial reasons.

The town has had for several years nearly $800,000 in grant funds to complete a new section. Raff said SGT also has some pending grants. While she said there is no concrete plan for the trail though town, she said this proposed section, like the section at Hammonasset, can stand on its own.

“Each one of these sections can stand on its own because what we are talking about doing from the bridge to Nathan’s Lane could give a lot of people a safe biking and walking facility,” she said. “You are never going to build all of these in one fell swoop—it just doesn’t work that way.”

Raff said trail members are thinking about ways to get the trail through town, hopefully connecting it with the train station and possibly near the schools, but no decision has been made.

“There have been a lot of conversations, but there have been no decisions,” she said. “We were thinking that maybe there could be a spur up to the schools that are on Copse Road and Green Hill Road because it would be nice to have a safe way for people to bike up there. That is way in the future, though.”

Raff said she has been pleased with the heavy usage of the Hammonasset section and views these proposed public meetings as a positive.

“I think that it is a good idea,” she said. “We are not going to sneak this trail in without people knowing what we are doing.”

Banisch said these meetings are not likely to be held until 2017 and said he wants to get the Academy School meetings off the ground first. Ideally, he said he would like to have SGT give a presentation on the trail to start the conversation.

“People could start to begin to understand it [the trail] better and then create their own opinions, whether it is for or against, but then it wouldn’t be a knee-jerk opinion,” he said.

To learn more about the Shoreline Greenway Trail, visit www.shorelinegreenwaytrail.org.

Construction at Hammonasset to Alter Trail Usage

With ongoing construction at Hammonasset Beach State Park to replace all major existing utilities and expand the provision of natural gas throughout the park, some visitors to the Hammonasset Shoreline Greenway Trail section may experience periods of limited usage this winter, according to Raff.

“They have to get the utilities in from the street, so there will be a short period of time this winter when portions of that trail might be closed,” she said. “We are working with the park closely to try and minimize the amount of time that it wont be available.”

The project at Hammonasset is expected to take two years with most construction work completed during the off-season, which runs from Labor Day to Memorial Day.