Despite Challenges, East Coast Greenway Will Be Worth The Wait

I recently read an old National Geographic story about cowboy artist C.M. Russell and found that his beliefs on the environment were just as interesting as the famous Western imagery he painted nearly a century ago. Reacting to the rise of the automobile, Russell seemed to prophesize today’s gas crisis, saying that "skunk-wagons" should only be used if you need a doctor; otherwise, take a horse.
Russell would have loved today’s ongoing pursuit of defunct railroads for commuting alternatives and recreation, and had he heard about a 3,000-mile path linking all the major cities on the East Coast, the Montanan might even have traded in his horse for a bike.
Leading the project that some people call an "urban Appalachian Trail" is the East Coast Greenway Alliance based in Warwick, Rhode Island (www.greenway.org). Since 1991, the ECGA has been encouraging folks to leave their cars home and to take advantage of the many linear parks they hope will someday run continuously from the Canadian border at Calais, Maine to the southernmost point of the country in Key West Florida.
Like the Appalachian Trail, though, the ECG’s initial progress has been stop and go, but with time it can become just as cherished as its sister in the hills.
Imagine that star-struck feeling you get when meeting through-hikers in the Northwest corner of Connecticut. Maybe they’re from California, or even Europe, and everything they need for their 2,175-mile journey is hefted onto their backs. Travelers on the ECG will have that same aura, all their essentials stuffed in panniers, pedaling through the flat rail beds of New England down to the sandy tropics.
That’s a long way off. While the ECGA has sketched an interim route consisting of public roads and existing linear trails, just 21% of the current path is out of the traffic and smog. Still, the ECGA estimates that 80% of the greenway will be completed by 2010.
But even in places already designated for the ECG, it has been tough to break ground. In 1998, for instance, the towns of Cheshire and Southington chipped in with the Department of Environmental Protection to buy a nine and a half-mile strip of land from the Boston and Maine Railroad. Eight years later, that land has not been developed.
The slow going is no fault of the trail’s stewards. The challenges that the ECGA face today are tenfold compared to what the Appalachian Trail Conference faced in the 1920's and 30's. From funding to logistics, trying to thread a paved bike path through the entire megalopitan East Coast is quite an undertaking.
Much of the proposed greenway is made up of already existing paths left over from Ninteenth Century railroads and canals. These are the very features that make our state’s greenways so fascinating, but connecting these different routes tacks on a lot of extra mileage. In other words, the ECG is not a straight line. Connecticut’s 195-mile portion of the proposed trail begins at the Rhode Island border and zigzags before it meets up with the relatively straight north-to-south Farmington Canal. The state’s interim route is 234 miles. Such meandering makes the trip from Calais to Key West nearly 3,000 miles instead of the 2,000 you would drive between these points.
From a recreational point of view, the more miles the better. We get a wide variety of surroundings, from urban to coastal. But from the standpoint of the non-profits and municipalities that plan and develop these sites, miles mean money and generating money takes time. That land in Cheshire and Southington, for example, cost 1.42 million dollars. That, of course, does not include the thousands of dollars more that are needed for bridges, pavement and signage.
Grants have been the main source of funding for these linear parks. Last October, $670,000 in federal grants was distributed to over thirty trail projects in the state. Only two of these projects, however, are directly on the route of the ECG. The Hop River State Park Trail in Bolton received over $8,000 for improvements and over $2,000 was slated to upgrade the Air Line State Park Trail in Colchester.
According to the ECGA’s 2006 "Blueprint for Action," however, these two recipients may actually lose ECG designation if their trails are not finished this year. The report also said that the greenway planned to run parallel to the Merritt Parkway has not received sufficient attention from the Department of Transportation, while the route between Hartford and Simsbury also needs more support from the State.
As much of a challenge filling these gaps poses, a ride last week on the Farmington Canal Greenway in Cheshire and Hamden (www.farmingtoncanal.org) highlighted why these issues should be endured, and displayed that the ECGA is certainly making headway.
This eight-mile route is one of the most established greenways in the state, offering its users the best in historical significance, natural surroundings and fitness opportunities.
Starting at the parking area on Cornwall Avenue in Cheshire, I headed south toward Hamden. After just two miles, I reached Lock 12 Historical Park, the only restored lock on the Farmington Canal today. Between 1828 and 1848, goods as well as passengers were transported to and from New Haven. Just from Cheshire, the trip took up to five hours as mules towed the flat-bottomed boats along the channels. These channels are still visible all along the greenway, some dry, some boggy, some crystal clear.
Crossing into Hamden, modern evidence of commerce lines the trail, as signs of area businesses advertise pizza slices and cold drinks. Like through-hikers on the Appalachian Trail, long-distance cyclists would also bring money to communities along the way. A typical through-hiker spends between three and five thousand dollars for the trip. But they essentially sleep for free. With few places for cyclists to camp, business at restaurants and hotels would especially pick up.
There are other diversions, too, including the chance to create your own biathlon with the many hiking trails that flank the greenway. Just a quarter mile into Hamden, Brooksvale Park has over seven miles of hiking trails, while a short distance more will bring you to West Woods Road in Hamden, five miles from your car, where a right will bring you north on the blue-blazed Quinnipiac Trail and a left down Mt. Carmel Avenue will bring you to Sleeping Giant State Park just a quarter mile away.
Such destinations will be available all along the completed ECG, from historic battlegrounds to hot beaches. This sounds ambitious, but it 1921, when Benton MacKaye proposed a hiking trail running from Georgia to Maine, he probably felt more than a few strange looks settle upon him. Sixteen years later, however, when the Appalachian Trail was completed, he probably felt even more looks of admiration.
With a little more time and support, the ECGA will know that feeling, too.