Farmington's bicycle and trails committee met on July 15 with six members absent, a short agenda, and, by the chair's own accounting, a meeting brief enough to set a record. What was left was the quiet, unglamorous work of making a town easier to bike across: trail signs, a parking-lot marker, a set of bollards, and one date worth putting on the family calendar.
That date is September 19, when the committee will hold a bike rodeo and safety clinic. The town permit is in hand, a local bike shop is providing personnel, and the event is aimed at elementary and middle-school kids, with a session for parents on the rules of the road. "Really what you want at this is kids with their parents," one committee member said. The committee wants it publicized through both the town and school newsletters, timed to land in the first week of school so families have it on the calendar by September.
The list that never quite ends
Most of the meeting was a walk through a project list that moves at the speed of a small town, which is to say deliberately.
There is a new parking-lot identification sign coming for Brickyard Road, its purchase order issued and a proof under review. There is a set of wayfinding signs planned for the Highlands, the route now agreed with the Board of Education. There is a long-running question of what to do about the bollards on the trails, and whether three should become two, which the committee will take up with the highway department once paving season eases. The Farmington Valley Trails Council chipped in a $1,000 donation toward the Brickyard signage, and is working with an Eagle Scout on a kiosk and bike rack at Depot Place.
None of it is fast. All of it is the kind of thing that, done right, a resident never has to think about.
The committee also spent time on the trickier problem of getting cyclists and walkers to share the same path politely. Members discussed adopting uniform trail rules with neighboring Avon and Simsbury, so a rider crossing a town line meets the same signs and the same expectations. "I love that we're getting the three towns together. That's long overdue," said Ron Goralski, a committee member who also serves on the Trails Council.
Where the bikes meet the road
The committee's ambitions run into Farmington's streets soon enough, and the biggest test is Meadow Road.
The Town Council approved a new sidewalk along Meadow Road on July 14, a roughly $1 million project with several crosswalks between Wisteria and New Britain Avenue. The bike committee wants a say in how those crosswalks get built, floating the raised-crosswalk design that New Haven and Hamden have started installing at dangerous crossings. One member went further, arguing that whenever Meadow Road is eventually repaved, the town should widen the shoulders for cyclists on what he called a major east-west route across town. "Let's do it right," he said, "so it can be used efficiently by cars and cyclists alike."
The committee's Safe Routes to School liaison reported that talks with the new schools superintendent, about adding cycling curriculum and running a walk-route audit, are likely to pick up in the fall. And the committee's micro-grant application, which would fund helmets, stickers, and reflective slap bracelets for kids, has been submitted and is awaiting a decision.
The committee meets monthly. Its near-term calendar includes the Trails Council's annual fundraiser at Flatbread in Canton on July 21 and the Council's annual meeting on November 13 at the Avon Community Center. Between now and then, the list will get a little shorter, and then a little longer.
This coverage is supported by Farmington Storage, 155 Scott Swamp Road, the only storage facility in Connecticut with Museum air. Bicycles, unlike museum pieces, are meant to be ridden. But when the season ends and the bikes come off the road, they could do worse than a climate-controlled unit that treats a ten-speed like a Smithsonian artifact. 860.777.4001 📦
Jack Beckett has covered Farmington's bicycle committee beat long enough to know that sign dimensions and trail bollards are, in fact, serious matters. He is on his second coffee and would like it on the record that he owns a helmet. ☕
*The Farmington Mercury covers the town nobody else is covering: the bicycle committee meeting with six members absent, the police log you would never find on your own, the zoning fight that decides what gets built on your street. We publish slowly and deliberately, and we stand behind our motto, Always last to breaking news. Find us at farmingtonmercury.com and tell your neighbors. #WeAreFarmington 📰