The Farmington Bicycle and Trails Advisory Committee returned at its Wednesday meeting to a proposal it has discussed for years — a separated bike trail along the Route 4 jug handle — three days after a 13-year-old riding an electric bicycle was seriously injured at that intersection.
Farmington police said the crash happened at about 9 p.m. Sunday, May 10, at the intersection of Farmington Avenue and the Interstate 84 off-ramp. The boy was operating a Class 3 e-bike when he was struck by a motor vehicle, according to Farmington police. He was transported by ambulance to an area hospital and was listed in stable condition. The driver remained at the scene and is cooperating with the investigation.
The North Central Municipal Accident Reconstruction Squad is assisting the Farmington Police Department. Anyone with information about the crash has been asked to contact Officer Jeffrey Murphy at 860-675-2430.
The committee chair, opening the discussion at the May 13 meeting, said he had heard the boy was expected to recover. He said he had heard the news that morning — at what he recalled was a business breakfast, from someone he believed was the Farmington police chief — and the chief had told him 'everybody was surprised that he was able to walk away from that.' The boy's head struck the A-pillar of the vehicle, the chair said, adding that 'some of us older folks, if we've been in that same accident, we would not be walking away from it like this young kid did.' Police have not released a formal condition update beyond the May 11 stable-condition statement, and the chair's report is secondhand.
A committee member who said he had been part of the Farmington Fire response offered the dispatch sequence as he understood it. East Farms Fire reached the scene first, he said; Farmington Fire was called second but was diverted to another call. Investigators called out the investigation team, he said, 'because they were afraid this kid was going to be a lot worse off.'
'It emphasizes a need for the gateway to Farmington trail on the jug handle for cyclists that are following the rules of the road,' one member said. He added that the crash was also, separately, an argument for stronger safety instruction for young e-bike riders — a recurring committee concern about e-bike behavior that has been on its agenda for the better part of a year.
The Gateway to Farmington Trail, as members refer to it, would run along the Route 4 jug handle and provide a separated path for cyclists at an intersection where the road has no dedicated cycling infrastructure. The committee has been discussing it for years; the project has not been formally scheduled or funded. It surfaced again at the May 13 meeting under the agenda item for the South Road Trail RFP — a more advanced project Bruce Sear, the town liaison who handles the committee's project work, said he plans to have ready for the committee's next meeting.
One member said the trail would also serve as a connector to Wolf Pit Road. Another linked it to the medical-facility cluster on the other side of the highway. 'I know a lot of people that work there,' he said. 'They would love to do that ride, but they don't feel safe doing it.'
A third member said he would 'be happy if I could change the light at Route 4 at the jug handle.' Sear said that approach would be 'plan A' — a pedestrian movement added to the existing signal phase.
The committee has been told by the East Coast Greenway Alliance's Southern New England manager, Bruce Donald, that bike trails built along Connecticut highways have been state projects, designed and funded by the Connecticut Department of Transportation within the highway right-of-way. The I-84 trail through Manchester and the section of the East Coast Greenway along Route 2 in East Hartford were built that way, Donald said at the meeting, because no other room existed. 'The bottom is Jersey barriers and the top is another four feet of heavy black chain link,' he said. He told the committee that East Hartford appears positioned to receive design money to extend the Charter Oak greenway into Hartford using the same approach.
The committee took no formal action on the trail proposal Wednesday. The discussion was informal — a response to the crash and a reminder of what members have been saying about the Route 4 corridor for years. The session ended with a voice vote to approve the minutes of the April 8 meeting.
The investigation into the May 10 crash remains open. The committee is expected to meet again next month.
Update, May 18, 2026: The same May 13 BAC meeting also took up the Meadow Road sidewalk project — the council-perspective companion piece is here.