Gov. Malloy Makes a Stop at the East Coast Greenway Alliance Meeting

Gov. Dannel P. Malloy made a stop in Simsbury on Saturday to support the efforts of the East Coast Greenway Alliance, which was holding its spring meeting at Eno Memorial Hall.

Also attending were Speaker of the House Chris Donovan and Thomas J. Maziarz, bureau chief of policy and planning for the state Department of Transportation.

While there, Malloy announced that the state had received a $1.1 million federal grant the day before, which the state Department of Transportation will use to study the feasibility of creating a bike path along the entire length of the Merritt Parkway.

“We’re very proud of that,” he said.

Malloy was an advocate of the greenway as mayor of Stamford and will continue to rally behind the efforts across the state as governor.

“This is a concept that I have embraced,” he said.

Malloy listed reducing and preventing obesity — especially among children — protecting health and improving transportation opportunities as reasons behind his support. He said urban areas in particular need more places for biking and walking.

After Donovan, Maziarz, Simsbury First Selectman Mary Glassman and State Rep. Linda Schofield (D-Simsbury) spoke, Dennis Markatos-Soriano, executive director of East Coast Greenway Alliance, joked, “I think Obama might be right out there.”

The politicians made their stop at the meeting about midday. Prior to their visit and after, the meeting was dealing with the minutia of actually coordinating a several thousand-mile long trail along the east coast. Some of those tasks entail working with various state and local groups that are under the umbrella of the East Coast Greenway Alliance. These groups are on the front lines for planning and fundraising.

The alliance and its members work with 15 state Departments of Transportation up and down the East Coast, and representatives from the 26 major cities that the greenway passes through, not to mention the issues of rights of way the group encounters.

The alliance has five paid staff members, said Markatos-Soriano, but is helped by its board, state committees, trail councils and some 28,000 members, all working in some capacity to keep the greenway project moving.

How It’s Done

“A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step,” said Chinese philosopher Lao-tzu (604 BC-531 BC).

The same can be said for the nearly 3,000-mile East Coast Greenway — it gets developed one mile at a time.

“2010 was a year of record progress,” said Markatos-Soriano, who on Sunday will drive a 16-foot truck filled with the contents (most of which he loaded himself) of the former Rhode Island office to Durham, NC, to open up the alliance’s new headquarters Monday.

Last year 100 miles of new greenway were added.

The trail is planned to cover 2,906 miles, of which 738 miles, or 26 percent, is complete. The developing trail system, spanning from Calais, Maine, at the Canadian border to Key West, FL, links all the major cities of the eastern seaboard.

At the meeting there were roughly 30 people or so in attendance (that almost doubled when the Governor was there) representing the East Coast — Maine, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, New York, Virginia, North Carolina, Massachusetts and Connecticut.

Markatos-Soriano said the largest section done at one time was 85 miles in Maine. For the most part, the trail moves forward in three- to 10-mile increments.

He said a mile of trail can cost anywhere from $100,000 in a more rural place like Georgia to more than $2 million for a stretch in Manhattan.

Trails are a minimum of 10 feet wide and use a surface that can accommodate wheelchairs and touring bicycles. To create one mile of trail costs about one-tenth of what it costs to create one mile of roadway, Markatos-Soriano said.

His organization works with an annual budget of about $450,000. The annual budget has been as high as $650,000. It’s been challenging in these economic times,  he said, adding that the efforts never get off track, but may move more slowly.

“We’re not going to stop our work,” he said.

Neither, it seems, are state agencies, and in fact, some are refocusing their efforts on greenways.

Representatives from the state Department of Transportation, state Department of Environmental Protection and the Capitol Region Council of Governments were also on hand.

Colleen A. Kissane, transportation assistant planning director with the DOT, told those in attendance that the DOT is reallocating some of its funding to be more directed toward greenway projects.

“Connecticut DOT is not the same DOT it has been,” she said.

She said the agency has declared the greenway a route of statewide significance, which translates into better chances for funding.

“We are focused on filling the gaps,” she said.

Kissane also noted that the state now has a full-time person in the role of coordinator for non-motorized transportation, Katherine D. Rattan, who was also at the meeting.

“She’s committed to keeping this going,” Kissane said of Rattan.

Laurie Giannotti, who works in the state parks division of the state Department of Transportation, gave an update on progress that is being made on the trail in the Manchester, Bolton and Vernon areas, the western part of the state, in Windsor, and along the shoreline.

Jon Thiesse, Bloomfield’s town engineer, gave an update on a section of trail in Bloomfield that will connect with Tariffville. 

For more information on the greenway, click here http://www.greenway.org/index.shtml