Your crossing from ansonia you should also contact the ansonia public works. Maybe the two towns can work on that together.

If the Ansonia greenway is ever built (it's suppose to start this fall) it will be a bad situation down there. Plenty of people will want to be crossing Division Street all the time to go back and forth between the 2 greenways. It will be like dodge ball. People will get hurt, accidents will happen. If they put a light in, the traffic situation will be awful. The button will get pushed every 60 seconds and it will create backups and stop traffic flow in and out of businesses. It's a disastor in the making. The Ansonia greenway needed to allow for a passageway under the Division Street Bridge but that's not happening.

The Ansonia Riverwalk project, out to bid this fall, includes new crosswalks and pedestrian phases which will connect the Derby & Ansonia trails. Won't be fully operational until 2011.

First of all Citizen, no need to point out a litany of bad things that could happen. Comes across as quite the tirade, so please be careful of the tone of your posts when trying to make your points.
Second, I'd love to know if you went to any town meetings or discussions on the proposal. Maybe others could learn/help from what you already know.
And third, thanks to Planner for providing more details on the project. What sort of communication is going on with Derby and other cities like Hamden that already have a Riverwalk/Greenway? This would be very good to know...Thanks!

Should we hide or ignore the obvious? How would that help prevent pending troubles and keep people safe? These points need to be made. Last I heard, a pedestrian bridge was going to be built near the railroad river crossing that would bring people into the Target area. An underpass at the Division Street Bridge would allow for safe passage and would be money better spent. If that is part of the "pedestrian phases" whatever that means, great, but I don't think so since Planner is talking crosswalks. Better park an ambulance there.

Planner...thanks!

In Re: to Citizen's comments:
When Derby designed its Greenway, it explicitly designed so that a connection could be made under the bridge so that no pedestrians would have to cross traffic (if you've noticed, Derby has designed its entire trail this way). When Ansonia got it's grant for their Riverwalk, they hired a different designer. They claim that DEP permitting would preclude such a crossing, so they designed a crosswalk.
"Pedestrian Phase" refers to a regularly recurring part of the intersection cycle giving pedestrians the exclusive right to cross. (you don't have to push a button)
I agree that it would be preferable to cross under the bridge but, the only reason you would need an ambulance is if an impatient biker or pedestrian refused to wait for their phase of the cycle.
Exercise a little patience and the whole world would be a safer place.

There's so much traffic there and it's 5 lanes wide at the turn into S&S/Public Works. It's scarey. People are impatient and drivers will not appreciate the added delay at the light, especially when there is no one crossing at certain times of day/bad weather and the "off" seasons. Pedestrians are just as impatient and will take risks against the lights. It's a bad situation. I'm inclined to think that the DEP issue wasn't exhausted and the cheaper and more expeditious alternative was more attractive.

I live on division street across from the hospital. I have children so I drive to the walkway to avoid dodging traffic.

Planner - great explanation and points. Question I have now is why did Ansonia go with a different company? Wouldn't it have made better sense to use the one Derby used if only for consistency sake?

I agree--there is major concern when it comes to crossing Division Street- although there is a section in the Hamden Walk that also crosses Dixwell Ave without traffic lights...people just have to be careful and run really fast..I hope the city (both Ansonia and Derby) are ready for what the outcome may be if someone does get seriously hurt crossing the street

In Re: Citizen: You will get no disagreement from me on any point you raised in your last post. In a perfect world I wish the effort had been made to seek the proper permits and necessary modifications from required design standards (federal highway funds = federal highway standards) but even if the permit issue could be overcome (trail would be in floodway, vertical clearance to underside of bridge would be insufficient to meet design standards, DEP and additional Army Corps permitting processes would add about 24 months to project), about 200 yards of the Derby trail would need to be constructed or a switchback installed to meet 12:1 ADA slope requirement , the Ansonia side would need to do the same (entire Derby trail is handicapped accessible) and a bridge structure would need to be built to support required width of trail under the bridge. At an average cost to build these trails of $1 million per mile plus the cost to acquire easements, if any, due to the only available source of funding (Federal Highway Enhancement Program funds), these additional costs would not leave any more funding to build the actual Ansonia trail after you paid for the crossing.
As an example, Derby's existing phase cost over $2 million and the next phase which will only build a crossing of the Naugatuck River from the existing trail at Hog Island to the riverbank behind Crystal Cleaners with a federal grant of $1.3 million. The balance of Derby's trail to 2-Mile Brook at the Orange town line will cost about $2.4 million and is not yet funded. Shelton's Riverwalk and current extension will cost almost $2 million per mile!
Given the clamor for expansion of these facilities and the requirement that the towns pay 20% of the costs, Ansonia made the practical decision to proceed with the crosswalk alternative.
It's an imperfect solution in an imperfect world, but we as a community can always petition our federal representatives to provide additional funding to design and build the "under the bridge" crossing which can be added at any time after the currently-planned Ansonia Trail is constructed. No investment in either existing trail would go to waste and there should be a pedestrian-activated signal on the surface anyway.

In Re: to Marc: Federal Procurement standards require a detailed "Quality-Based Selection" process that takes into account a range of factors beyond the very valid point you cited. Unfortunately, unless separate phases are bid together, those rules and Ct's post-Rowland bid rules make it unlikely that the same designer would get even contiguous sections bid under separate contracts.
The Ansonia designer is the same as the Shelton designer though.

Correction in Re: to Citizen's earlier post:
The Ansonia project to be bid does NOT include a pedestrian bridge to Target. The Pedestrian bridge will cross over the railroad (like the one in Derby) to get out to Pershing Drive near Bridge Street.

State law requires cars to stop for pedestrians in a crosswalk. The park is closed at night when visibility might be a consideration. If you're really scared for your safety, go to the Taco Bell corner and cross from there, avoiding the left turners.

The crosswalk law applies at intersections, even if there is no painted crosswalk. Painted crosswalks are only needed to protect crossings in the middle of a block.

new lights going up