Government

Town to Replace, Improve Heavily Used Sidewalk between God’s Acre and Vine Cottage

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Town officials this week approved about $83,000 to improve a downtown sidewalk along one of the most well trodden stretches in New Canaan. Utility workers since midsummer have been working along the sidewalk from God’s Acre—at the corner of the St. John’s Place extension at Main Street—down to Vine Cottage. The Board of Selectmen at its Tuesday meeting approved $82,841.20 to replace it with a new concrete sidewalk with granite curbing. “If anyone has seen it over the last six years, it is woefully in need of this,” First Selectman Rob Mallozzi said at the meeting, held in the Training Room of the New Canaan Police Department.

Around Town

(Trying To) Walk To Mead Park: Connecting New Canaan’s Sidewalks

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A maple tree (and some funding) stands between New Canaan and kickstarting what officials have designated the Number 2 sidewalk priority for the town. Though the extension itself is only several feet long, bringing the sidewalk that already runs along nearly all of the south side of Mead Street, down to the striped pedestrian crossing at Park, requires the removal of a tree at the corner there. As it is now, pedestrians approaching that corner are forced into the road in order to get to the crosswalk, said Department of Public Works Assistant Director Tiger Mann. “What you have is the majority of people come down that side of the street because the crosswalk is there, and then walk into the street and there’s no place to stand, really, you have to stand in the travelway to cross Park Street and get down to Mead Park,” Mann said. “It’s a tiny little stretch that was omitted, I’m not sure just when.”

For a couple of years, officials have eyed a plan to remove the tree on the corner—those in the home on Mead closest to the corner “aren’t thrilled but understand the reasoning for it [the removal],” Mann said—and then extend the sidewalk all the way down.

Government

Conceptual Plan, Funding for Elm-to-Irwin Sidewalk Discussed

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Should New Canaan pursue installation of a sidewalk between Elm Street and Irwin Park, the town likely would look hard at bonding the project and bringing stop signs to the intersection at Weed and Elm, officials say. Conceptual plans for the approximately $130,000 project have been drawn up, though no funding exists for it, Department of Public Works officials confirmed at the March 19 meeting of the Town Council, held in the Visitors Center at the New Canaan Nature Center. There, asked by council members which side of Weed Street the sidewalk would run along, DPW Assistant Director Tiger Mann said the western side (the same as Irwin itself). “The original plan had it going from Elm Street to the second driveway, the northern drive,” Mann said. “But since the new trail was installed across the great lawn, now it stops at the southern driveway.”

The discussion arose during the department’s presentation for this budget season.