For its part, the Connecticut Department of Transportation said it remains supportive of a “trails-with-rail” connection.
A push to convert a desolate, 4-mile stretch of rail line into a Connecticut greenway with trails for pedestrians and bicyclists has run headlong into the state’s stance that the rails remain a viable freight transportation corridor.
But a new study shows for the first time that it is possible to combine the two uses in Hartford.
A draft of a new study by the Capitol Region Council of Governments, a regional planning agency, is breaking new ground in the decades-old debate over the long-term future of the state-owned Griffin Line.
The study concludes that a trail system could safely and logistically run along one side of the active, single-track rail line, from Hartford’s Asylum Hill neighborhood to the University of Hartford and the Bloomfield town line.
The estimated construction cost could be between $30 and $39 million. CRCOG said the project would likely have to be heavily financed by federal transportation grants.
The study comes as the future of the Griffin Line, built in the late 1800s and which some say reached its heyday in the 1920s, is again stirring debate.
The Griffin Line is seen as a key component to the $65 million Hartline pedestrian and bicycling path that would run from Hartford’s Riverside Park on the Connecticut River to Bloomfield. And it also is seen as a viable option for filling a crucial gap in Hartford in the East Coast Greenway, which runs from Florida to Maine.
The Hartline is part of the expansive Hartford 400 vision for reconnecting Harford to its riverfront by moving, burying or capping highways.
The iQuilt Partnership, whose goal is to make Hartford a more walkable city and the architect of Hartford 400, has pushed for the rail line no longer to be used and the Hartline built next to or on the Griffin Line track.
“This doesn’t preclude the Hartline vision from happening,” Caitlin Palmer, CRCOG’s director of regional planning and development. “But it does allow it to start gaining momentum and become a recreational connection.”
Should the rail fall out of use, the study suggests that the trail can be expanded to include parks with more paths and amenities or it could be used for a new spur for buses, an option that has been discussed in the past.
CRCOG’s study focused primarily on the feasibility of combining the trail and rail line, with the premise that the rail line would remain active, at least for the foreseeable future.
But FHI Studio in Hartford, the lead consultant on the study, said dealing with the active rail line makes the project more complex — and expensive. It requires a whole system of fencing and other measures to protect the safety of those on the trail, FHI said.
But those barriers run counter to another goal of the Hartline.
At its core, the Hartline is certainly for recreation, but it also has a larger purpose.
The 7-mile Hartline is framed as a way to better connect city neighborhoods and spur sorely-needed economic development along its path by increasing foot traffic. Similar projects in Atlanta, Indianapolis and Washington, D.C. have met with success and have drawn private investment along their routes, iQuilt has said.
Jackie Mandyck, iQuilt’s executive director, said the fences that would be needed to combine the trail with an active rail line would place another barrier to connecting a half dozen neighborhoods along the trail’s route.
“This is just not good urban design,” Mandyck said. “This is not stitching things together. If you can take something that connects rather than builds more fences, that’s where we want to go.”
Mandyck said CRCOG’s study was well-done, and the state Department of Transportation has shown willingness to consider a trail system along the Griffin Line.
“But the trail is not a park,” Mandyck said. “It might have pocket parks along its way. But this is a connector. This is a tool and asset that you can use for economic development.”
The city of Hartford declined to comment on CRCOG’s draft report, saying it will wait until a final report is issued.
How the trail would fit into the economic development puzzle along the Homestead Avenue corridor through which the rail line runs could soon become clearer.
The city of Hartford is launching an economic development study on the corridor. In recent years, the city has acquired properties – many of them industrial – along Homestead Avenue, preparing for future development.
For its part, the Connecticut Department of Transportation said it remains supportive of a “trails-with-rail” connection.
“While the project is feasible, the safety of the public, with the continued operation of the freight line, must be ensured,” DOT spokesman Josh D. Morgan said, in a statement. “This active freight line moves goods and services to and through Connecticut.
“Any modification to the Griffin Line would undergo a federal review process where existing commercial use would be weighed heavily in that review,” Morgan said. “We look forward to continuing these conversations in the future.”
The DOT also has shown support for the Hartline, including it among its priorities in the Greater Hartford Mobility Study.
Taking the Griffin Line out of service would have implications for the current lease with the Central New England Railroad as well as a potential decommissioning. Decommissioning can take years.
But Mandyck said she is not advocating decommissioning. There may be other options to take the rail out of active service.
Railbanking, for instance, is an agreement between a rail line owner and a trail sponsor to use an out-of-service rail corridor as a trail until the railroad might need the corridor again.
The option was established in federal law in 1983 as a change to the National Trails System Act.
CRCOG launched its look at the Griffin Line last year as part of a larger study examining how notable gaps in the East Coast Greenway in the Hartford region could be filled.
In greater Hartford, critical breaks in the 3,000-mile trail from Maine to Florida exist in Simsbury, Bloomfield, Hartford and East Hartford.
The Griffin Line corridor now becomes a viable option for a greenway link in Hartford. If it were chosen, it could be one and the same as the Hartline.
“One of the things that we were balancing was the long regional connection with really providing amenities in the neighborhood,” Kenneth Livingston, a principal at FHI, said. “We try to create as many for people to interact – intersect and interact – with the trail throughout Hartford.”
FHI’s preferred alternative called the construction of the trail on the south and then west side as the track curves north out of Hartford.
Another option would locate the trail on the north and then east side of the tracks. But this option would mean moving tracks, pushing up the project costs.
The preferred option would run from Garden Street to Plainfield Street, crossing over the train tracks at Plainfield and continuing north to Tobey Road in Bloomfield.
In a route that is narrow overall, one of tightest spots is where the track passes under the bridge at Woodland Street.
The plan calls for punching a new culvert in the bridge so the trail could be built through it. Alternatively, the trail could – at least temporarily – follow a route up the street and back down on the other side of the bridge.
“That was challenging, but it was all a challenge,” Livingston said.
Kenneth R. Gosselin can be contacted at kgosselin@courant.com.
