The area of State House Square that had been proposed to change into a lane for buses.

With so little useful information traveling between City Hall and the general public, it is easy to get the impression that projects have stalled when that’s hardly the case.

State House Square

Take the Intermodal Triangle Project, which had come back to the table a few times with no changes. The objective — disperse buses around downtown instead of having a “wall” of idling or parked vehicles — was not always communicated well and initial plans looked more like grasping at nostalgia (re-inventing the wheel, or in this case, the isle of safety) than adopting innovative ideas, like a complete reconfiguration of how buses move about the city, despite residents demanding that downtown not be the central hub. The early plans including removing a space actually used by pedestrians (State House Square) and replacing it with roadway that would create a loop for buses, which would then head

looking east at the corner of Asylum Street and Ann Uccello Street

west on Asylum. Now, we’re hearing from sources that work with the City of Hartford that the plan to convert State House Square from a space for people to a space for vehicles has been dropped. That bus lane on Asylum has also, apparently, been dismissed because of protest from Max Downtown.

Valet parking wins, public transportation loses. It only takes a few voices one way or the other to make an impact.

What remains of this project is the odd decision to remove many trees from Bushnell Park. The city forester thought the trees were marked for removal as part of a road widening plan — something that is the reverse of the Intermodal Triangle Project’s original intent. Sandy Fry of Greater Hartford Transit District says its not the road that’s being widened — it’s the sidewalk along the north side of Bushnell Park.

This raises questions. The area along the park is already walkable and one of the easier spots to bike in Downtown. The area just west of there, with highway ramps, Union Station, and the future CTfastrak stop, is a different story. What’s being done there?

At the end of last year we learned that bike lines were being developed as part of the Capital Parks Master Plan. In December, the public was shown highly stylized renderings of what this might look like, but nothing particularly specific, useful, or promising.

Then, months of silence.

Yesterday, we got a glimpse at the not-yet-approved map of Hartford showing proposed and existing park circulation paths, bicycle lanes, sharrows, and shared-use pathways.

Nevermind iQuilt or the Intermodal Triangle Project, of the current projects, this might be the most directly meaningful way to actually connect residents from neighborhood-to-neighborhood, with most of the changes requiring nothing beyond paint and signs. As roads are being resurfaced, the question that needs to be asked is if there is capacity for bike lanes or sharrows.

A shared-use pathway is proposed for the area of Asylum Street west of Bushnell Park up to the intersection of Farmington Avenue and Broad Street. This would connect to that “Bushnell Park North” area, which is only getting sharrows anyway, and to the bike lanes proposed for all of Farmington Avenue west of Broad Street in Hartford.

Ultimately, this intends to link the parks, but has evolved to create safer routes as one leaves Hartford for Bloomfield, West Hartford, Wethersfield, and East Hartford.

Brookfield Street, running along the east side of the Park River’s south branch, has bike lanes in the works, with temporary markings already visible on the street. This would connect Pope Park to an existing partially completed path south of Flatbush. From there, cyclists could take a proposed shared-use pathway into West Hartford, or could follow a series of roads marked with sharrows to connect up with Goodwin Park.

Putnam Street (maybe) has sharrows in its future

Bike lanes are also proposed for all of Franklin Avenue, Zion Street, Ledyard Street, Forest Street, and Mark Twain Drive. Bike lanes are proposed for segments of Myrtle Street, Asylum Avenue, Maxim Road, Wethersfield Avenue, Park Street, Windsor Street, Pleasant Street, Trumbull Street, Charter Oak Avenue, Van Dyke Avenue, Wyllys Street, Brainard Road, Laurel Street, Capitol Avenue, and Coventry Street. Sharrows are proposed for numerous roads, among them: Jefferson Street, Putnam Street, a segment of Park Terrace, Granby Street, Westbourne Parkway, and a part of Tower Avenue.

This proposal would make streets going by Hartford High, Weaver High, Bulkeley High, and Prince Tech more bicycle-friendly.

Although the section of Park Street from New Park Avenue to Pope Park Highway is marked as a place for new bike lanes, it is unclear if the Department of Transportation is on board with that. That stretch of Park Street is currently under construction related to the CTfastrak Parkville station, so if anything is going to change to make cycling safer in this area, that needs to happen soon.

The more expensive segment of these proposed bike lines — shared-use pathways —  is still a ways out. Areas where these are proposed include the path that runs north from Riverside Park, the unfinished path along the south branch of the Park River, through Pope Park, along the north branch of the Park River, the segment of Albany Avenue between Homestead and Scarborough, in open space through the south east corner of Hartford from Maxim Road to Hartford Avenue, and a few other much smaller areas.

Where does one find this information? Sitting in a South West neighborhood living room during a Transport Hartford meeting.  The group began meeting a few months ago to discuss issues with transportation for those who walk, take the bus or train, or ride bicycles. Local concerns are often overlooked by statewide advocacy groups, so a Hartford-specific organization emerged.

One item on its radar — the lack of crosswalks along Farmington Avenue — is about to be addressed when the MDC work is finished. People have been asking about these for years, but it looks like several mid-block crossings in Asylum Hill and the edge of the West End will be happening.

Another concern — the bizarre timing for pedestrian signals — is possibly going to be dealt with, at least in Downtown. We were told that the City has a recent hire who should be looking into more sensible timing as the antiquated signal system in Downtown is reconfigured. The pedestrian crossing signals are responsive in front of the State Capitol and entering Bushnell Park across from Bushnell Tower, but no other signals were immediately identified this way. What that currently means for pedestrians is that they are asked to stand around and wait for four minutes in some locations if they approach the intersection during the wrong part of the light cycle. In areas with medians and good visibility, this may not be too inconvenient, but other streets are especially dangerous to cross out of turn, like Asylum Street between Union Station and Bushnell Park.

Change can happen, but it requires voices and persistence. Creating a stir in City Hall takes fewer phone calls and emails than you may believe, but it takes some.