About 200 miles of the East Coast Greenway will run through Connecticut.
A new section of a proposed multi-state bike and walking trail opened earlier this week in Manchester. The state Department of Transportation took the occasion to outline the governor's five-year strategy for Connecticut's trail system.
The plan is to create a network of multi-use trails, first by closing gaps in existing trails, and then building longer portions of what will eventually be a continuous statewide trail system. Because the trail plan is part of "Let's Go CT," Governor Dannel Malloy's vision for Connecticut's transportation future, the state will invest $10 million a year for five years on projects that will close the trail gaps.
DOT Commissioner James Redeker said the state's investment marks a complete turnaround from the days when the burden of building and maintaining trails was on individual towns.
"This is a landslide change in our philosophy of funding these investments, it's a dramatic shift in the focus on transportation that must be multi-modal," Redeker said. "And it's critical that these kinds of investments are made and sustained so that we go beyond just the five-year plan, and really take on completion of the East Coast Greenway, every major trail, and every local connection throughout the state."
The East Coast Greenway, or ECG, is an ambitious project to build a continuous trail from Maine to Key West, Florida. About 200 miles of the ECG will run through Connecticut.
Early on, the state DOT will be funding projects that help complete Connecticut's portion of the ECG, which is about 28 percent finished. Earlier this week, a 2.75-mile stretch of the East Coast Greenway was opened in Manchester.
