A man uses the Seaview Avenue sidewalk for a bike ride with his daughter.
Photo credit: Nancy Guenther Chapman

NORWALK, Conn. – The letter in a local newspaper Friday from Council member Michelle Maggio was full of good advice about following process. But she misunderstood the process that has already started to get the large biking and walking population of Norwalk on board for safe and modern bike and walking routes between Vets Park and Calf Pasture Beach. It is clear to me, a licensed landscape architect, and to every one of my many professional design colleagues in town, including architects, engineers and fellow landscape architects, that we are the last city in Connecticut and one of the last in the country to have safe on-street bike lanes and routes. Anyone who travels outside of Norwalk is aware of this. We have a lot of catching up to do.

Despite Ms. Maggio's assertion that the process was not being followed by bike advocates, the process for the Seaview Avenue bike plan has actually just begun, with council members and department heads being introduced to it, and stakeholders being consulted. The Calf Pasture Beach Road section of bike lanes is further along, as it received endorsements from Mayor Moccia and Councilman Kydes last fall, in front of a crowd of more than 70 adults and children on bikes, at Marvin School. So far, an online petition (at LivableNorwalk.org) in support of this section has received more than 150 signatures. Please go to the site and sign the petition seen in the right margin, and scroll down to the Jan. 30 entry to see photos and description of the proposal. The Seaview Avenue proposal is also available for viewing.

If Ms. Maggio has ever tried to ride her bike on that stretch of Calf Pasture, with cars racing past each other at high speeds, or if she had kids that went to Marvin School and had to deal with the dangerous speedway out front, she would certainly get it. Most folks in the neighborhood and who bike or walk to the beach get it.

Why does a two-lane road at Gregory Boulevard suddenly turn into a four-lane speedway for the remaining stretch out to the beach? The bike lane proposal turns one lane in each direction on the four-lane section into a bike lane, with safety buffer, with no modifications at all to curbs or medians. It's just paint, which is cheap (less than $5,000). Is that too much to ask of the city, to get an amazing improvement that will slow speeding traffic, protect kids who walk or ride their bikes to Marvin School, and encourage walking and biking to the beach? During special events like the 4th of July, or for Marvin School parents who need to stack into the road at pickup times, this bike lane can still be used as a car lane. No other solution exists, as the road is too narrow for four lanes of traffic and bike lanes, which would still encourage speeding as cars race each other to the beach. If it fails, which I doubt it will, then it can just be painted out and returned to a car lane at any time. No big deal. It does not need a traffic study, as the road carries the same traffic as the existing two-lane Gregory Boulevard. Consider it an extension of Gregory, and get on with it!

We look forward to working with Ms. Maggio on improving Norwalk, including keeping her up-to-date on our plans and intentions, to prevent any more of the misunderstanding that compelled her to write her letter. She is an active member of the community, business owner and dedicated civil servant who spends a huge amount of time at meetings while raising a young family. That cannot be easy for anyone. I will forgive her for labeling me and many other bike lane advocates as "extremists." Trust me, it is not extreme to want safer routes to school for our kids, on-street bike lanes and "shared roads" as all other cities now have, or modern "Complete Street" solutions (CompleteStreets.org) that consider all forms of transportation, not just speeding cars and trucks, which seems to be our city's main priority.