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06/18/2019 01:15 PMThe capital budget passed by Westbrook in early June allocated $50,000 for its Sidewalk Plan, an initiative that has been ongoing for several years but is often misunderstood, according to Bill Reade, vice chair of the Planning Commission (PC).
While the town undertakes a variety of sidewalk projects each year, such as the maintenance projects handled by the Department of Public Works (DPW), new sidewalk construction is addressed by the Sidewalk Plan being put together by the PC.
“Historically, each town is required by the state to do a Plan of Conservation and Development [POCD] every 10 years and Westbrook’s was completed and adopted by town meeting in 2011,” said Reade. “One of the items [in the POCD] was to create a sidewalk plan.”
The PC worked with a consultant to create an inventory and maps of existing sidewalks. The town held several public meetings that operated like focus groups designed to generate ideas from residents, Reade said. The town center emerged as a priority.
“Through the ’80s, ’90s, and aughts, both subdivisions and new commercial developments...were required to build sidewalks,” Reade explained. “So the town has lots of sidewalks, but there’s gaps where no project was ever done.
“An example that I use is between the town center and the YMCA,” he continued. “Two-thirds to three-quarters of that distance has built sidewalks and there’s a few gaps where no development was ever done. We could get a mile and half of continuous sidewalks by building a few hundred feet.”
As the PC was working on the Sidewalk Plan, the town was awarded, in August 2018, a $200,000 Community Connectivity Grant by the Connecticut Department of Transportation (DOT). Meg Parulis, the former town planner, had applied for this grant for two downtown areas where sidewalks are incomplete. The state prioritizes projects that are “shovel ready” and that enable people to access public transportation, Reade explained.
Complete streets, according to the DOT website, are “safe, comfortable, and convenient transportation systems that serve everyone, regardless of how they choose to travel, whether that is by walking, bicycling, riding transit, or driving.”
In other words, walking is a mode of travel and enables people to access other modes of travel. Providing sidewalks is a vital way to support and enable walking.
The DOT grant project has two parts: The first will extend the sidewalk that starts at the train station and runs along Norris Avenue to Essex Road/Route 153 by adding sidewalk farther along Route 153 to the Town Green.
The second will extend the existing sidewalk that runs from the Walgreens parking lot along the Boston Post Road/Route One so that it continues to the intersection with Salt Island Road, between Julie’s Cup of Joe and the Valero gas station.
The 2017–’18 capital budget allocated $25,000 for the engineering of the DOT-funded project. Reade hopes that it will be completed this summer.
The allocation earlier this month of $50,000 from the capital budget will fund additional sidewalk projects according to the PC’s Sidewalk Plan. Westbrook saves money whenever possible by having its own DPW dig the foundation and place the forms for the concrete, Reade explained. The job of pouring the concrete is then contracted out.
The actual sidewalk sections to be constructed this fiscal year are as yet to be determined, Reade said.
While the Sidewalk Plan calls for an increase in funding to $100,000 next fiscal year, the town could decide the money is needed elsewhere.
“That’s where the town has the option” to reassess finances, Reade explained.
Much depends on the state budget and its ability to direct funds to the town.
“If you planned $100,000 a year and either the state is much better than expected or much worse you can allocate the $100,000 or less,” he said.
Westbrook as a town is “conservative financially,” Reade said. “Rome wasn’t built in a day and with these gaps, we can do a little bit every year. We don’t have to make a 20-year plan...We can fix one thing at a time. We’re just filling gaps. I think we can get a lot of bang for the buck and not break the bank.”
The members of the PC have “always felt that...connectivity and walkability is a value,” he continued. “Believe me, there’s always people who disagree with that. People who wouldn’t want to spend the money and are more car-oriented. At almost every meeting, someone stands up and says, ‘Nobody walks.’ That’s a generalization. There’s a growing number of people that do. Especially in the summer, when it’s nice.”
From Middle Beach, a public beach at the end of Salt Island Road, there are “pretty much continuous sidewalks from the center of town, where there are a lot of rental units,” Reade said.
The walk from the Town Green is less than a mile.
“You can’t walk to the high school from the center of town on a sidewalk,” Reade said; that distance is just over one mile.