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06/07/2017 08:30 AMIt was a fortuitous accident that brought Carrie Allen to Clinton. After work one day in New Haven, Carrie ran to the train station just in time to catch the train headed to her home in Bridgeport. Unfortunately, the train took off in the opposite direction, and Carrie had no choice but to ride the Shoreline East out to Old Saybrook, then ride the same train back into New Haven.
As Carrie road the train, she was struck by how pretty and scenic the shoreline of Connecticut is compared to the ride in the other direction.
Soon after, Allen knew she wanted to move along the shoreline with her family. Eventually, Carrie was looking in Clinton and says she “fell in love with a house.” Carrie moved into the house three and half years ago and Since then, has integrated herself into the Clinton community.
Carrie is a member of the Bike and Pedestrian Alliance Committee (BPAC) in Clinton that advocates for walkers and cyclists and plans recreational events.
Since November, Carrie has been working on establishing a Clinton portion of the Shoreline Greenway Trail that’s currently envisioned to link Lighthouse Point Park in New haven with Hammonasset Beach Park in Madison. The Clinton portion would provide a path for walking and cycling from the Madison town line to the Clinton Town Beach.
Carrie was spurred to get involved with the planning of the greenway after First Selectman Bruce Farmer asked multiple times about the feasibility of Clinton establishing a greenway trail. In March, that plan became more of a reality as the Board of Selectmen gave BPAC permission to begin building the greenway.
“I’m proud of the town being behind this,” Carrie says. “Clinton is a very beautiful place to me and people don’t know about it.”
When completed, the trail will cover between three and five miles.
“I’d love to see the trail up in the fall and christen it with a 5k” run, Carrie says.
Carrie says she also envisions holding a triathlon event for kids where they could run a portion of the trail, then bike a portion, then get in kayaks for the last portion. Carrie calls the triathlon event a “platform to bring Clinton together.”
When Carrie calls Clinton a beautiful place, she’s speaking with experience, having lived in several exotic locations. Carrie’s parents were teachers and often traveled around the world to teach, and as a result Carrie has lived in such places as the Italian Alps and Lebanon’s capital Beirut along the Mediterranean Sea. Carrie herself is an English as a second language teacher.
“I grew up everywhere. By the time I was 18, I lived in 15 different places,” Carrie says.
However, when she and her partner Peter Simmons welcomed their daughter Sudie James into their lives, Carrie decided that it was time to find a more permanent place to make home. While Carrie says she loves to travel, she acknowledges it was “not always easy growing up and going to four different high schools.”
Carrie and her family eventually settled in Bridgeport where they resided until Sudie James went to college and Carrie took her fateful train ride in the wrong direction.
Carrie says her favorite part of working with BPAC has been “all the people I’ve gotten to meet.” In fact, Carrie credits her work on the greenway for showing her a side of herself she didn’t even know she had.
Initially, the hardest part of working with BPAC was “asking strangers for permission,” she says. “I don’t even like asking friends for favors.”
Eventually, Carrie became more comfortable with asking people for help, telling herself that she’s not just asking for herself, but for the people working on the greenway and those who will use it.
Carrie has a multitude of hobbies to occupy herself with in any free time that isn’t consumed with BPAC or the greenway.
“I love to hike and I love that all the land trusts are around here,” Carrie says.
Additionally, Carrie loves to read and write, as well as grow her own vegetables to cook and eat. Due to Connecticut’s long winters, Carrie says she’s always looking for a project in the winter.
“Right now, I’m teaching myself to play the cello, but the greenway is going better,” Carrie says with a laugh.
Of all her hobbies though, Carrie says her “absolute favorite” hobby is when her daughter comes home from New York to visit.