Farmington Avenue, west of West Hartford Center, will be repaved beginning May 11, the town announced. [Updated]

By Ronni Newton

A section of Farmington Avenue in West Hartford – between Mountain Road and Wardwell Road – will be repaved and bike lanes and a two-way left turn lane (TWLTL) will be added and on-street parking will be eliminated, Town Engineer Greg Sommer announced.

The work, which is scheduled to begin May 11, will take about two weeks and will take place between the hours of 7 a.m.-5 p.m., Monday through Friday. During that time, the roadway should be kept clear of parked vehicles.

The roadway will be open to local residential traffic, as well as emergency vehicles, delivery trucks, and school buses during during construction, and motorists are asked to follow all construction signs.

Milling will take place first, and sections that have been milled will be repaved several days later. Sommer urged motorists to “use caution, be alert for raised manhole structures, and reduce speeds when driving through the work zone.”

Once the paving is complete, the roadway will be reconfigured with new markings to incorporate on-street bicycle lanes in accordance with the town’s Complete Streets policy adopted by the Town Council in 2015 which specified Farmington Avenue as one of the town’s bicycle routes.

Sommer confirmed Monday that plan for the bike lanes, as set when the Complete Streets plan was adopted, is add the bike lanes in combination with repaving plans. “This is an ideal time to do it,” he said.

While this stretch is just from Mountain to Wardwell, Sommer said there are plans to also create bike lanes for the stretch of Farmington Avenue from Wardwell east to Pleasant Street. “We know there is a higher demand for on-street parking the closer you get to the Center,” he said.

The next stretch is still a couple of years off, Sommer said, and will also depend on the condition of the roadway and any utility projects that need to tale place.

The Engineering Division consulted with the town’s Pedestrian and Bicycle Commission, in accordance with the Complete Streets policy, before finalizing plans for the new configuration of the stretch of the Farmington Avenue roadway from Cadwell Street to Wardwell, which will also include replacement of the brick pavers currently in place in the center of Farmington Avenue with a TWLTL and the elimination of on-street parking. The illustration above shows the “before and after” configuration.

Instructions for proper use of the TWLTL, which is currently in place on North Main Street as well, can be found here.

Any questions can be directed to Sommer at [email protected] or 860-561-7543.

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