Rehabilitation of West Hartford’s Park Road to be Topic of Public Information Session
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Park Road looking east. Photo credit: Ronni Newton
A meeting will be held on Wednesday, Oct. 30, at 6:30 p.m. at Town Hall to discuss plans under development for improvements to West Hartford’s Park Road.
Submitted
The Town of West Hartford’s Engineering Division is developing design plans for the Park Road Rehabilitation project and will a hold a public informational meeting to further explain the project and receive comments on Wednesday, Oct. 30, 2024 at 6:30 p.m. in Room 400 at Town Hall, 50 South Main Street. It is important that the community share its concerns to assist in the project’s development.
Located in the heart of the Park Road corridor, east of Trout Brook Drive and west of the City of Hartford at Prospect Avenue, this project will improve safety and mobility of an important gateway into town and will fulfill the town’s Complete Streets Policy.
The project calls for the construction of numerous complete streets and safety improvements from South Quaker Lane to Prospect Avenue, including approximately 4,380 linear feet of mill and overlay, select sidewalk repair and/or sidewalk replacement, catch basin top replacement, replacement of non-compliant accessible ramps, completion of decorative lighting between Oakwood Avenue and Prospect Avenue, reconfiguration of lane arrangement to accommodate bicycle facilities, replacement of existing crosswalks with new raised crosswalks, addition of new raised crosswalks, addition and/or modification of existing curb extensions at all crosswalk locations, new bicycle hitching posts, benches, landscaping, and wayfinding signage.
The project is funded by a State of Connecticut grant totaling $1,500,000 and supplemented with town funds for a total estimated construction cost of $2,250,000. Construction is expected to begin in 2025 and be complete by the end of 2025.
The town appreciates the public’s feedback as they work to complete this important project. Questions and comments may be directed to jason.mccabe@westhartfordct.
Anyone requiring auxiliary aid or service for effective communication or modification of policies or procedures to participate in a meeting, service, program or activity of the Town of West Hartford, should contact Suzanne Oslander, ADA Coordinator, at [email protected] or 860-561-7580, as soon as possible.
Anyone requiring language assistance services such as language interpretation to participate in this meeting of the Town of West Hartford should contact Claudia Tata, Language Access Coordinator, at claudia.tata@westhartfordct.
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Yes adding curb extensions for crossings would help encourage pedestrian traffic and help to calm drivers at those intersections as well. Plus with so much work being done over the years on Farmington Ave, New Britain Ave, N and S Main St and soon New Park Ave, it’s good to see money invested in Park Rd now, as another major artery in town.
Is there any plan to have more public paved parking lots for patrons of the commercial establishments along Park Rd.?
Is there a plan to continue the design of uniform facades on commercial establishments, such as Hall’s Market, Joey’s Pizza, and others have as a distinct Park Rd. design? A uniform theme or colors for the storefronts would bring a cohesive, distinct, and more attractive look to the Park Rd. commercial area.
That would be great to have more parking lots for customers so they wouldn’t have to walk a bit, i’m not sure of what undeveloped land exists that could be used. That area is designed as was most older suburban areas, over 100 years ago, for more walk-able and less car dependent people vs. the modern strip mall type development with large parking lots.
Are you thinking the state or town should provide funding for changing building facades or force businesses to paint/redesign their exteriors to match a certain aesthetic? Although having every building look similar or uniform, such as a larger new development like blue back square, that would be hard to do on Park Rd where each building is individually owned and run, similar to the Center. Do you have examples of other communities where they’ve taken the uniform design/colors approach with older developed neighborhoods?