West Hartford Center Infrastructure Master Plan to Take Hybrid Approach

The Town of West Hartford and its consultant, Stantec, outlined the concept plans for the updating of sidewalks and other infrastructure in West Hartford Center.

Intersection of LaSalle Road and Farmington Avenue in West Hartford Center. Photo credit: Ronni Newton (we-ha.com file photo)

By Ronni Newton

LaSalle Road and Farmington Avenue will be updated over the next two years – and while there has been overall agreement on the need for replacing sidewalks and trees and shortening crossing distances for pedestrians for safety purposes – there have been conflicting views among stakeholders regarding prioritizing other aspects of the plans under consideration.

The plans rolled out in two public information meetings held on April 8 – one in the morning and another identical presentation in the evening – outline a hybrid approach for the reconstruction of Farmington Avenue and LaSalle Road that Town Manager Rick Ledwith said is “not quite as aggressive as we saw in the fall,” but at the same time provides for wider sidewalks and enhances accessibility and pedestrian safety. The construction will be phased into chunks as small as possible, to minimize disruption to businesses.

Plans do not call for any bike lanes on Farmington Avenue through the Center.

Director of Community Development Duane Martin speaks at the morning session of an April 8, 2024 pubic meeting about the West Hartford Center Infrastructure Master Plan. Photo credit: Ronni Newton

Development of the West Hartford Center Infrastructure Master Plan has been in the works for about 18 months. The consulting firm Stantec was hired to assist with the project, which will be financed through American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds, and was the outgrowth of a desire to take a holistic approach rather than coming up with piecemeal projects to address long-planned repaving of LaSalle Road and Farmington Avenue in the Center after decades of utility work, as well as the need to address pedestrian safety, accessibility, street trees past their useful life, and other infrastructure updates. The four key elements of the overall plan address the Center’s “sense of place,” sidewalks, transportation, and parking.

When a public information meeting was held in November 2o23, multiple aspects of a West Hartford Center Infrastructure Master Plan were unveiled to an audience consisting mostly of West Hartford Center businesses and property owners, and were not well received. A letter was also sent to the Town Council by West Hartford Center businesses and property owners. Primary concerns raised at the Nov. 6 meeting and in a letter sent to the Town Council – sidewalk design, parking arrangement, and construction timeline – were heard, and various alternative options were presented at a public meeting on Feb. 7, 2024.

“The plan we had at that time, folks felt it would have been too much of an impact on their businesses,” Ledwith said Monday of the plans that were highlighted in November. Several options were presented at that February meeting – ranging from “baseline reconstruction” – maintaining the current parking arrangements, and essentially just updating sidewalk material and landscaping and repaving – to an extensive change to parking and sidewalks with a protected bike lane on both sides of Farmington Avenue  and a hybrid that incorporates some changes to parking and sidewalk width and other amenities. After seeking additional input at on the various options at the February meeting and through an online survey that had about 1,500 responses, a hybrid plan that improves the current infrastructure but maintains parking spaces, including angled parking, with sidewalks that are roughly 5 feet wider, is the plan chosen move forward.

Screenshot from April 8, 2024 West Hartford Center Infrastructure Master Plan Public Information Meeting. Courtesy Town of West Hartford

A major concern raised by businesses and landlords was the impact of construction, and that will be addressed through a phasing process that will address chunks of reconstruction of about 250 feet – six to seven each on LaSalle Road and Farmington Avenue – taking four to six weeks each. The only time an entire roadway will have construction taking place is during the milling and paving, which will be at the end.

Screenshot from April 8, 2024 West Hartford Center Infrastructure Master Plan Public Information Meeting. Courtesy Town of West Hartford

The overall cost of the project is estimated at $10.4 million, with $4.6 million estimated for LaSalle Road and $5.8 million estimated for the work on Farmington Avenue, and will be funded by ARPA. Work is expected to being in about a year, likely beginning on LaSalle Road and take two construction seasons, concluding in 2026.

Screenshot from April 8, 2024 West Hartford Center Infrastructure Master Plan Public Information Meeting. Courtesy Town of West Hartford

Design specifics

“When folks voted in the poll, the results were fairly split,” said Liza Cohen of Stantec, but a hybrid was the most-favored second-best option.

On both LaSalle Road and Farmington Avenue, sidewalks – which will be concrete rather than pavers – will be widened by five feet on each side of the road. That will provide additional space for restaurants to set up outdoor dining on the sidewalks up against the buildings, and will provide a furnishings area where there will be trees (more than the current number of trees), benches, bike racks, and other amenities. Crosswalks will allow for significantly shorter crossing distances with bumpouts that also serve as traffic calming measure.

Screenshot from April 8, 2024 West Hartford Center Infrastructure Master Plan Public Information Meeting. Courtesy Town of West Hartford

Angled parking will be retained on LaSalle Road, and there will be a mix of angels and parallel parking on Farmington Avenue. Both roads will have two-way traffic with one lane in each direction. The westbound left-turn lane on Farmington Avenue leading in the parking lot will be eliminated because that will become the exit from the parking lot, with the current exit onto South Main Street becoming an entrance.

One of the planned changes will be switching the entrance and exits to the Farmington Avenue parking lot. The entrance shown at right will become an exit, and the current exit onto South Main Street will become an entrance. Photo credit: Ronni Newton (we-ha.com file photo)

There will be more trees than exist today and they will a mixture of native species planted in wells to encourage healthy growth and avoid the current situation where roots push up the sidewalks.

Travis Ewen of Stantec outlined more specific details planned for each roadway.

Screenshot from April 8, 2024 West Hartford Center Infrastructure Master Plan Public Information Meeting. Courtesy Town of West Hartford

LaSalle Road

The faint red line on the image below shows the current curb location. Sidewalks will expand from 15 to 20 feet, and will be concrete. “The pavement surfaces are easier to navigate for wheelchairs,” Ewen said.

The number of street trees will increase from 36 to 52, spaced roughly 40 feet apart. “We are choosing street trees that are native to Connecticut, that are tolerant,” Ewen said, a diverse plant palette that should provide overall protection from damage by disease or fungus. Currently the streetscape contains only honey locusts, that have been impacted by a fungus.

There will be 91 parking spaces – mostly angled spaces, but several parallel parking spaces will also serve as time-restricted loading zones.

Crossing distances will be significantly reduced, by as much as 25 feet.

Screenshot from April 8, 2024 West Hartford Center Infrastructure Master Plan Public Information Meeting. Courtesy Town of West Hartford

Farmington Avenue

As with the map of LaSalle Road, the faint red line shows the current curb location, with plans to expand install new concrete sidewalks with an expanded area of an average of 5 feet.

The number of street trees is expected to increase from the current 38 to 54, and a total of 78 parking spaces are planned – a mixture of angled and parallel parking. The number and arrangement of parking on Farmington Avenue has been fluid, but Ewen said prior to the pandemic there were 67 spaces, and currently there are 95 spaces without outdoor dining corrals and 85 spaces during outdoor dining season.

An important component to the plans for Farmington Avenue are reducing crossing distances, with raised crosswalks as additional traffic calming measures.

Also, the intent is to maintain a signal at what will become the exit from the Farmington Avenue parking lot.

Screenshot from April 8, 2024 West Hartford Center Infrastructure Master Plan Public Information Meeting. Courtesy Town of West Hartford

Overall Master Plan

While significant, the reconstruction of LaSalle Road and Farmington Avenue are just parts of the West Hartford Center Infrastructure Master Plan.

“We’re looking at places where we can really improve crossings,” Cohen said, as well as more secure places for short- and long-term bicycle parking, noting the increasing use of e-bikes as transportation.

She also said the plan will look for the opportunity to add pocket parks, and focus on gateways and bus accommodations. She also told We-Ha.com that innovative solutions for the intersection of Farmington Avenue and North/South Main Street are still under development – and use of a “peanut-about,” which was one of the ideas identified in a presentation by Stantec in February 2023 – is not off the table.

Martin said the West Hartford Center Infrastructure Master Plan is not being developed in a vacuum, but is complementary with other initiatives that are underway, including the Bicycle Facilities Plan that will be completed this year, Vision Zero, way finding, and electric vehicle infrastructure.

Among those attending the morning presentation was Mike Mahoney, a West Hartford native and owner of property management firm RLM Co., which also has its own offices in the Center, and he voiced some specific concerns, including that the planting of “bushy” trees might obscure the view of business signage.

Ewen said the soil cell system will allow the trees to grow taller more quickly, and with spacing of 40 feet, there will be plenty of open views. The trees are an important part of the plan, he said, for heat reduction as well for control of stormwater.

“I like the phasing. None of this is going to make people happy all the time,” Mahoney said, but it is helpful to address it in chunks.

“I’m also concerned as you widen the sidewalks whose responsibility is will be to maintain and insure them,” Mahoney said.

Mike Mahoney, owner of RLM Co., asks a question during the April 8, 2024 public information meeting about the West Hartford Center Infrastructure Master Plan. Other West Hartford Center business owners were also in the audience. Photo credit: Ronni Newton

There were questions about snow removal, and Director of Public Works John Phillips said with narrower roadways, the current process of initially plowing the snow into the center of the road and creating a giant berm that is removed the following day will no longer be feasible. “It will require creativity,” he said, but snow plowing will more likely be done the way it is in Blue Back Square, with the snow temporarily pushed into a few of the parallel parking spots and removed completely as soon as possible.

West Hartford has an active community of avid bicyclists, several of whom attended both the morning and evening sessions.

Ed Pawlak, chair of West Hartford’s Pedestrian and Bicycle Commission, said this project is a “generational opportunity” to improve the Center for pedestrians with a visionary plan, but he thinks the designs fall far short. “As great as the Center is, it is an auto-centric community,” he said. There was an opportunity to make it more people-centered but but continuing to allocate so much of the right-of-way to parking, “I think that opportunity has been lost.”

Other business owners, on both Farmington Avenue and LaSalle Road, are pleased to retain the parking. “How many people in West Hartford actually bike?” asked Scott Kluger, owner of Hartford Baking Company on Farmington Avenue, and asked if the town had data. Along with other business owners, he was questioning the need to have bike lanes on Farmington Avenue rather than another nearby block for biking to and through the Center area.

“So you’re saying now there are no bike lanes?” asked resident Tracey Wilson when she saw the plans for Farmington Avenue. “Wow,” was her response when Martin confirmed that statement.

The Center should be built for 2050, built to last, Wilson said, and shouldn’t be auto-centric.

From left: Ethan Frankel, Tracey Wilson, and Ed Pawlak speak with Duane Martin (right) at a breakout session following the presentation of the West Hartford Center Infrastructure Master Plan on April 8, 2024. Photo credit: Ronni Newton

“No one’s going to ride to the Center if they don’t feel it’s safe to ride to the Center,” Ethan Frankel, one of the leaders of Bike West Hartford, said at the morning session. “If you’re not going to provide safe infrastructure, don’t bother putting up bike racks because they’re going to be empty.” Bikes are transportation, he said, and are part of a vibrant community.

Screenshot from April 8, 2024 West Hartford Center Infrastructure Master Plan Public Information Meeting. Courtesy Town of West Hartford

“We’re trying to balance the interests of everybody as best as possible,” Martin said. He said that people can still ride their bikes on Farmington Avenue, and there is the expectation that traffic will move slower. The some preliminary designs created by FHI Studio for the bicycle facilities plan shows bike routes on the blocks north and south of the busiest parts of Farmington Avenue through the Center.

John Green, owner of Lux, Bond & Green on LaSalle Road, said he worries about maintaining the beautification efforts, about keeping the sidewalks looking clean, especially when seasonal outdoor dining is not in place. Ewen said there is a sealant and decorative aggregate that can be used on the concrete to assist with appearance and maintenance.

Martin said detailed design plans will be completed over the next several months, and a construction manager will be hired.

Martin told We-Ha.com that there are still a few areas that need more attention, in particular the south side of Farmington Avenue near the intersection with South Main Street, where the sidewalk is at its narrowest and creates bottlenecks.

Outdoor dining in front of Bricco on LaSalle Road in 2023. Photo credit: Ronni Newton (we-ha.com file photo)

When the barriers that corralled outdoor dining spaces were removed last fall, the intent had been that they would not return, but with the delay in the implementation of the West Hartford Infrastructure Master Plan, the expansion of outdoor dining in the Center into public on-street parking areas is returning next month. The intent is for this to be the last year.

For the next two seasons, there will be construction, and once the work is done, the hope is that outdoor dining will be contained to the sidewalk area up against the buildings. Martin told We-Ha.com that the town will address expanded outdoor dining on a town-wide basis since it exists outside of just Farmington Avenue and LaSalle Road.

LaSalle Road, April 2024. Photo credit: Ronni Newton

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