Workers this week began preliminary tasks in the town’s sidewalk expansion project, which will create safe pedestrian passage between the town center and the Fairfield Hills core campus when completed. Through sidewalk construction, the town seeks to encourage safe travel by foot.

As an environmental protection measure, the workers installed black sediment-control fencing parallel to Wasserman Way, along the southern frontage of the 21-acre Reed Intermediate School property. The western half of that property’s frontage currently has a narrow asphalt sidewalk. The asphalt walkway there will be removed and replaced by a five-foot-wide brushed concrete sidewalk.

The current sidewalk project dovetails with the completed Fairfield Hills Streetscape Project. That project improved pedestrian access to the campus via its main entrance and installed some street lighting.

The current sidewalk project is planned with an overall $1,175,000 budget, including federal, state, and local funds. The town share of the project will be 20 percent of the overall amount of money spent. Grasso Industries Inc was awarded the construction component of the project with a bid of $693,755. That price covers construction only, not design work or related project costs. A portable construction office for the project is parked near the Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 308 at Tinkerfield Road.

The town started planning for the sidewalk project in 2013. It received the grant approval in 2015. The sidewalk project had been slated to start construction in mid-2017, but it encountered several delays.

Approximately 5,300 linear feet of sidewalks will be built along South Main Street, Mile Hill Road, Wasserman Way, and Trades Lane. The concrete sidewalks are expected to be much more durable than some existing asphalt sidewalks that will be replaced. Workers will not need to replace existing concrete sidewalks in some areas, such as Walgreens Pharmacy at 49 South Main Street, which already has about 600 linear feet of concrete sidewalks along South Main Street and Mile Hill Road.

Sidewalk construction will start at Reed School, near the intersection of Wasserman Way and Trades Lane. The new sidewalk there will connect to the school’s main driveway entrance on Trades Lane.

Rob Sibley, town deputy planning director, said July 16 that little vegetation will need to be removed to build the new sidewalks.

As the construction work proceeds westward from Reed School, it may encounter an ongoing state Department of Transportation (DOT) drainage project underway at a narrowed section of Mile Mill Road. Rather than have both construction projects underway at the same time in the same place, the sidewalk project would then relocate to the intersection of South Main Street and Glover Avenue, Mr Sibley said. In such a situation, sidewalk construction would then proceed southward along South Main Street.

The new sidewalks are planned for the eastern side of South Main Street between its intersections with Glover Avenue and Mile Hill Road, the northern side of Mile Hill Road between its intersections with South Main Street and Wasserman Way, the northern side of Wasserman Way between its intersections with Mile Hill Road and Trades Lane, and the western side of Trades Lane between its intersections with Wasserman Way and the main driveway at Reed School.

The sidewalk construction design meets the handicapped access requirements specified by Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). The project will not include any roadway improvement work.

The project will not involve the construction of any retaining walls, as the sidewalks will follow the rise and fall of the terrain. The new construction will occur within the state’s rights-of-way for the several roads. The sidewalks will generally be positioned at least five feet away from the curbline along the roadways.

“We want people to have safe pedestrian access to the center of town and the Fairfield Hills campus,” Mr Sibley said.

Walking is a healthy way to travel at lower-than-vehicular speed and allows people “to slow down and see what’s around them,” he said.

With the recent completion of the Newtown Community Center at Fairfield Hills, residents will now have a safe pedestrian link between the town center and that facility, Mr Sibley said. He said he hopes the sidewalk project is completed by late fall or early winter.