Sharing a short story with the Fairfield Hills Authority Monday, Parks and Recreation Director Amy Mangold offered a glimpse of what “makes me feel good” about her job: A woman stopped her recently while on the Fairfield Hills grounds, saying she had to leave her child’s bike behind as they walked through a meadow, which the bike couldn’t cross. The woman had said to Ms Mangold, “Wouldn’t it be great if we had a trail going all the way around the campus?”

She then told the authority: “It was one of those times that I had the right answer.”

An additional stretch of trail “is coming,” she said, which will connect an area of meadow with the existing trails. With $300,000 in the town’s Capital Improvement Plan (CIP), funding is available for the next phase of trail development. Ms Mangold hopes to see work begin in the spring.

An additional eight-tenths of a mile, 10-foot wide, asphalt trail surface construction is slated for the campus. Once the funding is bonded, Ms Mangold anticipates the project will go out to bid.

Nearly a mile of paved surfaces will soon connect with an existing improved trailway leading through meadows and wooded areas. The current trail leads from between Cochran House on Mile Hill South Road and a baseball field, up through a wooded area to crest the High Meadow, then leads down to a cul-de-sac visible from Wasserman Way.

The new stretch will cross in front of Cochran House on Mile Hill South Road to meander through a field, bordering that road as it leads toward Wasserman Way. The trail will turn to border Wasserman, pass before the new Newtown Volunteer Ambulance headquarters, head toward the campus’s main entrance and cross the four-way intersection just behind the engineer’s house. From there, travelers can walk the road leading to the cul-de-sac below High Meadow.

Trail upgrades are part of the master plan for the Fairfield Hills redevelopment, and work is completed as funds become available. The additional eight-tenths of a mile of trail will add to the current 1.6 miles of trails.

Hamden-based firm Stantec has done the design work.