Farmington bike trail link complete

SUFFIELD - Bicyclists, walkers, runners and other recreation lovers are rejoicing here, as the final portion of the Farmington Valley Rail Trail in West Suffield has been completed.

Construction crews finished work recently on the last section, which is about 1,800 feet or three-tenths of a mile, connecting the Connecticut portion of the trail to the three-mile paved section in Southwick.

"I border on the ecstatic," said Stephen G. Noble, treasurer of the Farmington Valley Trails Council who has been involved with the rail trail project in the Farmington Valley of Connecticut since 1992. "There were some funding and some bureaucratic delays that went on and on forever. Each time you have a bureaucratic delay, funding becomes more of a factor because prices go up."

This last completed section in West Suffield brings the total number of miles along the north-south trail in Connecticut, from Farmington to West Suffield, to 22.

The final work in West Suffield involved the installation of two bridges: one over Mountain Brook in the southern part of the span and one over Palmer Book in the northern part. Construction crews had to first demolish old structures, built of rails, wood and reinforced concrete, which crossed those brooks, according to Suffield Town Engineer Gerald J. Turbet.

"We had new reinforced concrete abutments constructed on each side, and pre-constructed bridges installed on those abutments," Turbet said.

The bridge over Mountain Brook is 50 feet long, and the Palmer Brook bridge is 45 feet long. Both are 12 feet wide and have capacities of 10 tons.

The bridges, like those in place along other sections of the trail, are made of a type of steel known as weathering steel. The metal bridge rail-

ings are coated with a material that rusts, to protect it from rusting further, as a way of corrosion protection.

"It's a fairly inexpensive way to have a pre-constructed bridge (installed), where the whole bridge structure is built in a factory," Turbet said. "It comes on a flatbed truck and is put into place with a crane. Both bridges were set during one morning" Sept. 23, he said.

Additional planned work along the new section will be the installation of three-rail fences, mainly along the side of the trail where it abuts the canal. New signs will be installed along the trail, and bollards, or metal posts, will be installed at the front of each bridge to dissuade people from driving vehicles over the bridges and along the trail.

"The installation would be such that they could be removed easily so an emergency vehicle could get over there if need be," Turbet said.

The construction bid for the project came in at $278,000, and the engineering contract had a "not to exceed" limit of $115,000. Eighty percent of the costs are being reimbursed by the state Department of Transportation using federal funds. The project is also being funded by a $61,000 grant from the state Department of Environmental Protection, with the rest of it being picked up by the town.

"It's exciting for me (to have it completed) because I've been working on it for such a long time," Turbet said. "We bid this project back in 2007."