UPDATE (Tuesday, November 8, 2022): The caption of one photo with this story has been updated to remove the reference of abandoned rail lines. The line in question is still occasionally used.

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Wouldn’t it be cool — or at least ambitious — to park at Fairfield Hills and bike your way to Bridgeport’s Beardsley Park, or hike it, on one contiguous motorized vehicle-free trail network?

Readers could be among the first to get a glimpse of Newtown’s leg of that proposed multi-community trail network by heading to to Newtown Municipal Center on Monday, November 7, at 5:30 pm. Representatives from the local Land Use and Parks and Recreation Departments will be joined in the Council Chambers by a staffer from New York-based Street Plans, which has been working with the regional Council of Governments office to develop what that stretch of trail might look like.

Billed as an “Active Transportation Project” involving the Housatonic Trail Extension, the planning stage of this endeavor is being funded through a statewide program from the CT Department of Public Health (DPH) funded by the CDC, and being handled by Street Plans according to Mike Lydon.,

Lydon and his Street Plans team work at the intersection of transportation, land use, and urban design in cities and towns across the United States and abroad assisting clients, partners, and other like-minded organizations to improve the quality and function of the built environment, according to the organization’s website.

“This is currently Year 4 of the five-year program. The Capitol Region Council of Governments has been the lead statewide on behalf of the Health Dept, leading outreach and project management with the various COGs around the state and via them working to identify local projects that could use funding,” Lydon told The Newtown Bee this week. “Street Plans is the lead technical consultant, helping to lead quick-build projects, small area or concept plans, workshops/trainings that support active transportation initiatives.”

Lydon said Newtown was funded with Year 4 funding from the DPH program.

“So we have been working over the past 12 months to develop a concept park for the extension of the Housatonic Rail Trail to Fairfield Hills,” he added. “We will be presenting an overview of the process and plan next week.”

Rob Sibley, Newtown’s Deputy Director of Planning, has been quietly but intently focused on Newtown’s possible piece of this project since the Herb Rosenthal administration.

“This is the continuation of an Open Space Task Force’s vision that started back in the late 90s,” Sibley explained. “I first attended those meetings at Herb’s request to see how they would progress with the rails to trails, that would bring the Housatonic Trail through Monroe, Trumbull, and into Bridgeport. Today, that is among the most popular eastern Fairfield County trail systems.”

Sibley said at the time Newtown was unable to engage because of two main hurdles: the toxic industrial site formerly known as the Batchelder property near the southern border with Monroe, and the fact that that leg of the Housatonic rail system was still occasionally being used by trains.

“So back then, we were going to have a hard time to make that leap to connect to the Monroe piece,” he said. “We always had that as part of our Plan of Conservation and Development [POCD] vision, and all the subsequent Conservation Commissions have had that as their vision.”

Prior to the arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic, Sibley and Parks and Rec Director Amy Mangold recognized Newtown’s trail systems were becoming increasingly popular, but the challenge involved gathering local, regional, and state parties together to make the necessary decisions.

“So we help open meetings to talk about trails, and so far, the fruit of that labor is our Newtown Bike & Trails Committee,” Sibley said. “And as Amy became involved with the larger trails system, and I became more involved with the Al’s Trail project and grant from the US Park Service, Amy surprised me with the information about Street Plan’s involvement.”

With a vision to extend the rail to trail spur from the Monroe Town border to Fairfield Hills, Mangold and Sibley attended half a dozen meetings with Lydon’s team including two in-person visits where Sibley utilized Newtown’s GIS satellite mapping system to plot a potential course.

“We felt this would be the most viable pathway to connect Monroe’s rails to trails terminus to Fairfield Hills,” Sibley said. “The concept is a 10,000 foot view and identifies what infrastructure would need to be put in place — materials, width, potential amenities, and choke points.”

Street Plan also has that covered as well, and has begun determining how a few key parcels might successfully be included with a trail crossing.

While there is a lot to be done, and funds to be identified and applied along the way, Sibley said it was important that the Street Plan project be presented to the general public, and not just jammed into the agenda of a Board of Selectman’s meeting.

“This is too important and too big a project,” he said, “so we needed to share the vision with the entire community to gain the greatest potential for success. We also put the word out to every local board, commission, and committee so everybody knows about it.”

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Editor John Voket can be reached at john@thebee.com.