Connecticut River Walk Planning Continues
by Bill Dusty
On Tuesday, December 16, 2008, Springfield Parks Department manager Michael Tully met up with several activists who are promoting the Springfield section of the Connecticut River Walk and Bikeway.
The River Walk currently includes completed sections in Agawam and Springfield. There are plans for the path to eventually continue north through Chicopee and also to connect to Holyoke’s Canal Walk. To date, there is no connection between the Agawam and Springfield sections. That connection would need to traverse the South End bridge. River Walk activists Sheila McElwaine, Herb Singleton, Bob McCarroll and Bill Malloy, who attended Tuesday’s meeting, were among the local residents who participated in a three-part informal survey of the Springfield River Walk this past spring. (See posts on each survey here, here, and here.)
Meeting in a conference room at Springfield’s Forest Park, Tully presented a PowerPoint slideshow of what the Parks Department is involved with for both the River Walk and a proposed rail trail that would bisect the city of Springfield. Tully stressed, however, that thus far his department is only charged with the maintenance of the River Walk and trail routes. “We only maintain it at this point,” he said. He said that other parties would need to be contacted to address various aspects of each project. These parties would include the city’s Planning Department, the Springfield Riverfront Development Corporation (Basketball Hall of Fame property), the Conservation Commission, and Amtrak.
Two of the primary challenges for the Springfield section of the River Walk are access/egress from the South End portion of the route – which currently finishes in a dead end – and creation of a safe passage over the South End Bridge. 
Tully proposed a possible access route via Mill Street, although any plan would necessarily have to include some kind of skywalk to cross over the active railway that runs parallel to the River Walk for much of its path (leading north up to about Memorial Bridge). On the matter of the South End bridge, there are plans to repaint the bridge at some point in the near future. But if the bikeway route is to eventually cross the span, then work will need to be done to improve the sidewalk area. “This whole sidewalk needs to be redone,” said Singleton as he pointed to the bridge on a map. Earlier in the year, Singleton had taken his bicycle over the bridge. He said the experience was not a pleasant one. The sidewalk has damaged sections, he said, and it is also quite narrow.
Related to the South End bridge-crossing obstacle is also the fact that on the other side, the current Agawam River Walk path terminates considerably short (south) of the bridge. Agawam would need to commit resources to finish the connection on their end.
Tully also introduced to the group a proposed plan to create a rail trail along a former rail route that cuts through Springfield. That route would follow along Lyman Street and cross over St James Avenue, Bay Street, and State Street.
Tully said he was meeting with students at UMass to go over possible design scenarios. “They’re already going over designs for what this possible rail trail might look like,” he said. For now, however, the trail is “still very much” in the planning stages. But Tully stressed the need to have various connections to the River Walk from the city, rather than maintaining it as a stand-alone entity. And he said the proposed rail trail could be one of those connections, as well as possibly a connection leading to Forest Park.
Using riverwalk trails in other cities as examples of what might be accomplished in Springfield, Tully used Pittsburgh’s riverfront to illustrate connections and linkages, and he cited Cincinnati’s Riverfront Park as “a very similar situation to Springfield. A highway runs right through it,” he said. Also being considered, said Tully, is the idea of creating a design charette consisting of the business community, design professionals, architectural firms, and planners to help create a “more thorough” design of the city’s riverfront.
Also discussed was what to do once people arrive at the River Walk’s primary attraction. Riverfront Park currently has very little going on by way of activities and events, and the River Walk activists would like to see that change. Ideas such as boat rides and a miniature golf course would cost the city more money to construct, and if they didn’t pan out, it would be money squandered. Instead, McCarroll asked about the possibility of getting concessionaires to operate in the park, offering not only food but also, for example, in-line skate rentals. As for events, McCarroll said he would like to see a Parks program whereby annual event-holders at Forest Park would take every third or fourth year off from that park and hold their event at Riverfront Park instead.
And then there is the matter of people learning about Riverfront Park on the Web. “I know we are in the works of updating our Web site for the parks department,” said Tully when asked about idea.
McElwaine said she would like to see a Web site created specifically for Riverfront Park, complete with an interactive ability for visitors to schedule events there.
On issues of regular maintenance, it was agreed that even though trash did not appear to be a serious problem along the River Walk, trash receptacles still needed to be installed at various points. Tully also discussed cutting back invasive – and obstructive – plant species, placing signs along the highway and Main Street, and making sure the elevator to the skywalk is properly maintained. On the latter issue, however, the Springfield Riverfront Development Corporation owns “a big portion” of the property, said Tully. “They are the ones we’d have to go through.”
That brought up another issue of particular importance to the activists at the meeting: River Walk accountability. Currently, the path crosses into the interests of several different city departments and commercial entities. As a result, what’s been happening the past few years has been a great deal of planning and not an entirely large amount of implementation.
McElwaine said she would like to see the entire span of the River Walk brought into the Parks Department. “We want to take it to the next level,” she said, “because nothing’s going to happen unless it’s [the River Walk] taken as park land.”
She cited the issue of installing signage as a prime example of the jurisdiction problem. “Patty Gambarini, from the Pioneer Valley Planning Commission, has the money,” she said. “They will produce the signs, they will bring them over. They just need someone to put them in the ground.”
McElwaine also criticized the habit of thinking too broadly when considering ideas to better the riverfront. “I really think that we should deal with the concrete things,” she said. “I really think that to talk about a charette and to get people to talk about blue sky things like restaurants and row clubs and all that is to just invite frustration. I think we need to make this path, as it exists, as useful, as attractive, and as well-used as possible, and build a constituency so that then, and only then, we can do a charette that makes any sense. Otherwise, people in this city are filled with frustration right now, and I think to ask them to dream is to ask for a big fight.”
Singleton agreed with McElwaine’s assessment: “Like Sheila said, I think it’s going to be tough to get it [the charette] going right now because we’re so used to being over-promised and under-delivered.”
McCarroll said the city also needs to market its commodities more effectively. “Having been a city planner for thirty years,” he said, “my assessment of the city is that it is great at spending money and doing projects, in which case it then checks it off and forgets about it. What this thing needs is nurturing and promotion.”
To that end, the River Walk activists are hoping to put together a presentation to bring before the Park Commission by March that would include many of the ideas they have envisioned.
Again alluding to the tangle of interests surrounding the River Walk route, McElwaine said she would like to see a central authority put in place. “It’s so bizarre,” she said of the situation. “That’s why we need to have it taken as park land and we need somebody whose job it is to oversee all this stuff.
“We need a bike trail czar.”
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