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Opinion: Norwalk Leaders: Let’s Make Connecticut Avenue Safe for Everyone

October 16, 2025
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Jack Pavia
Yup. That’s me. Taking my e-bike out on Connecticut Avenue.

Connecticut Avenue is a destination for everyone in Norwalk, no matter whether you’re arriving by car, bus, bike, or foot. However, for people on foot and especially on bikes, it’s currently dangerous and inconvenient. A two-way shared-use path on Connecticut Avenue spanning from the I-95 interchange to Richards Avenue would physically separate cyclists and pedestrians from cars, allowing everyone to get to where they need to go safely and conveniently.

Here’s the good news: people are already moving to remedy the issue. A study is underway; in December 2024, The Western Connecticut Council of Governments released the first part, assessing the existing conditions of Connecticut Avenue. It makes clear the necessity of dedicated infrastructure for pedestrians and bikes (using the NACTO Urban Bikeway Design Guide) and makes specific reference to Complete Streets Policy at both the state and local level to accommodate “non-motorized users”.

Since then, WestCOG has released proposed improvements to the corridor for public review, specifically recommending the shared-use path I’m describing. The problem? It wouldn’t stretch as far as is necessary.

WestCOG recommends that the path stretch from Belden Avenue to Ferris Avenue, neglecting to include the hundreds of residents who live off of the west side of Connecticut Avenue in addition to the most useful and popular destinations along the corridor. In order to truly address the needs of Norwalk residents, it must stretch to Richards Avenue, guaranteeing access to all of the businesses we have to offer, no matter the mode of transportation.

The issue of street safety hits home for me. As a non-car owner, I get everywhere on my e-bike. And sometimes, no matter how safely I’m riding and how tight my helmet is, I’m put in a terrifying situation because of the lack of dedicated infrastructure.

And I’m not alone; just a few minutes looking at Connecticut Avenue will reveal that many others make the same harrowing choice to bike on the street. Without a shared-use path, we’re forced to ride incredibly close to automobiles that dwarf us. It only takes one car to kill a pedestrian or bicyclist, as we tragically and repeatedly have learned.

Featuring everything from coffee shops and dentist’s offices to apartments and gyms, the role of Connecticut Avenue has always been more complex than its single-use infrastructure has led on. The introduction of a shared-use path along the entirety of its commercial corridor would help to unlock the true potential it has.

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Comments

4 responses to “Opinion: Norwalk Leaders: Let’s Make Connecticut Avenue Safe for Everyone”

  1. Thomas Blyth

    Thanks for the write-up Jack. It really would be a shame for the planned path to end before reaching the major destinations on Connecticut Ave. Norwalk already suffers from disconnected bike lanes to nowhere, and we should be taking this opportunity to help buck and correct that trend instead of continuing it. Get the CT Ave path all the way to Richards!

  2. Mike Mushak

    Great letter, and I support this effort! And thanks for all your advocacy along with all the good folks at Sustainable Streets for making our streets safer for all users.

    The other biggest obstacle to improving road safety is the CTDOT insistence on wider 11-foot lanes on all state roads that decades of FHA research shows encourages higher speeds, and despite the DOT’s own standards manual that lists safer 10-foot lanes as a standard for low-speed arterials (under 40 mph) in “built-up areas”. The CTDOT is ignoring their own standards all over Norwalk, and defying their own policy to implement “context-sensitive design” that reflects the “context “ of where the road or project is located. Using the same lane-width standard for dense Fairfield County as they use for “quiet corners” of rural CT makes no sense, but here we are.

    This one-foot difference in lane width may seem miniscule, but it actually makes a world of difference to a cyclist and even to pedestrians on sidewalks, as each one foot increment spread out across 4 lanes gives an extra 2 ft of clearance on each shoulder while simultaneously lowering average car speeds 5-7 mph as FHA research proves 10-foot lanes can accomplish. The wider shoulders may not become bona fide striped bike lanes, but they still give an added buffer to cyclists and keep cars and trucks further away from pedestrians on sidewalks.

    The DOT insistence on using the same 11-foot lane width standard in Norwalk as they do in more rural areas of the state that are not “built-up” defies logic. They even insisted on 11-foot lanes in downtown Rowayton about 8 years ago after repaving, despite our desperate requests from the Bike/Walk Task Force (which Harry Rilling asked me to spearhead in 2014 soon after he was elected and which became the Bike/Walk Commission in 2019), where previously there were 9-foot lanes that worked great for decades. The new striping in Rowayton prevented a safer buffer on Rt 136 from speeding traffic, and even forced parked cars onto the sidewalks near the Rowayton Market.

    That stubborn 11-foot lane width was also extended onto Wilson Ave in South Norwalk where it prevented the use of a striped bike lane and forced us to have “sharrows” which are more dangerous than designated bike lanes that gives cyclists their own designated lane and are proven to improve bike safety even if not the ideal separated facility we all crave (but is unfeasible due to cost on most local 2-lane roads.)

    There is zero evidence in the Federal Highway Administrations’s decades of research that shows the need for an 11-foot lane on low-speed roads below 40 mph, and the entire City of New York nearby has a 10-foot lane standard and their trucks and buses are no smaller than ours. Yet here we are in CT, being forced to use the same lane width standard used in the most remote and rural parts of the state. It makes no sense, and only makes our roads less safe which is the opposite of what engineers are required to do under law, which is protect public health and safety.

    If the state of CT restriped all of CT Ave, Westport Ave, and Route 7 in Norwalk in Wilton with safer 10-foot lanes that are proven to slow traffic speeds and increase shoulder width, we’d instantly improve bike and pedestrian safety for the low cost of paint. It wouldn’t solve everything but it would make an immediate difference by lowering accident rates due to high speeds, reducing accidents and injuries and even deaths.

    Sorry to pivot from your excellent letter Jack, but thank you for the opportunity to vent against the CTDOT that has their heart in the right place, but whose engineers seem stuck in an obsolete car-oriented lane-width rut left over from the last century!

    And to add a little historical political note: When we first tried to get bike lanes on the dangerous 4-lane speedway on Beach Rd in 2012, where people used to die from high speed accidents on what was basically a highway with interstate size 12-foot wide travel lanes, there was a petition against the bike lanes that was signed by 700 people mostly from East Norwalk, and when I checked their party registration it was 98% Republican! The Norwalk Republicans literally chose to politicize public safety, and Mayor Moccia killed the bike lanes proposal we had worked so hard to achieve, throwing all of us bike lane advocates under the bus. Moccia even bribed a Democrat Common Council member from South Norwalk to switch his vote, becoming the deciding vote on the split council to kill the bike lanes despite that council member’s promise to support the bike lane the morning of the council meeting. When asked why he switched his vote in a District B Democrat meeting,, the council member stated “Moccia made him an offer he couldn’t refuse, a favor of a cash grant to a church in South Norwalk.” We were stunned by the honest admission, and to this day I will never forget how devious Republicans were in fighting common sense public safety improvements for purely political purposes.

    It took the election of Harry Rilling in 2013 to finally get those bike lanes on Beach Rd in 2014, which reduced lane widths to 10 feet to get the 4 foot shoulders we needed for striped bike lanes. Although not the ideal 5 foot width, the bike lanes and narrower 10 foot travel lanes made an instant impact on car speeds, lowering them to the average 25 mph we see now, reducing accidents and injuries (and even deaths) from car crashes and giving everyone a safer watch ride they’re bikes to the beach, and making the sidewalks much safer as well as folks would actually get hit with truck mirrors as they were only inches away from the curbs. That kind of common sense safety improvement was what Republicans were against, so much so that the Republican mayor used bribery to achieve that goal of blocking it!

    I could write a book about corrupt Republican shenanigans like this that I’ve witnessed in Norwalk over the last 25 years, including their dependable reactionary opposition to every bike lane proposal we’ve ever had, which is why I’ll never vote for a Republican again for any office, even dog catcher!

    Vote Row A Democrat on Nov 4th for experienced and competent leadership.

  3. Becca Stoll

    Hear hear! A safe ct Ave would make me willing to bike from ENo to temple in WeNo 🙂

  4. Mike Mushak

    Great letter, and I support this effort! And thanks for all your advocacy along with all the good folks at Sustainable Streets for making our streets safer for all users. The other biggest obstacle to improving road safety is the CTDOT insistence on wider 11-foot lanes on all state roads that decades of FHA research shows encourages higher speeds from 5-7 mph, and despite the DOT’s own standards manual that lists safer 10-foot lanes as a standard for low-speed arterials (under 40 mph) in “built-up areas”.

    The CTDOT is ignoring their own standards all over Norwalk, and defying their own policy to implement “context-sensitive design” that reflects the “context “ of where the road or project is located. Using the same lane-width standard for dense Fairfield County as they use for “quiet corners” of rural CT makes no sense, but here we are. This one-foot difference in lane width may seem miniscule, but it actually makes a world of difference to a cyclist and even to pedestrians on sidewalks, as each one foot increment spread out across 4 lanes gives an extra 2 feet width to the shoulder which gives more room for cyclists and keeps vehicles further away from sidewalks.

    And to add a little historical political note: When we first tried to get bike lanes on the dangerous 4-lane speedway on Beach Rd in 2012, where people used to die from high speed accidents on what was basically a highway with interstate size 12-foot wide travel lanes, there was a petition against the bike lanes that was signed by 700 people mostly from East Norwalk, and when I checked their party registration it was 98% Republican! The Norwalk Republicans literally chose to politicize public safety, and Mayor Moccia killed the bike lanes proposal we had worked so hard to achieve, throwing all of us bike lane advocates under the bus.

    It took the election of Harry Rilling in 2013 to finally get those bike lanes on Beach Rd in 2014, which reduced lane widths to 10 feet to get the 4 foot shoulders we needed for striped bike lanes. Although not the ideal 5 foot width, the bike lanes and narrower 10 foot travel lanes made an instant impact on car speeds, lowering them to the average 25 mph we see now, reducing accidents and injuries (and even deaths) from car crashes and giving everyone a safer way to ride their bikes to the beach, and making the sidewalks much safer as well as folks would actually get hit with truck mirrors as they were only inches away from the curbs.

    That kind of common sense safety improvement was what Republicans were against. I could write a book about corrupt Republican shenanigans like this that I’ve witnessed in Norwalk over the last 25 years, including their dependable reactionary opposition to every bike lane proposal we’ve ever had, which is why I’ll never vote for a Republican again for any office, even dog catcher! Vote Row A Democrat on Nov 4th for experienced and competent leadership.

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