"This is the timeframe we sometimes deal with when we're doing state projects," Town Engineer Keith Wilberg told the Board of Selectmen in March, according to the Westport Journal. He was talking about a sidewalk on Compo Road South that had been planned for about six years before anyone poured concrete.
That sidewalk is now close to done. A second new sidewalk on Cross Highway opened in October, and a third on Easton Road is due this month. Downtown, the Jesup Road bridge near Imperial Avenue has been closed since the Sept. 13 storm, and it is about to be torn out. Both sets of projects depend on the same thing: state money and state approvals. The sidewalks have already been through that process. The bridge has barely started it, and the town chose to make that process longer on purpose.
The 1.3 miles that took six years
Until this year, the west side of Compo Road South was what the Journal called "a hodgepodge of crumbling walks and areas with no sidewalk." On March 27 the selectmen hired the low bidder, G. Pic & Sons Construction Co., for a $1.6 million job. The work is paid for by a state grant from the Local Transportation Capital Improvement Program, known as LoTCIP. The new walk is uniform concrete. It runs about 1.3 miles from just south of Post Road East to Bridge Street. Wilberg estimated the work would take about 180 days once it started. Before construction, the town planned to notify owners whose hedges or other front-yard features reached into the sidewalk strip.
In its November infrastructure update, dated Oct. 30, the town said the project is nearing completion and on schedule to finish by the end of November. People are already walking the finished sections, and the town asks walkers and drivers to watch for active work zones along the road.
The town says the finished sidewalk will complete a bike and pedestrian route between downtown and the train station. It will also create a continuous route from downtown to Longshore and Compo Beach. Until now, walking between downtown and the beach on this road meant switching between old pavement and road shoulder.
Two shorter links finish first
The Compo Road South sidewalk is the longest new walk, but two smaller ones are moving faster.
On Cross Highway, the bridge over Deadman Brook is open again. A new sidewalk from Wakeman Town Farm to North Avenue was finished in October, with new ADA-compliant curb ramps at the intersections. It connects to the existing sidewalk on the east side of the bridge, so you can now walk on sidewalk from North Avenue to Bayberry Lane. The road was scheduled to close on June 19, with detours over Bayberry Lane, Long Lots Road and North Avenue. During the work, the town pointed out that businesses such as Gruel Britannia and Christie's Service were still open. The precast concrete rail caps on the bridge are made to order and are due for installation in mid-November.
The new Cross Highway sidewalk now runs past the farm's front gate, and November is a busy month there. Wakeman Town Farm has a Santa Barbara County wine dinner on Thursday, Nov. 19, at 7 p.m. Its children's sessions run Tuesdays through Dec. 15, from 4:15 to 5:15 p.m. The farm's Thanksgiving pie pickup is somewhere else: Earth Animal, 925 Post Road East, on Monday, Nov. 23, from 4 to 7 p.m.
On Easton Road, B & W Paving & Landscaping is replacing the sidewalk on the west side from Pony Lane to Brooklawn Drive. The crew is also building a crosswalk with a rectangular rapid flashing beacon at Wisteria Lane. Both are expected to be done by mid-November, and like Compo Road South, both are paid for with LoTCIP money.
Here's where the town's other active projects stood in the Oct. 30 update:
| Project | What changes | Town's estimate as of Oct. 30 |
|---|---|---|
| Compo Road South sidewalk | About 6,500 feet of new or rebuilt sidewalk, Post Road East to Bridge Street | End of November |
| Cross Highway bridge | Open to traffic, rail caps still to be installed | Mid-November |
| Easton Road and Wisteria Lane | Sidewalk replacement and flashing-beacon crosswalk | Mid-November |
| Mill Pond tide gates | Gates and walkways done, site cleanup underway, full Old Mill Beach lot open | November |
| Compo Ned Dimes Marina piers | Work done except the dock security gates, due the second week of November | November |
| Compo Ned Dimes Marina seawall | About 800 feet of seawall replaced with an armored revetment, new contractors finishing | December |
| Jesup Road bridge | Removal, design of a replacement, and traffic improvements | Removal at the end of November, new bridge to be determined |
The bridge the town chose to build bigger
The Jesup Road bridge is the one project in that table without a finish date. 06880 reported that the closure cut off a route from Imperial Avenue to the Police Department, Jesup Green, the Westport Library, Levitt Pavilion and the Taylor parking lot. The road had also worked as an alternative to the Post Road, which runs parallel to it.
The damaged bridge is scheduled to come out at the end of November. As part of that work, the town will temporarily repair the damaged abutments and reinforce them against flooding until a new bridge is built. Four engineering firms bid on the design work, and the town planned to choose one in the first week of November. The update gives no completion date for the new bridge.
The reason for the open-ended timeline came up at the Oct. 28 selectmen's meeting, as the Westport Journal reported. Public Works Director Larry Roberts said a bridge the same width as the old one would be easier and faster to replace. The town is designing a wider one so that water from Deadman Brook can pass under it more easily. That choice means a longer permitting process, and the bridge will draw from a different state reimbursement pool. First Selectman Kevin Christie called the larger bridge "a better path for reimbursement." Roberts said the town has started applying for a state grant that would cover 50 percent of construction.
Roberts also pointed to a recent Westport example. The town was fully reimbursed for the Greens Farms bridge over Sasco Creek, with half the money from the federal government and half from the state. Getting that funding approved took five and a half years. Shortly after the storm, 06880 reported an early estimate of 12 to 18 months for the replacement. Compo Road South's six years of planning shows how long state-funded projects can take, even simple ones.
Downtown traffic stays the same, for now
At the same Oct. 28 meeting, the selectmen decided not to change downtown traffic patterns. Operations Director Tom Kiely said the closure's effect on traffic has been "relatively limited" and that drivers "have generally been able to utilize alternative routes." Police Chief David Farrell said changing the direction of Bay Street and Taylor Place "invites safety issues at the expense of convenience."
Smaller changes are still being considered. Second Selectwoman Amy Wistreich raised concerns about drivers using the Mancini lot as a cut-through and driving the wrong way on Bay Street. She noted that customers of The Toy Post on Post Road East and The Cake Box on Bay Street usually park in the lot off Bay Street. The ideas on the table include taking parking spaces off Bay Street to widen it, renting spaces from the nearby Bank of America and directing drivers to park on Jesup Road, which the closure has turned into a dead end. Police said they would contact the bank and the Mancini lot's owner.
Getting to Jesup Road's newest restaurant
All of this matters more because of who just opened on Jesup Road. Chef Bill Taibe's hi'Amba at 33 Jesup Road was announced to open Oct. 14, and by late October 06880 was calling it "the buzzy new restaurant/market on Jesup Road." CT Bites describes it as an all-day bakery, café and restaurant built around a working bakery, with Eastern Mediterranean, North African and Southwest Asian flavors. Downstairs is counter service, and upstairs is a full-service dining room. According to 06880, it has already hosted its first outside event, a business panel sponsored in part by the Westport Downtown Association.
Since the bridge is out, you'll have to reach the restaurant, the Library and Levitt Pavilion from the downtown side. For the coming weeks:
- The Westport Library at 20 Jesup Road is holding a free lunch-and-learn on AI for small businesses with the Westport Weston Chamber of Commerce. It's Friday, Nov. 13, from noon to 1 p.m. in the Komansky Room, and it repeats Dec. 11.
- The old Imperial Avenue connection now takes a longer route. In October, more than 100 riders joined Walk Bike Westport's first Bridge-to-Bridge ride. Their route went from Jesup Green via Bay Street and the Post Road, then to Imperial Avenue and Bridge Street, and across the Cribari Bridge before returning to Jesup Green.
The first holiday weekend on the new map
Westport's holiday season starts with the Town Hall Tree Lighting on Dec. 3. Two days later, on Saturday, Dec. 5, the sixth annual Holiday Stroll fills Main, Elm and Church Streets from 4 to 7 p.m. 06880 and the Westport Downtown Association put it on. According to 06880, the Staples Orphenians and a string ensemble will perform, along with a DJ. There will also be Santa, face painting, a photo booth, merchant specials, and PopUp Bagels celebrating its Westport opening. The stroll falls on the second night of Hanukkah, so Chabad of Westport will lead a menorah lighting.
The stroll will be the first big downtown night with the Jesup Road bridge gone. If the town stays on schedule, it will also be the first with a finished sidewalk from Bridge Street to Post Road East.
New sidewalks, a bridge that won't reopen for a while, and a downtown that hasn't changed its traffic patterns all affect where you park and how long it takes to walk places. Those details affect what a property is worth, too. If you want to know how changes like these play into your own home's value, Robbie Salvatore can walk you through it. Get a Free Home Valuation.