Stamford’s West Side Corridor: 'Visionary Projects' to Improve Connections, Safety

Stamford’s West Side neighborhood is one of the most diverse in the city. According to city profiles from CT Data Haven, 49% of residents are Latino, 36% are Black, and 10% are white, and most economically challenged, with a 14% poverty rate and 39% of its residents classified as low-income.  

It’s also one of the most congested and challenging areas to navigate for residents. And it’s one of the most unsafe, with some of the highest crash rates in the city, according to Frank Petise, the city’s transportation bureau chief.

That’s why state, federal, and local officials have been working to invest more in the area, to make it safer and easier to get around. 

Earlier this year, the city received a $17 million Reconnecting Communities and Neighborhoods grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation to go toward its West Side Neighborhood Connector Project. The goal of the project is to help “improve connectivity between the West Side, Downtown, and South End neighborhoods and the Stamford Transportation Center.” 

Mayor Caroline Simmons said this grant will “completely transform and enhance connectivity on the West Side of Stamford and establish a connected, walkable greenway from Mill River Park to the Stamford Transportation Center.”

“My administration is committed to prioritizing investments in pedestrian safety and this grant will allow us to make critical investments in sidewalks, bump outs, traffic signal improvements, wayfinding, and green space which will improve accessibility and mobility for West Side residents to the Downtown, South End, and to the Stamford train station,” she said. 

The majority of the grant will fund the Mill River Greenway project, an off-road path that aims to provide a direct link from the Mill River Greenway to the Stamford Transportation Center.

In October, the city unveiled the latest completed section—the Richmond Hill Riverwalk, which stretches from Tresser Boulevard to Richmond Hill Avenue. The project included new walking paths, lighting, the removal of invasive species, and more. 

“The West Side has some of the highest crash rates in Stamford and lacks easy and safe access to the train station and other parts of Stamford,” Petise said. “Thanks to this grant, our Department will work closely with the community to improve safety and mobility for the West Side.”

In addition, the city received a $2.1 million federal grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Rebuilding American Infrastructure with Sustainability and Equity (RAISE) program to design about 1.1 miles of West Main Street between Greenwich Avenue and Havemeyer Lane. The city will contribute about $1.4 million to this effort, which aims to have design work finished by 2028. 

“The project aims to reduce crashes, decrease vehicle miles traveled and gas emissions, promote economic development and provide critical transportation access,” Jianhong Wang, a transportation engineer with the city, said. 

Wang said that some of the things they’ll be looking at in design include ways to “improve safety for all road users along the corridor, including roadway realignment, traffic signal improvement, sidewalk improvement, visible crosswalks with shorter crossing distance, separated and/or shared bike lanes and enhanced bus boarding island stops.” 

The Board of Finance approved the funding in October, although some members recommended against reducing travel lanes in the area.

“This is way out of my area of expertise, but I would be shocked if that was the goal, to decrease the amount of available laneways on Route 1,” Board Member Dennis Mahoney said. “That just intuitively makes no sense to me.”

Board member Laura Burwick agreed, adding that she thinks reducing lanes would complicate the roadway for all users. 

“As someone who travels this stretch of road, I am all for pedestrian safety, but shrinking them down to one lane, I just think it's going to create a traffic nightmare,” she said. 

Wang noted that they weren’t proposing to make the whole roadway smaller, but they would be conducting a capacity analysis to see if it would make more sense to go from four lanes to three in some parts of this area, with one lane in each direction and then a middle turning lane. 

“It's going to be a balance,” she said. “The goal is to provide equal opportunity for all roadway users.” 

However, Board Chair Richard Freedman highlighted the need for focusing on pedestrians over cars. 

“I’m going to respectfully disagree with my board members—this is one of the most densely settled neighborhoods in Stamford, people are walking around here all the time,” he said. “I think to our disadvantage we’ve erred for decades in the city for making it easier to drive and harder to walk—that’s why we have pedestrian fatalities, that's why people walk less than they might want to.” 

Freedman said that he believed it was “eminently possible” to make it both “better for pedestrians without making it worse for cars.” 

Another goal of both of these projects is to improve air quality in the neighborhood, particularly through alleviating congestion and providing safer spaces for residents to get outside. The West Side has one of the highest rates of asthma in the city, with 11.6% of adults in the neighborhood living with asthma. It also has one of the lowest life expectancies in the city, with an average of 78.1 years, compared to 86.2 years North Stamford and 84.2 for Shippan. 

Freedman said he believed this would be a “great project” to help address some of those concerns.

“There's people walking around all over the place down there, and there's a ton of car pollution down there,” he said. “It's not good for the people who live there. And so I think we should stop always doing all of our designs to favor people driving around in the cars.”