Pedestrian bridge increases Riverwalk

ANSONIA — The city’s Riverwalk just got a little bigger.

But it took nearly nine hours Saturday and several months of planning before the 130-foot pedestrian bridge was placed over the Waterbury-Bridgeport rail line on Pershing Drive.

Now pedestrians can walk from downtown Shelton through Derby cross Division Street near Stop & Shop and walk to Pershing Drive just before Pelin Pizza.

Nearly three dozen people watched from Pershing Drive as well as the Riverwalk as crews from Waters Construction, of Bridgeport, and Luchs Consulting Engineers/DeCarlo and Doll, of Meriden, carefully guided the 80,000 weathered steel bridge between two concrete segments at 1 p.m..

“This took a tremendous amount of planning,” said Mario Smith, Waters’ president. “We had to coordinate with Metro-North for an opening and hope the weather held up. They were doing maintenance today so no trains were coming through.”

They had to hope for no wind.

“Wind really affects the crane,” Smith said. “We couldn’t have done this in the wind on Friday.”

Smith said a five-inch concrete pad will cover the bridge’s deck. They’ll then build walkways on both sides of the bridge, hydroseed the sides and place riprap along the river’s banks.

The bridge is expected to open next month.

The $2.3 million project was funded by the Federal Highway Administration and state Department of Transportation with a 20 percent city match.

“This isn’t the end,” Mayor David Cassetti said. “I’m hopeful that within the next year we start segments 3 and 4 which will loop residents from the bridge to behind Target and back onto Division Street.”

The centerpiece of that segment, pending approval by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will be a 35-foot lighthouse perched atop a Naugatuck River levy. Plans are for the lighthouse to have an observation deck.

“It’ll be a nice touch,” Cassetti said. “People could walk up and look out to either side of the Naugatuck River.”

Cassetti already picked out a name — Charger Point Light — using the high school’s nickname.

He envisions it as “the beacon of the Valley and a source of pride for Ansonia residents.”

Last summer, the city received $1,368,494 in funding for that segment of the project. The money came from the Federal Highway Administration’s Transportation Alternatives Program, the state Department of Transportation, the Bridgeport Metropolitan Planning Organization and the Naugatuck Valley Council of Governments.

“We have the money,” said Sheila O’Malley, Ansonia’s economic development director. “We expect to go out to bid in June.”

But Cassetti’s main goal. is to have the Ansonia Riverwalk continue to Seymour.

“I’d like to see it cross Olson Drive into Riverside Drive up through the woodlot and along Route 8,” he said “There is such beautiful scenery along the Naugatuck River especially when the leaves are changing in the fall. People could get off, have lunch at one of our downtown restaurants and then continue. You’d be able to walk from Shelton through Derby and Ansonia into Seymour.”

Dawn Wulff and her eight-year-old son, Marcus, were among those on the Ansonia Riverwalk on Saturday.

“It’s a nice asset,” said Wulff, who with her three children bicycle, scooter and walk to Shelton maybe twice a month in the warm weather.

“We do it a lot in the summer,” Marcus said.

Last week, Bill Purcell, president of the Greater Valley Chamber of Commerce, said the Derby section “is the most used greenway in the United States.”

He made the comment during an April 18 Naugatuck Valley Council of Governments public hearing on the proposed improvements to the Derby-Shelton bridge. That project includes a bike lane from the bridge to the Derby Greenway.