'A hidden gem': Exploring miles of the Farmington Canal Heritage Trail
by Amanda Dronzek
The average runner or hobby jogger replaces their shoes every six months, or roughly every 500 miles, according to experts. By that measure, a typical pair of running shoes could complete the Farmington Canal Heritage Trail about five times, give or take.
With the exception of ultra runners, those miles accumulate over time, as shoes trace the same few stretches of the trail day in and day out until the pavement’s imprint is branded into their soles.
The Farmington Canal Heritage Trail — linked to the East Coast Greenway that runs 3,000 miles from Maine to Miami, Florida — exemplifies the power of preservation. And it all began in what would later become Quinnipiac University’s backyard.
“That’s how these trails function,” Laura Brown, executive director of City Plan for New Haven, said. “They’re both for recreation, but also for connectivity, right?”
In 1822, the Farmington Canal Company built an 84-mile-long waterway from New Haven, Connecticut, to Northampton, Massachusetts. By the mid-19th century, locomotives had replaced boats as the most common mode of transport, transforming the channel into a railroad.
Trucks and automobiles succeeded the steam engine, and by the 1980s, the “rails-to-trails” movement converted those tracks into pathways. At first, the Interstate Commerce Commission opted to abandon the land. But residents from Hamden and Cheshire — who later became the Farmington Canal Rail-to-Trail Association 501(c)(3) — petitioned for the trail to be paved and turned into a public path.
Fifty years later, a near-completed 56.6-mile Connecticut portion of the Farmington Canal Heritage Trail — running from Suffield to the New Haven Long Wharf built by engineer William Lanson in the mid-1800s — remains a love letter to a community that champions recreation year-round.
Anyone is at liberty to use the trail 365 days a year, from dawn to dusk, to walk, run, bike, skateboard, scooter, or rollerblade. Members of the Farmington Valley Trails Council — based in Hamden — and local businesses volunteer to maintain the route throughout the seasons by plowing, leafblowing and cleaning up trash for the public.
A mid-1800s view of Lock 12 Historical Park in Cheshire, provided by patrons in 1993 (Courtesy of New Haven Museum).
A mid-1800s view of Lock 12 Historical Park in Cheshire, provided by patrons in 1993 (Courtesy of New Haven Museum).
An estimated mid-1800s view of the Keeper's House at Lock 14 in Hamden, provided by patrons in 1993 (Courtesy of New Haven Museum).
An estimated mid-1800s view of the Keeper's House at Lock 14 in Hamden, provided by patrons in 1993 (Courtesy of New Haven Museum).
“You know, there are many actors and players and champions,” Lisa Fernandez, managing director of the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication, advisor of the FVTC and president of the Farmington Canal Rail-to-Trail Association, said. “It couldn’t be done by a single person or a single organization, and it’s all about networking, making connections and being very patient.”
Patience is essential in non-profit work. Because the trail crosses much of Connecticut, securing state funding is a constant challenge. All 169 towns operate differently politically and economically, which often delays approval processes. Fernandez is pleasantly surprised that the trail is as close to completion as it is.
In Hamden, Quinnipiac anchors the midpoint to a roughly 17-mile-long segment spanning from Cheshire to New Haven. A parking lot located at the base of the York Hill Campus on Sherman Ave provides direct access to the trail.
“When I (started living on) York, I found that it was really convenient to run down and then hop on the trail,” senior industrial engineering major and avid trail user Gavin Grimm said. “Instead of having to drive to a trailhead, you could run down the hill.”
Head south on the footpath toward New Haven, and the greenway is serene, hushed at many points with the occasional glimpse of traffic above narrow overpasses before entering the heart of the city.
Go north past the Mount Carmel Campus and through Cheshire for a longer trek and more urban sights, with the trail sandwiched between residential areas and small businesses veiled by the surrounding woods.
“I’ve lived in Cheshire, in the same location, very close proximity to the trail for the last 16 years,” Whitney “Trip” Sanders, professor of Entrepreneurship and Strategy in the Quinnipiac School of Business, said.
Sanders has been regularly commuting to Quinnipiac via bike since 2018. In more recent years, Sanders estimates he cycles the seven miles to his house and from the university several days a week. It takes him about an hour and 15 minutes round-trip.
“Biking is more than just a mode of transportation,” he said. “For me, it’s an exercise piece, which is a very important factor for me to be the best version of myself. I feel more productive when I arrive (at Quinnipiac) because I know I've knocked out my exercise for the day when I pedal here. I am a better instructor, so my students benefit.”
In the warmer months, reminisce of the canal break through with small streams along either side of the path, humming gently below the sound of shoes slapping pavement.
Last year, Hamden and Cheshire had a combined average of 444 visits per day, according to the Connecticut trail census.
“The trail offers a great outdoor experience for people of different varieties of athletic ability,” Grim said. “You don’t have to be a professional runner to go on it.”
Fernandez wasn’t a professional runner, but she trained for a marathon on that trail in the late 1990s when she moved to New Haven. She would run the few finished miles in Hamden, while the remaining stretches were unpaved, wooded and teeming with poison ivy.
“I met a neighbor…I was talking to him about my running training that was happening on the trail, and he said, ‘There’s a whole organization that's involved in advocating for its completion and closing all the gaps,’ which at that point were huge,” Fernandez said. “And so I started attending meetings, and I just never stopped.”
Much of the town’s landmark appeal stems from the 2-million-year-old Sleeping Giant State Park that lies adjacent to Mount Carmel. After all, it is nicknamed “The Land of the Sleeping Giant.”
However, the mountain can be challenging for some visitors to navigate, with winding, uneven trails that increase the risk of injury. Although the views are closer to ground level, a more accessible alternative for exploring the town is within walking distance.
“I think it’s important to have a publicly accessible asset that takes you away from roadways where there are cars and trucks, that’s more accessible than hiking Sleeping Giant, right?” Fernandez said. “It’s open to people who are in wheelchairs.”
In Sanders’ words, the trail is literally the “most level playing field” in the area for people to exercise.
Pedestrians go through the Farmington Canal Heritage Trail in the 1990s (Courtesy of New Haven Museum).
Pedestrians go through the Farmington Canal Heritage Trail in the 1990s (Courtesy of New Haven Museum).
The central Connecticut stretch of the Farmington Canal Heritage Trail provides a kind of comfort that draws crowds of all walks of life back. Because the trail was formerly a railroad, the path is wider and flatter, giving room for two-way pedestrian traffic.
“A lot of ways we spent as planners historically (were) building suburbs that were very disconnected from health amenities,” Brown said. “So having places where you can get out into the outdoors that are safe, that are separated from motor vehicle traffic, it’s really important.”
On sunny Saturday afternoons when school’s out, families make a day of walking through, their children on tricycles just far enough ahead that their parents can keep an eye on them.
At 8 a.m. on a weekday in February, the same few endurance junkies exhale, “Hi” as they pass one another, cheeks blistered by a bitter New England morning.
And when the road is clear of ice and slush, members of Quinnipiac’s men’s and women’s cross country and women’s track and field have a consistent, scenic practice space.
During cross country season, especially, senior distance cross country and track and field runner Sierra Gray said she and her teammates use the trail “every workout.”
Quinnipiac has a small, two-lane indoor track in the Recreation and Wellness Center of its main campus; however, it is not a formal NCAA venue and has different measurements from an average indoor track. It takes nine laps to reach a mile, whereas indoor facilities are 200 meters and require eight laps to hit a mile.
“I’m glad we have this trail, because if we didn’t, I don’t really know what we would do to be honest,” Gray said. “It’s also nice to have all the markers (which are spray-painted on the pavement to measure distances), it’s flat, and it's perfect to do long workouts on. And, it’s just right there.”
Fernandez and Sanders look forward to the eventual completion of the nearly 60 miles of trail winding through the Nutmeg State. The remaining gap resides in Southington to the edge of Plainville.
In 2025, City Plan completed Phase IV of the greenway extension, a $12 million project adding around 1.6 miles to the few miles of trail already established in the heart of New Haven. This addition tethers several downtown streets above and below ground, connecting to the trailhead at Long Wharf.
“It was really a generational project in several respects,” Brown said. “One is that it took a long time to complete, but two, because it really is so impactful for the city, and it made a lot of the previous sections of built trail that go all the way up to Massachusetts accessible from downtown New Haven.”
The city has plans to implement New Haven’s Greenway Network by 2030, which will partially connect the Farmington Canal Heritage Trail, Shoreline Greenway Trail, Mill River Greenway, West River Greenway and a conceptualized east-west route called the Crosstown Greenway.
According to New Haven Greenways 2030’s website, “Greenways 2030 proposes 27 miles of interconnected active transportation and recreation arteries that create a backbone for New Haven’s active transportation network.”
The Farmington Canal Heritage Trail has seen hundreds of thousands of sneakers on its path since its first six miles through Hamden and Cheshire in 1996. Like durable footwear, this trail was built to last.
“It’s a great resource for students,” Sanders said. “There’s no cost to them, and it’s open all the time. So for that reason, it’s sort of a hidden gem.”
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