I mentioned a few blog posts ago that after 5 and a half years living in Hartford, I have moved to an upgraded living space in Windsor Connecticut.  The apartment complex is called Windsor Station Apartments, and it’s a very lovely place that is well worth the increased rent.  It has a community room where you can watch T.V., and play a wide assortment of board games such as Monopoly, Scrabble, and Chinese Checkers.  Outside, they have a pond where people, including me, can fish.  When I lived in Hartford, I would have to drive if I wanted to fish anywhere, and it was always a hassle to load a fishing rod in a car.  I would have to put my back seat down, and the hook would frequently get caught in the back of my seat.  So it is nice to be able to simply walk out of my apartment and cast my rod.  The complex has a walking trail that runs parallel to the nearby Farmington River. It is close to Loomis Chaffee, a prestigious boarding school, and another place where you can take a good walk.  Unlike Hartford, Windsor Station has an elevator, and my apartment is equipped with a washer, dryer, and a dishwasher.  I will not miss carrying a load of laundry up and down 2 flights of stairs, nor will I pine for the days when I had to wash all of my dishes by hand!

What is really nice about my new place is that there are many stores and shops within walking distance.  There is a CVS within a 5 minute walk from my apartment where I pick up my prescriptions and basic supplies.  I’ve promised myself that I will only travel to that CVS by foot.  Within a ten minute walk of my apartment, there are, among other things: A supermarket, barbershop, library, restaurants, post office, town hall, and an art gallery.

The main feature of my neighborhood is the Windsor train station.  That station, which is next to the CVS, has existed as long as there has been a railroad line there, and that line, like passenger rail in many places, experienced significant declines in rail traffic. But in 2015, Connecticut created a new rail service called Ctrail with the goal of increasing the commuter rail service from New Haven Connecticut to Springfield Massachusetts.  In the proceeding three years, a second track was laid along significant portions of that route, and elevated platforms were added at most of the stations, including Windsor.  Ctrail debuted In 2018, and the number of trains running from Springfield to New Haven tripled.  Ctrail spurred an increase in the number of businesses and residential places along this route, including the apartment complex where I live.  There is a reason why my place is called Windsor Station Apartments.

What is notable is that in the West End of Hartford, where I previously lived, there also was a CVS, restaurants, and essential businesses within walking distance.  Yet until close to the time that I moved out, I drove to every one of those places, if I frequented them at all.  It is most likely because those places are on Farmington Avenue, which is a busy street which intersects Hartford and West Hartford.  Even though Farmington Avenue has decent sidewalks, I never really thought of walking anywhere, except on a late night stroll.  It’s not that the area was particularly dangerous for pedestrians, it’s just that subconsciously, seeing a street that a lot of cars use makes it less desirable to walk around on.

What is different about Windsor is that the streets next to my apartment have less vehicular traffic on a regular basis than Farmington Avenue.  The main strip of downtown Windsor has a large green that separates the CVS, Town Hall, and Library from Broad Street, which many cars use.  If you measure the distance from my apartment to Broad Street, the closest street that is like Farmington Avenue is almost a quarter of a mile away.  It is pretty easy to see why I would walk more in my new Windsor neighborhood than in Hartford.

What I have just described highlights one aspect of making towns more pedestrian friendly:  Increasing the distance between busy thoroughfares and people who walk.  It is why efforts such as closing parts of streets in Time Square in New York to cars are so critical to making that area more attractive.  In addition to making it more desirable and safe for non-vehicular users, it decreases the amount of noise that bikers and walkers have to put up with.  This is something that West Hartford is trying to do with its Vision Zero project that I wrote about before, and is an initiative that many urban, suburban, and exurban municipalities either are or should consider doing.