In the News: New connection could break down barriers to CT river. ‘A whole new vibe’ that’s welcoming and creative.

This article by Kenneth R. Gosselin appeared in the Hartford Courant on July 26, 2026.

In the dozen or so years since Delicia Arnold and her family moved back to Hartford, Arnold has watched a barren swath of parking lots just north of downtown and a short walk from her house transform into a popular minor league ballpark and hundreds of apartments — with plans for more development in the near future.

Arnold also has her eye just to the east on the Connecticut River — and how a stronger connection to Riverside Park could further build on redevelopment efforts and create an amenity for longtime residents of surrounding neighborhoods. “It’s going to take on a whole new vibe,” Arnold said.

Now, a percolating plan — long promoted by the iQuilt Partnership — to create a more walkable, inviting way to reach the river is taking a major step forward.

Designs are underway to tackle a major makeover of the only way pedestrians can reach Riverside Park from the northside of the city: a 1970s-era cage-like system of ramps, steps and a footbridge over Interstate 91. Tucked far back in a parking lot, essentially hugging the highway — its location makes it unclear whether it is open for use or not, or even what it is.

Arnold well remembers the times she and her son pushed their bicycles up the ramps in an attempt to reach Riverside Park from their home in the Clay Arsenal, a nearby northside neighborhood.

“It’s not the most inviting or appealing place, especially at dawn,” Arnold, co-chair of of the Clay Arsenal Revitalization Association, a neighborhood organization, said. “If a lot of people don’t use it — a lot of people don’t even know that it is there, and some of those people live less than a mile away from [the] river.”

Over the next 18 months, a recently-selected team of consultants will design the roughly, one-mile “Riverlink” — its centerpiece replacing the existing access from downtown to Riverside Park that now has an appearance often compared to a prison.

The plans call for creating gently-sloping ramps on both sides of the pedestrian bridge over the highway, one potentially stepping off at the intersection of Market and Pleasant streets, just down the hill from Dunkin’ Park and the North Crossing mixed-use development.

The $2.7 million design project — a partnership of iQuilt, a nonprofit focused at creating a more walkable city, and the city of Hartford — seeks to raise the profile of what could become a key, future point of access to the river. The idea is to not only encourage pedestrian use but everything from bicycles and scooters to wheelchairs.

Construction could cost an estimated $20 million to $30 million. Those funds must still be cobbled together, potentially a combination of federal, state and local dollars. How quickly the funding comes together will determine when construction can begin, according to Jackie Mandyck, iQuilt’s executive director.

“The bridge can become an experience and not one that’s ‘Well, I’m not walking over that,’ ” Mandyck said. “We want somebody to go on it and say, ‘Wow.’ How many more people can we bring into that park with the ramp starting on Market Street, rather than it being hidden in a parking lot?”

IQuilt estimates that a ramp entrance at Market Street could increase foot traffic to Riverside Park by as much as 30% to 40%.

“Once they bring it down towards Market Street, it will be a great, great improvement in the quality of life,” Arnold said. “People might just take a stroll down Main Street and then down across the bridge, right? More people might just enjoy the riverfront.”

RiverLink is part of the much larger Hartline, a 7-mile greenway that is envisioned between the Bloomfield town line and Riverside Park. RiverLink could become the first section of Hartline that is built, later extending along city streets, potentially following along the Griffin Line rail corridor to Bloomfield. The Hartline also is seen as filling a crucial gap in Hartford in the East Coast Greenway, which spans about 3,000 miles from Key West, FL to Maine.

This map shows how the planned, 7-mile Hartline pedestrian and bicycling trail would connect Hartford’s Riverside Park to Bloomfield. The urban trail would include sections on a bridge over I-91, along Hartford streets and finally along the route of the Griffin Line rail. (Courtesy of iQuilt/Hartford 400 and Suisman Urban Design)

Riverlink also is included in the state’s Greater Hartford Mobility Program that lays out plans for encouraging alternate ways of getting around the region, lessening reliance on the motor vehicle.

While the mobility program has big-ticket components such as relocating the I-91/I-84 interchange in Hartford, smaller projects such as RiverLink are seen as more attainable in the near future. All, however, are seen as helping to reconnect Hartford neighborhoods and the city’s ties with its riverfront — torn apart for two generations by the construction of the interstates in the late 1960s.

RiverLink is closely aligned with Hartford 400, a grand, sweeping vision for reconnecting the city with its riverfront by moving, burying or capping highways.

RiverLink’s ramps and bridge also would dovetail with Riverfront Recapture‘s push to expand a system of walkways along the river, following a north-south path. At Riverside Park, there would be a connection to an east-west option with RiverLink, providing a new route to downtown Hartford and eventually, beyond.

“It will help take people from that downtown/Clay Arsenal area and make it easier to the access not only the Connecticut River, but the riverfront parks,” Michael Zaleski, president and chief executive of Riverfront Recapture, a nonprofit aimed at strengthening ties to the Connecticut River.

This rendering shows how an early conceptual vision for how RiverLink could connect downtown Hartford to a pedestrian bridge over I-91 to Riverside Park. The walkway would gently rise from Market Street and curve to connect with the bridge. (iQuilt Hartford 400/Suisman Urban Design)

RiverLink also would come at a time when Riverfront Recapture is embarking on the first significant expansion of Riverside Park in its 125-year history.

The project includes a 2.5-mile river walk running between the park and Windsor, Zaleski said. The new section of walkway is named after Joe Marfuggi, the former longtime chief executive of the organization, who died in 2018. The section of riverwalk will include 25 posts with wayfinding, audio and visual elements telling the story of the river.

In addition to the ramps and bridge over I-91, RiverLink also would stretch west from Market Street, along Pleasant Street — past the ballpark — and across Main Street. From there, it would continue around the corner on Walnut Street to Edwards Street, linking directly into Clay Arsenal. Improvements would include wider sidewalks and other amenities, setting the stage for future phases of the Hartline.

The area around the ballpark is slated for more apartments, a boutique hotel, a center for applied artificial intelligence and the new headquarters of Greater Hartford Gives, the former Hartford Foundation for Public Giving.

More inviting, more iconic
The consulting team hired to design Riverlink will be led by Agency Landscape + Planning, an urban designer with projects around the country. One of those projects, conversion of a rail line in New Jersey with bridges into an urban greenway, is similar to the Hartline.

Cambridge, MA-based Agency also is familiar with Hartford, having worked on the city’s master plan for its parks in 2014.

Jill Allen Dixon, a director and urban planner at  Agency, said the project is complex, ranging from the length needed for the ramps so they will not be too steep to whether the existing bridge can be reused in a new way, a key consideration in keeping construction costs down.

“It’s a tall bridge and it needs a long ramp to make sure that everyone can get up there — not just successfully, but in a way that is enjoyable,” Dixon said. “A lot of people really imagine something that is more inviting, more iconic — something that is really a symbol of all the great things about Hartford for the broader area to see when they experience this bridge.”

Comments from the community from such groups as the Clay Arsenal Revitalization Association will continue to be sought throughout the period of design, expected to be completed by the end of 2027.

Amir Johnson, director of external relations and programs at the iQuilt Partnership, and Jamella Weir, an iQuilt summer intern, talk about plans for the RiverLink on the existing footbridge over I-91. (Aaron Flaum/Hartford Courant)

If the footbridge were to be replaced, it is likely the period of construction would be pushed back. The structure spans an area that includes a levee, which would require review by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. iQuilt and the city are already working with the state Department of Transportation, which backs the project.

Dixon said other issues to be considered are the deafening roar of traffic passing under the footbridge on I-91 and how to soften it. It also is expected that the footbridge would still need to be fully enclosed, but perhaps in an alternative to the existing chain-link, Dixon said.

One member of the consulting team, San Francisco-based TYLin, which has an office in Hamden, specializes in bridge design. Other members of the team are New York-based Langan Engineering & Environmental Services with an office in New Haven; Rocky Hill-based CHA Consulting; HLB Lighting Design, headquartered in Denver; and Ummo, a branding firm in Newton, MA.

IQuilt also sees the footbridge’s location spanning the heavily-traveled I-91 as a way to market Hartford.

Amir Johnson, iQuilt’s director of external relations and programs, said one example elsewhere in the state is the Beehive Bridge in New Britain, over Route 72.

“It’s an example of how you can redesign bridges in our state to make them more welcoming, more accessible and more of a staple,” Johnson said, during a recent visit to the footbridge over I-91. “So when people come into our capital city, they say, ‘Wow, this is really the city of Hartford.’ ”

“And that’s what we want to see in our state,” Johnson said. “We want to see more urban activation that is welcoming, that’s creative,” Johnson said. “This is what the Riverlink piece will do.”

Kenneth R. Gosselin can be reached at kgosselin@courant.com