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Signs Point to Bullying

By Kerri Provost

October 01, 2012

In any mention of the Hartford section of the East Coast Greenway, two points always seem to come up: people are unaware of its existence despite online cue sheets and markings on the sidewalk, and, the lack of signage.

Yet, ECG signs have popped up in places downtown, in the Riverfront Plaza area.

At the same time, the organization is more or less being forced to take steps away from its own stated goals. On Saturday, the East Coast Greenway Alliance had a booth at the Discover Hartford Tour, providing an opportunity for some answers about why they would agree to an action that would not add, but remove, an off-road section of the route.

As it turns out, nobody representing the organization is thrilled about the push to remove the ECG from Bushnell Park.

Yes, remove.

They said that “because of the iQuilt,” the City is trying to make Bushnell Park for pedestrians only, despite bicycles being allowed in all of Hartford’s parks.

This is not the only attempt to micromanage usage of the park. After unflattering coverage of the City shutting down pickup games of soccer and Ultimate Frisbee, Mayor Segarra has assured park users that a compromise was possible on those games; meanwhile, there is no word on whether or not he continues to support the TIGER money being used to build bike lanes that nobody wants, while the iQuilters continue to basically use coercion to ensure that plan is not challenged or sidetracked in any way. Despite not supporting the removal of the ECG from the park, the East Coast Greenway Alliance made it sound as if they have no choice in the matter– the City, they said, will not permit installation of better ECG signage in Bushnell Park.