Brookfield residents have accepted little more than $798,000 in state grant money for roadway and streetscape improvements at the Four Corners.  The handful of residents at a Town Meeting last week voted in favor of the work at the intersection of Routes 202 and 25. 

First Selectman Bill Tinsley says pedestrian and bicycle improvements will be made, as well as traffic signaling and roadway geometry.  He says the work hasn't started yet.  Despite the state granting the money to do the project, Brookfield isn't able to start until the Department of Transportation approves the plans.  Those plans have been in front of the DOT since last September.  Tinsley says they are in the fourth pass of the review process, and a local group will meet with the DOT this week to push the approval. 

No local match is required.

Additional funding for an 8,500 foot multi-use trail was also approved.  The Still River Greenway project is being paid for, in part, through state and federal grants.  The planning for this project started 14 years ago. 

Last June, a referendum led to approval of $2.47 million.  The state DOT is paying $1.9 million of that, with the $481,400 balance coming from the Town of Brookfield.  The number was based on a DOT estimate.  Final contracts exceeded the estimates, and 80% will still be funded by the state.  An additional $396,000 was approved at the Town Meeting.  Total bonding for the project is set at about $560,000.

The pedestrian trail will run from Route 133 at Juntion Road stretching to Route 202 at the Four Corners.  Tinsley says the construction has started on the road bed.  In just one week, they've done from the northern terminus to the point where a bridge will go across the river by the police station. 

One man at the Town Meeting spoke in opposition to the funding, saying that the trail amounts to a glorified sidewalk.  Having just built the Fund Balance back up, the resident said bonding has to stop, doing only what the town can afford.