Let’s begin with an anecdote. I was in Fairfield, Connecticut, in the passenger seat of my friend C.K.’s car, when we passed a woman walking by the side of the road. “This poor woman,” C.K. remarked. “I see her all the time. I think she has epilepsy.” 

“What makes you think that?” 

“Because I always see her walking to Trader Joe’s and back.” 

“Huh?” I tilted my head to one side like a spaniel, struggling to find some connection between epilepsy and walking to Trader Joe’s. Meanwhile, C.K. was looking at me like I was an idiot. 

“Well, obviously, if she has a seizure disorder, then she wouldn’t be able to get a driver’s license,” he explained in patient tones. 

It was on the tip of my tongue to say that I, too, usually walk to get groceries, but I decided to keep quiet. This was not the first time it had come to my attention that walking someplace one can easily reach by car is not considered a mainstream behavior in the state of Connecticut. So the conversation ended there, with C.K. thinking I’m an idiot. But it left me wondering what outlandish assumptions people make when they see me walking to get groceries.

Greenwich, where I live, is a few towns away from Fairfield, about 50 minutes on I-95, or 40 minutes on the Merritt Parkway with no traffic. (This is how people measure distances in Connecticut.) And despite its proximity to transit and its cute historic downtown, Greenwich is not a very pedestrian-friendly place.

When I moved here from Manhattan in 2013, I knew I’d have to get a car, and it soon became clear that I would be driving a lot—primarily around getting my kid to school and back and running errands along the way. Now, though, with my teenager off at college, I do almost everything on foot. 

My experimental suburban version of the committed pedestrianism I embraced when I lived in Manhattan (and, before that, Atlanta), is going OK: well enough that I’ve been thinking of selling my car. Carvana estimates that it’s worth about $6,200 and informs me it has “low mileage,” which astonishes me, because for the past 12 years, while my kid was still in school, it felt like all I did was drive. 

My home address, near the New York border, has a not-so-great Walk Score of 64 out of a possible 100. That’s surprising, in a way; I’m about a 20-minute walk from a CVS and a Citarella, and a 30-minute walk from a Walgreens, a bakery, and the post office. In 30 minutes I can also walk to the bank, to my doctor’s office, to the dentist, and to the Metro-North train—which, in turn, can take me south to Manhattan or north to New Haven, the two places I most often need to get to for work.

All of this sounds promising in theory, but in practice, to get to any of those places, I have to cross Route 1, which was named Connecticut’s most dangerous road for pedestrians shortly after I moved here. There is no avoiding Route 1. Even if I’m going somewhere that’s on the same side of the roadway as my house, I have to cross it, because Route 1 doesn’t have sidewalks on both sides for much of the way, and there isn’t always a crosswalk at the spot where the sidewalk suddenly ends. (I suppose that’s because nobody walks here.) 

Going places on Route 1 by foot also means walking along Route 1, which can be its own special hell. Roadside litter, roadkill, traffic noise, and exhaust fumes are a given, while the little things that make a walk pleasant—interesting storefronts; shade; nice landscaping; physical barriers to protect pedestrians from errant drivers—are mostly absent. Oddly enough, pedestrian traffic is pretty constant, but few (if any) concessions are made for us. There are long stretches of Route 1 with well-maintained sidewalks on both sides, but where I live, on the New York border, that’s the exception. Even where there are sidewalks, the majority of people don’t linger here—they’re driving past in their cars, as fast as they can. 

Amusingly, to me, “as fast as they can” is often “not quite as fast as I’m walking.” Route 1 is a driver’s best alternative when there’s an accident or construction on I-95 or the Merritt, which means traffic on Route 1 is often at a standstill. One reason I like doing errands on foot, even in a relative pedestrian hell, is because it often takes less time—and the amount of time it takes is predictable. Around here, errands in the car typically mean some time in bumper-to-bumper traffic. A quick grocery run can unavoidably stretch to hours behind the wheel. 

Of course, I’m setting up a false binary. Most of us are both pedestrians and drivers, and we switch back and forth as needed. And, to be fair, drivers aren’t universally hostile toward pedestrians. In fact, most drivers seem to have the same blistering hatred toward other drivers as they do toward pedestrians, which is … comforting? 

Informal data gathering (i.e., asking my friends what they think) reveals that some people feel pedestrians are using the roads irresponsibly around here. “If you’re not in the crosswalk or the walk sign isn’t lit, I’m sorry, you deserve to get hit,” one woman told me. Others seem more concerned; my friend Stefanie, a Greenwich realtor who grew up here and now lives in back country (what locals call the zone north of the Merritt, an area of long-winding, almost rural roads, often without sidewalks or even much of a shoulder) says she wishes more pedestrians knew to wear light-colored clothes and walk facing traffic, watching for approaching cars. When she’s driving, Stefanie will sometimes pull over and tell pedestrians this. She’s not entirely sure if it helps. 

The Cherished Parking Spots of Our Forefathers

Connecticut wants its towns to be more walkable. There are grant programs to improve walkability in communities statewide, and Fairfield and Greenwich have both received funds under these programs. The Complete Streets movement has its adherents here; some of them even live in Greenwich. The Greenwich Department of Public Works also won a $400,000 U.S. Department of Transportation award to develop a comprehensive plan to make streets safer for users of all modes of transportation. 

It’s worth remembering that these grants don’t just materialize out of thin air. Any time a municipality gets a grant, it’s an indication that many stakeholders behind the scenes worked hard through a sometimes arduous application process to qualify for the money. 

But free money, even if there’s a lot of it, doesn’t necessarily make things simple. Case in point: In 2022, Greenwich won a $2.8 million federal grant for an infrastructure upgrade of its historic downtown. The proposed changes—including curb bump-outs to shorten pedestrian crossing distances, passive traffic calming measures, and plantings to make crossings pleasant and visible—would have brought the targeted intersection into compliance with the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA). 

In downtown Greenwich, ADA-compliant structures and intersections aren’t as common as they should be—hardly an unusual state of affairs for a town whose history began in 1640. Fred Camillo, who, since 2019, has held the mayor-like position of First Selectman, is aware of the problem. Early in Camillo’s first term, a Greenwich Avenue intersection got an upgrade similar to the one described above; the $2.8 million grant from the state in 2022 would have enabled a repeat of the process at another downtown intersection, where Arch and Griggs streets both cross Greenwich Avenue. 

But there was a catch. The town charter requires that the Representative Town Meeting (RTM), the legislative body of the town, sign off on all such projects. Indeed, much of what happens in Greenwich is governed by the RTM, a 230-member legislative body that must approve expenditures, municipal improvements, ordinances, labor contracts, gifts to the town, and the acceptance of federal or state funding. 

Dan Quigley, a longtime Greenwich resident who currently chairs the RTM’s land use committee, informed me that the RTM is the third-largest legislative body in America, after the U.S. House of Representatives and the New Hampshire state house. (To put these numbers in perspective, consider that New Hampshire has around 1.4 million residents, whereas Greenwich has only about 64,000.)

In due course, the $2.8 million received the requisite approvals from the RTM, the Planning and Zoning Commission, and the Board of Selectmen. But the fickle gods of small-town representative democracy had a few more cards up their sleeves. A dissenter moved to bring the project before the RTM again, and this time a small but vociferous faction voted it down. 

Some say the speech delivered by Republican Town Committee Chair Beth McGillivray was the one that turned the tide against the $2.8 million grant. The speech in question, expanding on the theme “Say Goodbye,” was a sentimental paean to the town’s historic character, and how intersection upgrades would ruin it. It included the line: “Say goodbye to premier parking on Greenwich Avenue” (notwithstanding the fact that the town was founded a couple of centuries before the automobile appeared).

Still, a majority apparently found the “loss of historically significant parking spaces” notion persuasive, and in December of that year, the proposed intersection improvements at Arch and Grigg streets ground to a halt, and it was the $2.8 million in state grant money that the town had to say goodbye to. 

Several days later—in a turn of events that several RTM members had cannily predicted—Alan Gunzberg, who chairs the First Selectman’s Advisory Committee for People With Disabilities, dutifully filed a grievance against the town under the ADA. The grievance stated that crosswalks, curb heights and designated parking for the disabled were out of ADA compliance. (Gunzberg, who is legally blind, in addition to chairing the committee, is a dedicated advocate for the rights of disabled people.)

Resistance grew among the project’s detractors. Concerns ranged from fears for the impact of construction on certain trees, to perceived disrespect for a nearby war monument, to general lamentation for the historic character of downtown. (Those premier parking spaces that our forefathers cherished!)

But the grievance had set the wheels in motion, and town funding was ultimately approved. In September 2024, the Board of Estimate and Taxation, which oversees the town’s budgeting process, released $450,000 for ADA improvements along Greenwich Avenue. 

When I talked to Camillo about it earlier this month, he told me, “It turned out to be a very costly decision on the RTM’s part, because we had to give back $2.8 million in a grant we fought for. Another town, another municipality, claimed that money. And now, all the work you see being done for ADA compliance and beautification, we’re spending our own money. It doesn’t make sense. Yeah, it is crazy.”

As of spring 2025, work has resumed on the northern sections of Greenwich Avenue, adding curb ramps and ADA parking spaces, as well as landscaping and lighting improvements. The work is expected to be completed this fall, bringing the avenue into ADA compliance and, as a welcome side effect, making it more pedestrian friendly. 

For Gunzberg, however, the victory was bittersweet. The public hearing process exposed ugly attitudes about disability and a sense of entitlement among the project’s opponents that still rankles. He told me, “What we heard during the discussion on funding the necessary fixes for the sidewalks, crosswalks, and accessible parking stalls all smacked of ableism.” 

Public hearings require patience, as testimony tends to run the gamut from informed and persuasive to misinformed and inconsequential; but to Gunzberg, some comments seemed rooted in ignorance or unexamined prejudice. “From one member asking if it would be safe for women with high-heeled shoes”—as if the whims of the fashionably shod should outweigh federally mandated protections for the disabled— “to another member whose ‘disabled friend’ was against the upgrades, the arrogance of the ill-informed and entitled was fully on display.” 

“I really felt marginalized, and I felt dismissed,” he added. “It’s unfortunate in this day and age that the discussion of inclusion in society is blocked by small-minded individuals who care more about their pocketbooks than their community.”

Cars Are Private Property—Public Spaces Are for People

Cars are private property that we inexplicably dedicate immense swathes of public space to. The first time I interviewed Fred Camillo for Common Edge, circumstances conspired to throw this simple fact into sharp relief. Early in 2020, we’d planned to talk about pedestrian safety. We scheduled a call for mid-March, and if you remember anything about 2020, you probably know where I’m going with this: by the time Camillo and I actually spoke, the pandemic had changed a lot of things. For one thing, with lockdown in full effect, there was virtually no traffic. 

It was a strange moment for Camillo, who had taken office just a few months earlier with big plans for downtown Greenwich. Recalling that conversation when we spoke this month, Camillo said, “We’ve actually gotten a lot of things done since then … and every single thing has been fought.” He sounded only mildly irritated by this, as if more or less resigned to the imperfection of the process. 

“If you look at the history of Greenwich, every beautiful asset that we’ve had here that we’ve had to purchase or build has faced significant opposition,” Camillo told me. “Tod’s Point, the grand jewel in our park system—when we purchased it in 1945 for $550,000, it failed the RTM and the BET three times. On the fourth try, it passed by one vote. And some of the comments were, It’s too much money, no one will go there.” (Side note: It’s a beautiful beach nestled in a scenic park with a marina, hiking trails, a sailing school, osprey and bald eagle nesting sites, and a waterfront nature preserve. People definitely go there, LOL.). 

“It’s bizarre,” Camillo said of the divisive nature of public projects that go on to prove wildly popular. “You look back at history and you say, What were they thinking? But any idea is going to get significant opposition.” 

The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Diagonal Crosser

Signals and infrastructure upgrades that might boost pedestrian safety elsewhere seem to get run through the Greenwich-i-fier and distorted to toothless vestiges of their former selves. To wit: For a while, I thought the pedestrian signals on some Greenwich crosswalks were timed for diagonal crossing for pedestrians. When you press the pedestrian crossing button, after a while, if you’re very patient and good, the signal illuminates for pedestrians crossing in any and all directions while all car traffic is stopped. In some cities (and I swear I didn’t dream this; go to Los Angeles if you don’t believe me), this indicates that you, the pedestrian, can cross diagonally. 

I like that. Diagonal crossing is more efficient: pedestrians get to where they’re going faster, and the signal is activated less often, since all pedestrians can cross at once. True, you only get 15 seconds to cross (in Greenwich, the signal gives you a big, ominous, blazing-orange countdown), but it’s sufficient if you’re crossing diagonally. 

Fifteen seconds, though, isn’t really enough to cross one street, turn at a right angle, and then cross the other. Because I live in a world that makes sense, if only in my mind, I interpreted this to mean that diagonal crossing had reached us poor heathens on the wild Greenwich frontier. I’m telling you: Everything about these signals was telling me to cross diagonally. However, dear reader, I was soon to learn the error of my diagonal ways. 

Since not all drivers (or pedestrians, for that matter) know that diagonal crossing is a thing, it’s really only safer for pedestrians if intersections are clearly marked with a diagonal crosswalk and accompanying signage saying diagonal crossing is permitted. That lets drivers know to look out for diagonal crossers. 

So I asked one local official—the very knowledgeable and policy-minded Janet Stone McGuigan, an RTM member who also serves on the Board of Selectmen and who co-chairs the Greenwich Sustainability Committee, among many other acts of public service—why our crosswalks had timed lights for diagonal crossing but no signage. She hastened to inform me that diagonal crossing is actually illegal in Connecticut. (Another source told me it’s illegal “unless signals indicate otherwise.”) 

“Unfortunately, all that stuff has to be approved by the state,” Camillo told me. “Even on private roads, if we want to do a stop sign or a pedestrian crossing speed mitigation, we have to make sure that it fits certain criteria, that we’ve done a study …” his voice trailed off, implying more bureaucratic hurdles. “We do what we can do on a local level. It’s just we always have to take into consideration what the state laws are.” 

Roadways and Their Many (Mis)uses 

That comprehensive road safety plan I mentioned is now in its public-input stage, with a series of public hearings and an online interactive map so residents can get location-specific about their concerns and suggestions. I’ve hit the link several times but stopped short of inputting any feedback, paralyzed by a sense that, with every mile of Route 1 presenting its own unique and urgent safety concern, I don’t know where to begin.

Recently, a pedestrian crossing the stretch of Route 1 that passes through Greenwich was charged with “misuse of the roadway” after being struck by a car. Since I cross Route 1 so often, and often have no choice but to cross a car-dedicated space to get where I’m going, the incident shocked me. Ticketing pedestrians is actually not that uncommon (here and elsewhere), but it bothers me because it seems to send the message that public space belongs to cars and pedestrians are intruding, when, really, it should be the other way around. 

“Greenwich has always been a car-centric town,” Camillo said, when I asked him if he thinks the town will ever get friendlier to pedestrians. “We’re trying to make it more pedestrian friendly. But you see the phenomenon on the avenue where somebody needs to visit two businesses and they get in the car and they have to move the car twice because they can’t walk it, which I think is crazy.”

He pointed out that whether drivers like the bump-outs or not, traffic calming measures save pedestrian lives. “It works all over the country—all over the world, for that matter.” And the Elm Street upgrade won an ACE award (the Achievement in Civil Engineering award from the Connecticut Society of Civil Engineers), the kind of objective affirmation that tends to last in the public record when the controversy of the moment has faded into the past.

Still, pedestrian deaths continue to rise. In 2022, Connecticut had its deadliest year since the 1980s for pedestrian fatalities caused by cars. Camillo says the stat came up when the $2.8 million was being debated. “We let the BET and the RTM know that, and it fell on a lot of deaf ears, unfortunately,” said Camillo. “But you know what? It’ll get done.”

During the pandemic, part of Greenwich Avenue was temporarily closed to car traffic. Because I like to push my luck, I asked Camillo if he ever thought about bringing that back, maybe as a seasonal thing. Acknowledging that “we loved it” and that “Governor Lamont bragged about it in his weekly press conferences,” he also reminded me that the pandemic was a time of many exceptional measures, not all of which were meant to last. In the end, the road closure worried local business owners: would foot traffic make up for patrons who could no longer show up by car? (Greenwich residents tend to enjoy parking right in front of wherever they’re going). The last thing anyone wanted to do during Covid was make things even harder for local businesses, so Greenwich Avenue opened up to car traffic again. 

Camillo told me, “I still have visions where, you know, after 5 o’clock we could close it. I certainly would be happy to revisit it if people would like that, because I loved it. Not all businesses at the bottom of the avenue were against it. Some were actually for it. But I didn’t want any unintended consequences.”

The bottom line is: Consensus is rare, so when a plan works for, if not most, at least many of the people in the town, that’s a decent outcome. “That’s never gonna change. You know, this is why we have elections,” Camillo said. “I remind people: You know, we all run on agendas, and people know those agendas when they go to the polls. … You can’t get discouraged. You gotta keep moving forward.” Just not diagonally.

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