In September 2015, the Town of Greenwich put Shore Road on its list of first-priority places for new sidewalks in eastern Greenwich. Construction on the stretch between Sound Beach Avenue and South Crossway began on October 13, 2026. What closed that 11-year gap was a group of residents who went out on Shore Road, counted the people walking to Greenwich Point, and asked the town's budget board to pay for a sidewalk.
Anyone driving to the park this month passes the result. Saw cuts, police-directed alternating traffic, and a contractor working toward a year-end finish are the last steps of an effort that started at kitchen tables in Old Greenwich.
A Priority on Paper Since 2015
The town adopted the Eastern Greenwich Neighborhood Plan on September 15, 2015. Its section on walking and biking drew on the recommendations of the First Selectman's Pedestrian Safety Plan. It ranked candidate sidewalk links by how close they were to pedestrian generators such as schools, train stations, and parks, and by traffic volume and street width. Five links were marked first priority: Havemeyer Lane, part of Palmer Hill Road, part of Laddins Rock Road, Shore Road, and parts of Sound Beach Avenue south of Lockwood Avenue. The same survey also put Shore Road on its list of streets where people felt unsafe riding a bike.
Shore Road scored well on all of those criteria. It is the only road that leads to the town's best-known park, and the Department of Public Works puts its traffic at about 2,250 vehicles a day. But a priority ranking in a neighborhood plan does not pay for anything. Concrete and contractors need a budget line, and for years Shore Road did not have one.
The Count That Changed the Conversation
Residents started a campaign called Sidewalks on Shore in 2022. Their main argument was a number. According to the Greenwich Beacon, the group's 2022 count found that about 10% of Greenwich Point Park's summer visitors walked in along Shore Road, roughly 238 people on an average day.
That count changed how the road looked to the town. Shore Road is usually thought of as a drive to the beach. A daily count of 238 walkers made it a pedestrian route that had no sidewalk. In a Greenwich Free Press update, two of the campaign's voices, Old Greenwich residents Maggie Bound and Kristen Beecher, added more points:
"Over 500,000 people come to Tod's Point just in the summer season – and ten percent of those visitors arrive on foot."
They wrote that Shore Road has 26 school bus stops along that stretch during the school year. They also called the sidewalk the project residents request most often from the Department of Public Works. Their piece ended with a request. Readers were asked to contact members of the Board of Estimate and Taxation, the board that decides whether a project like this gets money, and were pointed to sidewalksonshore.org for more.
Other residents wrote in too. Marcie Molloy, a local physician, sent a letter to the Greenwich Free Press backing the segment from Sound Beach Avenue to South Crossway, which she described as "at the causeway before Tod's Point." The Greenwich Beacon later reported that she urged funders to act, and that she called the lack of safe walking access to Tod's Point "negligent."
The approach worked because it turned the 2015 plan's criteria into local numbers. The plan ranked sidewalks by park proximity and traffic. The campaign supplied a daily walker count, a bus stop count, and a visitor estimate. That gave the budget board figures it could weigh against a dollar amount.
From Survey to Saw Cut
| When | What happened |
|---|---|
| September 15, 2015 | Eastern Greenwich Neighborhood Plan adopted, with Shore Road listed as a first-priority sidewalk link |
| 2022 | Old Greenwich residents launch Sidewalks on Shore |
| Fall 2023 | Phase 1 built on the east side of Shore Road, Tomac Avenue to Sound Beach Avenue |
| March 25, 2025 | DPW public information meeting on Phase 2 at Town Hall, where staff confirmed the sidewalk was feasible |
| July 7, 2026 | Construction contract awarded to A. Vitti Excavators, LLC |
| October 13, 2026 | Phase 2 construction begins at Sound Beach Avenue and Shore Road |
| End of 2026 | Target completion, depending on weather and site conditions |
Phase 2 was harder than a simple pour along the curb. Before design work started, DPW received a topographical survey of the corridor from Rocco V. D'Andrea, Inc. The design phase then had to settle which side of Shore Road the sidewalk would run on. DPW also said it expected to work with frontage owners on easements, fence relocations, and moving hydrants wherever a property's frontage conflicted with the planned route. On a winding residential road lined with yards and fences, that lot-by-lot coordination is a big reason a project waits years between the plan and the first saw cut.
The town requested $1.25 million for the work. The project runs as Town Project No. 21-27, and a civil engineer in the DPW Engineering Division, Ian Brown, manages it.
Getting Through the Work Zone This Month
The Greenwich Free Press published DPW's construction plan. Work starts at the corner of Sound Beach Avenue and Shore Road and moves southwest toward Greenwich Point. The first tasks are saw cutting and excavating parts of the roadway and the strip of public land next to it. For anyone using the road in November and December:
- Hours: Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.
- Traffic: Some stages of the work need alternating one-way traffic, with police officers on site to direct cars.
- Evenings and weekends: Crews restore the road to drivable condition at the end of each workday.
- Timing: Patch and the town both give the end of the year as the target, subject to weather and other conditions.
- Questions: Ian Brown can be reached at 203-622-7860 or through the town's Shore Road Sidewalk Project page.
The Greenwich Beacon told drivers who use Shore Road for school drop-offs or trips to Greenwich Point to expect delays once excavation is underway. Since crews stop at 4 p.m. on weekdays, a late-afternoon or weekend trip to the point avoids the active work hours.
Where the New Sidewalk Ends, and Who Is Walking to It Now
Phase 2 ends at South Crossway, which the advocates describe as the causeway just before Tod's Point. Together with Phase 1, the finished project will give pedestrians a sidewalk from Tomac Avenue through the Sound Beach Avenue corner and on to the edge of the causeway. That covers the stretch the campaign had been asking for since 2022.
The timing of the work also lines up with the park calendar. Under the town's provisional 2026 beach policy, Greenwich Point passes apply during set daytime hours from May 1 through October 31, and the November 1 through April 30 period is listed as requiring no passes. The state's tourism listing for the park says permits are required from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. between May 1 and October 31, and that no fees are charged from November through April. So the sidewalk is going in during the off-season months, with crews working beside the people walking to the park.
The summer count that drove the campaign measured beachgoers in July. The first people to use the finished sidewalk will more likely be walking in on a cold weekday in December or January, along the stretch of Shore Road that the town marked as a priority back in 2015.
If you are thinking about how a finished sidewalk on Shore Road changes daily life on the streets that lead to Tod's Point, Charles Paternina & Associates can talk through what Old Greenwich's latest public improvements mean for the homes along them. Request a Private Consultation.
