Three Westport sidewalk projects are scheduled to finish between October and mid-November. All three fill gaps that people walking and biking have worked around for years. One crossing went the other way. The Jesup Road Bridge near Imperial Avenue was damaged in the September 13 flash flood and is closed, and the Town hasn't set a replacement date. Concrete barriers now block anyone from trying to cross it.
So the map is shifting. By Thanksgiving it should be easier to walk from downtown toward the water. The Library corner, until now the obvious place to start a walk, will be harder to reach. The details below show where the changes are and when each one takes effect.
The Compo Road South gap, closing from the west side
The biggest change is a new concrete sidewalk running about 1.3 miles along the west side of Compo Road South, from just south of Post Road East to Bridge Street. When the Board of Selectmen hired low bidder G. Pic & Sons Construction Co. for the $1.6 million job in March, Westport Journal described the existing strip as "a hodgepodge of crumbling walks and areas with no sidewalk."
Town Engineer Keith Wilberg said the sidewalk had been planned for about six years. State coordination slowed it down, since the project is paid for by a Local Transportation Capital Improvement Program grant. "This is the timeframe we sometimes deal with when we're doing state projects," he said. He also said Town staff would notify owners whose hedges or other front-yard features stood in the planned path.
The Town's September 30 update put the work at about 70% complete and still on track for November 2026. It also warned pedestrians and drivers about active work zones along the corridor. The Town expects the finished sidewalk to complete a bike and pedestrian route between downtown and the train station. It also creates a continuous route from downtown to Longshore and Compo Beach, which the update calls the Town's recreational complexes. The project follows goals set in a 2016 Road Safety Audit of this section of road.
That ten-year gap between the audit and the concrete helps explain why the stretch has felt unfinished to people who walk it.
Why the timing lands in the off-season
The Compo Road South sidewalk is due to finish about a month into Compo's off-season. The Town says beach access is free and open to the public except from May 1 to September 30. The emblem season that controls summer parking is over.
On October 1, dogs came back to designated areas of Compo. Under the Town's dog rules, they can run off-leash south of the brick bathhouses. They must be leashed in the parking lots, on roadways and on the grass, and they aren't allowed on the pavilion, the boardwalks, the playground or the volleyball-court area. The Town's two pages give different end dates for the dog season. The dog-rules page says March 31 and the Compo Beach page says March 30, so check before planning a late-March outing.
The beach is at its most open during the same months the walking route toward it is being finished. A dog walk from downtown to Compo has always been possible. By November, the Town expects the route to be continuous for its whole length.
Two inland links finishing on the same schedule
The shift toward walkable connections isn't limited to the shoreline side of town. Two smaller projects up north each fill a single specific gap.
On Cross Highway, the bridge over Deadman Brook is open to traffic. Crews are finishing the stone veneer, grading and landscaping, so occasional lane closures are still possible. A new sidewalk from Wakeman Town Farm to North Avenue joins the existing sidewalk on the east side of the bridge, which gives pedestrians a connected walk from North Avenue to Bayberry Lane. As of the September 30 update, the new ADA-compliant curb ramps and the sidewalk subbase were in. Completion is estimated for October 2026. The same stretch of Cross Highway, from North Avenue to Bayberry Lane, was milled and repaved in September.
On Easton Road, B & W Paving & Landscaping is replacing the sidewalk on the west side from Pony Lane to Brooklawn Drive. The job also adds a Rectangular Rapid Flashing Beacon crosswalk at the Wisteria Lane intersection. Tree removal in the state right-of-way is done, excavation was underway at the end of September, and the target is mid-November.
None of the three projects covers much distance by itself. Each one joins two walkable stretches that weren't connected before. That matches what Walk Bike Westport says it is after: linking neighborhoods to parks, beaches, the Library, Longshore, downtown and the train station.
The one link that went the other way
The Library corner of downtown lost its link. The Jesup Road Bridge near Imperial Avenue has been closed since September 14, the day after the flash flood. Jersey barriers keep anyone from trying to cross. The Town plans to remove the damaged structure. It has issued a request for proposals for design engineering on a replacement and says a schedule will come in future updates.
Public Works Director Larry Roberts told Westport Journal the new bridge may be larger and wider, because the old one was too small for the storms Westport gets. For now, the RTM Public Works Committee is talking about workarounds. Committee member Peter Gold asked whether Taylor Place, now one-way toward the Post Road, is wide enough to carry two-way traffic. He also suggested people could park in a lot on Imperial Avenue and walk to the Westport Library. These are suggestions from a committee member. The Town hasn't published a detour plan.
For emergency calls, First Selectman Kevin Christie wrote that test routes run by EMS Chief Patrick Riddle added about 30 seconds to one minute for calls on Imperial Avenue south of the bridge. Calls south of Jesup Road but east of Imperial showed no measurable difference.
A ride that traces the new map
Walk Bike Westport's Bridge to Bridge event, set for Sunday, October 18, follows the changing map closely. Last year it was a walk from Jesup Green over the Ruth Steinkraus Cohen Bridge to Saugatuck, past the Cribari Bridge, ending with breakfast at Kneads. This year it's a bike ride. It begins at 3:30 p.m. with a safety talk, followed by a ride of about three miles to Saugatuck and back. Riders 8 and up are welcome, and helmets are required.
The ride starts at the Jesup Green parking lot by the Library. The posted route goes downtown to Imperial Avenue, then Bridge Street, then Riverside Avenue and back downtown, with Westport Police support and refreshments at Jesup Green afterward. Bridge Street is also where the new Compo Road South sidewalk ends. On a single afternoon, the ride starts at the corner of town that just lost its bridge and passes the end point of the biggest new walking link.
Dates through Thanksgiving
Most of the remaining milestones fall in a six-week window. The dates below are the Town's estimates and could move.
- First week of October: final electrical work powering the docks at Compo Ned Dimes Marina, as part of the pier replacement that adds ADA-compliant paths from the parking area to the floating docks.
- Second week of October: the access walkway at Mill Pond is finished, after the old pier was pulled from the water during the tide-gate restoration.
- October 18: Bridge to Bridge ride from Jesup Green, 3:30 p.m.
- Third week of October: equipment stored in the Mill Pond parking area is removed.
- October, estimated: the Cross Highway sidewalk from Wakeman Town Farm to North Avenue opens.
- Fourth week of October: new security gates are delivered to the marina docks and installed soon after.
- October 28: Children's Halloween Parade along Main Street, Avery Place, Myrtle Avenue and Veterans Green. The rain date is October 29. Related closures from 3 to 5:30 p.m. are on the Town's meeting agenda for approval.
- November: the Compo Road South sidewalk is complete. The marina seawall replacement also wraps up, with about 800 feet of old wall swapped for a stone revetment built from roughly 1,000 cubic yards of rock.
- Mid-November: the Easton Road sidewalk and Wisteria Lane flashing-beacon crosswalk are finished.
- Thanksgiving: full site restoration at Mill Pond.
The Jesup Road Bridge isn't on this list because the Town hasn't given it a date.
If you live along Compo Road South, Cross Highway or Easton Road and wonder how a finished sidewalk will show up when you sell, the team at M & D Properties is glad to talk it through. Request a Home Valuation, and we'll include what's changing on your street this fall.
This article is general information, not legal, tax or financial advice. Consult a qualified professional about your situation.