The Derby Greenway was officially opened with a dedication on Derby Day - June 25, 2006. At that point in time, the 1.7 mile trail was completely open from Main and Bridge Street to Division Street. Click here for photos from the Grand Opening.
The Derby Greenway has been the most used trail in CT as measured by the
Connecticut Trail Census project (see more below) since the project started. The trail is open from
sunrise to sunset year round and the City of Derby plows it during the
winter.
The Greenway Plaza with the restored fountain and Hall of Fame. Click here for the history of the fountain.
Did you know that the Derby Greenway has been the
most used of all the trails being measured as part of the Connecticut Trail
Census since the Census was started in 2018? Check out the CT Trail Census
interactive website data by
clicking here.
2021 Data Problems
The final report and data from the 2021 CT Trail Census
is about to be released. However, trail counter technical issues at
the Naugatuck River Greenway in Derby resulted in less than 3 months of
usable data, therefore this location is not included in the 2021 aggregated
analysis. The CT Trail Census team is working on modeling estimates for 2021
trail use.
We will provide updates as they develop.
Older story before the
technical problems were discovered :
The latest statistics from 2021 showed that even though most
of the data from the first quarter of the year was not recovered except for
the first seven days of the year, Derby continues to be the most used of the
trails being measured in the study.
Even with all the missing data, Derby has had 217,163 uses
through the end of September. The grand total for all 26 trails being
counted was 1,843,230. The "uses" as measured by the
infrared sensor that does the counting.
Assuming that users were likely to pass the sensor twice each time they were
on the trail, the actual number of users would be roughly half of that
total. Manual counts are also done at least 10 times a year and the results
are correlated with the electronic counts to get a more accurate picture.
Derby's total year-to-date is actually undercounted because
of the missing data. However, Derby's daily average of 1,174
uses compared to the 272 average for all the trails in almost certainly
inflated because of the missing data from some of the coldest days of the
year when usage is traditionally lower. You can compare Derby usage patterns
to the rest of the state with the following chars:
Uses by Month
Uses by day of the week
Hourly Usage
The Derby Greenway was the first trail completed in what eventually
will become the 42 mile long Naugatuck River Greenway. Here is a video
prepared by the National Park Service about the Naugatuck River Greenway:
Want to see what
over 325 people
have put on their bricks? Click here to see the engravings on the small bricks, here to see the engravings on the larger bricks or here to see the bench engravings.
(Click here for the highlights from the dedication
of the plaza in 2007.)
