Trail Census Report 2025
By Wyatt Losee
Since June 2025, I have volunteered with the Shoreline Greenway Trail (SGT) to support the Trail Census Program. I regularly visited two local sites, the SGT Hammonasset State Park Section and the Branford Stonycreek section, where I tracked all pedestrians, cyclists, and other users. The information gathered provides meaningful information about overall trail use.
I carried out 5 trail counts at the Stony Creek Trail in Branford, sitting adjacent to the old train bridge. I recorded an average of 44 people per hour of which 83% were pedestrians and 17% were bikers. Looking at the total count, 6% of all people were under the age of 18. In addition to my Branford work, I completed 10 counts at Hammonasset State Park in Madison. At this location, I documented an average of 42 people per hour, broken down into 46% pedestrians, 53% bikers, and 1% other. Also noted: 18% of the total trail users were minors.
At the Hammonasset trail site, the data wasn’t just for SGT, but also used to validate an infrared counter sitting just up the trail from me. This sensor is part of the UConn CAHNR Trail Census Program. This is a project which implements automatic trail counters across Connecticut and organizes the data for public access. We appreciate the support of their team, who communicated with us throughout the process to ensure our manual counts aligned with their sensor readings. For more information regarding trail census data, their website is much more immersive.
While tracking people at both trails, I also wrote down the weather and temperature. This data suggests that the trail is most popular on sunny days around 75-76℉. Hopefully this trail use data will support the UConn CAHNR program as well as provide some use to SGT in our efforts to receive funding and expand the trail further. My work as a student volunteer is just one part of SGT’s Student Engagement Program, where local high schoolers are encouraged to help out the trail.
Moving forward, I plan to continue doing trail counts in new territory, including New Haven, East Haven, and Guilford. For someone looking to get involved with SGT, I suggest starting with the trail cleanup events that run regularly. They’re a great introduction to SGT and its goals. From there you can explore more opportunities such as becoming a student representative or helping with trail census work. I’m grateful for this experience and look forward to continuing my service with SGT as the organization grows.