Stonington — The town will not be receiving a $500,000 state grant it was told it would get to install sidewalks along Route 1 from the high school to downtown Pawcatuck.

The letter informing the town of the decision, received from the state Department of Housing on Monday, angered First Selectman Rob Simmons, who called it an “irresponsible action” by the state.

“We’re trying to improve the safety of pedestrians walking along a heavily traveled state highway from downtown Pawcatuck to the high school,” he said. “This is not a frivolous request for some amenity. We’ve had accidents and even a death along this stretch of road.”

Simmons stressed that Route 1 is a state road and ensuring its safety is the state’s responsibility.

“What are they going to do next? Say they won’t plow the road?” he asked.

While there are some sections of sidewalks along the stretch of Route 1, there are other sections that do not have any, forcing pedestrians to walk along the narrow, heavily traveled road.

In 2016, a Pawcatuck man driving a motorized wheelchair was struck and killed while traveling along Route 1 near the intersection of Mayflower Avenue. While that section of Route 1 does have a sidewalk, his family filed a notice to sue the town, saying the sidewalk in the area was in disrepair, forcing him to use the bike or breakdown lane of the road. No suit has yet been filed.

Simmons said the sidewalks would have ensured not only the safety of students, but those who use wheelchairs or scooters, and residents who may not have a car, live in the nearby Brookside Village and Stonington Arms housing projects or need to access the town’s human services department or downtown Pawcatuck.

“This is another effort to shift the obligations of the state onto the municipalities,” he said.

In October 2016, Simmons received a letter from Department of Housing Commissioner Evonne Klein that began “Congratulations!” It went on to say that the town’s application for up to $500,000 in funding from the Main Street Investment Fund program had been approved. She said the funding was consistent with Gov. Dannel Malloy’s “commitment to improve town commercial centers to attract small business, promote commercial viability, and improve aesthetics and pedestrian access.”

Klein, though, said her letter was not a binding commitment by the state to provide the money. That would not occur until the town and state had executed a final agreement and the funding was approved by the state bonding commission.

In the letter Simmons received Monday, Dimple Desai, the community development director for the Department of Housing, told Simmons that since October 2016, his department had sought approval from the State Bond Commission to fund the project but it had not yet been authorized.

He pointed out that the budget approved by the General Assembly reduced bonding for the Main Street Investment fund from $8 million to $2 million, which resulted in the housing department not being able to fund the $500,000 grant.

Desai did say that an earlier proposal to reduce the $8 million authorization to $5 million would have allowed the project to be funded but the bond commission had not approved the grants before the state budget was adopted.

Asked about the decision to not fund the sidewalk project, Dan Arsenault, the public information officer for the Department of Housing, issued the following statement:

“Since 2012, thirty-one municipalities have benefited from this program and it has helped to make improvements to town-owned spaces, as well as to support and enhance other aspects of their communities. The Main Street Investment funding round is very competitive, and highly sought after. The legislature’s budget unexpectedly reduced the bond authorizations for this program by more than a half. Given the limited availability of funding after these cuts and based on established statutory criteria, DOH selected the strongest applications among the pool of candidates.”

Arsenault said late Tuesday afternoon that on Wednesday he would be able to provide the criteria used to determine which projects received funding as well as the list of which projects were funded. Coincidentally, on Wednesday, Malloy is slated to chair a meeting of the bond commission.

j.wojtas@theday.com