FOR
IMMEDIATE RELEASE AUGUST 11, 2018 - Pine Street Coalition
BURLINGTON--An
important step towards a possible Champlain Parkway public redesign
process
occurred at Chittenden Superior Court Wednesday, August 8. Pine
Street Coalition
and
Burlington Fortieth, LLC, owner of Innovation Center, undertook
separate appeals of the
legalities
of the City's May project land takings and the Necessity Hearing,
likely to stall
the $43
million South End project advance nine months.
Judge
Robert A. Mello ordered legal arguments submitted by November 8
followed by
a reply
period leading to a mid-winter Court proceeding. Meanwhile further
project right-of-
way
actions cannot proceed.
The
Coalition stated purpose is to stop what it terms the obsolete and
unsafe Parkway
current
design and start a new public design and environmental document, an
Environmental
Impact
Statement (E.I.S.), process.
In
April the grassroots Pine Street Coalition challenged the City,
VTrans, and Federal
Highway
Administration (FHWA) to stop the out-of-date $43 million Champlain
Parkway.
The
Coalition detailed numerous changes in laws and policies, traffic and
demographics,
and
on-the-ground development since the 2009 environmental document. The
Coalition's
challenge documents totaled over 240 pages. The Coalition calls for
a “cheaper,
greener,
quicker, and highly safe roadway with savings of up to $8 million!”
The Parkway purpose now,
speeding cars between I 189 and downtown, belongs to the car
centric
1960s not the multi-modal world of today, the Coalition states.
The
Coalition will likely challenge the project in federal courts should
a new design process
and
Environmental Impact Statement (E.I.S.) process is not begun by the
VTrans, FHWA
and
the City. The last Parkway public hearing dates from 2006
and official environmental document
2009. FHWA and VTrans in response the Coalition April filing communicated
they will take the Coalition submission into consideration when
making
the next required decision on whether the current design goes
forward.
The
Coalition condemns the Parkway project for among other reasons: (1)
the
six
new unsafe traffic signals causing an estimated eight additional
injuries a year to
residents
and visitors over current best practice, roundabouts; (2)
permanently
severing
the Pine Street corridor short of Queen City Park Road, one of only
two
South
End north-south routes; (3) interfering with or blocking current GMT
transit
vehicle
routings and central facility access; (4) negative impacts on the low
income
Maple/King
Streets neighborhood in violation of environmental justice
regulations; (5) lack
of safe and separate walk and bike facilities in the corridor; (6)
building an
excess
1.5 lane miles of asphalt roadway consuming about eight acres of land
better employed
for economic development, open space and protecting stressed Englesby Brook;
(7) wasting tens of thousands of gallons of gasoline and excessive
climate change
pollutants annually; (8) wasting up to $8 million in scarce
transportation funds;
(9) serious water related issues involving undetected wetlands and
expired wetland
permits; and (10) inconsistencies or violations of the Parkway design
and documents
with new laws, policies and plans at federal, state, region and City
levels since
the 2009 ruling project documents.
