SAFE STREETS BURLINGTON: June 2016

Thursday, June 30, 2016

Public Meeting Update of Shelburne Street Roundabout Progress

BURLINGTON, VT—June 30, 2016 The Vermont Agency of Transportation (AOT) project manager calls the Shelburne Street roundabout project the most difficult in his 17 year career because of the “spaghetti” of utilities underground.

Engineer Michael LaCroix, P.E. gave a “very likely“ roundabout installation for 2020 at the high accident list intersection where two pedestrian injuries were recorded during 2011-2014. when it rated within the 17 highest pedestrian crash locations in Burlington. LaCroix said he checked the crash performance of the three Route 15 Lamoille County roundabouts (Cambridge, Hyde Park, and Morrissville) and found a 50% reduction in crashes. He pointed out that because of the lower speeds at a roundabout that crashes which do occur are less severe on average than those at signs or signals. The project construction takes two years with the “hoped for” start in 2019 devoted to the utilities work and 2020 the actual construction of the roundabout.

About 20 residents and Department of Public Works (DPW) staff attend the June 29 meeting where LaCroix agreed to periodic updates at the request of City Councilor Karen Paul who explained that the project which goes back to 2008 has been very difficult to get information about since. In the most recent AOT report the intersection recorded 50 crashes over five years. LaCroix stressed the project is a collaborative one with DPW where Laura Wheelock is project manager. LaCroix's unit is doing the design work. He said the project is an “absolute” priority and continues as first or second among the dozen projects assigned to his unit. LaCroix who meets with DPW every three months saw no reason that updates on project status can be done regularly.

LaCroix said once the utilities plans are worked out with each utility expected over the next months the regular steps of acquisition of right-of-way occurs in 2017 and 2018 along with final design elements take place.

Travel time may be somewhat longer for those traveling St. Paul/Shelburne Streets but less for those entering from the other three streets, Locust, Ledge and South Willard.

About half the cost of the $2-$4 million project involves underground utilities work. Utilities include water, electric, at least two cable lines, and Vermont Gas—all with various connections and locations at the intersection involving five streets. Added to this work are what might be termed pockets to take storm water runoff and treat if before joining a pipe which directly enters Lake Champlain.

Coalition Re-design Cuts Parkway Construction Costs $11.6 million--NEW REDESIGN MAP!!

A preliminary estimate of construction cost savings from the Pine Street Coalition (PSC) Re-design Guidelines stands at $11.6 million. The $11.6 million reduction is a third of the current construction cost estimate by Vermont of $33 million and a quarter of the total project cost estimates of $44.3 million.

And please find the excellent new map so you can see for yourself the new redesign guidelines in place:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B0_r5l87VrucN0piRkUzLXM2NUVDcVhzZm9lWmh6WFpwMnhJ/view?ts=5766f3a3

The cost savings do not include substantially increasing service to all modes, reductions in maintenance expenses, decreased pollution and storm water runoff, providing a separate walk and bike facility from Parkway/Pine Street to Curis Lumber, and signficantly reduced costs from avoided crashes and serious injuries.

The largest cost saving, not building Parkway from from Flynn Avenue to Lakeside Avenue, amounts to $13.0 million savings. Mini-roundabouts at $50,000 each replace $500,000 traffic signals at Pine/Maple and Pine/King intersections.

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2021 Petition! Stop the Parkway Environmental Injustice !

What can you do?

Sign the Stop the Champlain Parkway Project and Choose the Champlain RIGHTway Petition: http://chng.it/tS9Ts5FjDx

The mission of the Pine Street Coalition is re-design of the Champlain Parkway by re-opening a new EIS process in order to incorporate “best practices” of today which include: (1) re-directing the “purpose and need” to meeting the needs of theSouth End neighborhood and away from facilitating the movement of cars to downtown; (2) reducing instead of increasing the number of roadway injuries to residents and visitors; (3) decreasing the environmental impacts, particularly in regard to the stressed Englesby Brook; (4) provision of separate and equal facilities for those who walk and bike along the corridor; and (5) utilize modern roundabouts to reduce injury rates to all users, cut global warming emissions and other pollutants, reduce gasoline use, reduce delay for all users, manage speed and thereby reduce noise levels and add scenic quality.

CHAMPLAIN PARKWAY REDESIGN GUIDELINES Let's Do it Right the First Time!

The Champlain Parkway Redesign Guidelines (Guidelines) arose from meetings and discussions in the South End and throughout the City. The grassroots group, Pine Street Coalition, seeks a new design process incorporating new laws and plans, particularly safety changes. The Burlington Walk Bike Council developed a number of walk and bike facility recommendations. Safety remains the principal consideration both dismissed and ignored in the 2009 environmental document and current design. The Guidelines provide a framework for viewing changes to the current obsolete design of the Parkway and present a new approach on choices possible in a new democratic design process once the current project design reaches its well deserved end. The Parkway dates from 1960s, the current design from a decade ago—times do lead to changes! The Guidelines include dealing with four major flaws reflective of the obsolete, invalid 2009 environmental document:
--Cutting 1.5 mile lane miles of roadway, including constructing on (not two!)--streets between Home Avenue and Flynn Avenue. Also provide for a safe, quality access to both new developments, City Market South End and Petra Cliffs --Retaining full connectivity of Pine Street now set to dead end short of Queen City Park Road which forces South End residents onto Shelburne Road to access Hannaford, the Palace and Lowe's
--Installing roundabouts instead of six new obsolete and unsafe signalized intersection to prevent an increase of about eight injuries a year to South End travelers --Providing separate and safe sidewalk and bicycleway from Home Avenue to Curtis Lumber
—Improve air quality and safety for King Maple low income/minority neighborhood while Flynn Street ending of roadway insure minimal traffic changes on Pine Street
--Conserving four acres between Flynn and Lakeside Avenues for economic development of the “Gilbane” property (now a large parking area) and for protection and improving stressed Englesby Brook

Online: https://www.facebook.com/SSBPineStreetNOW/ SafeStreetsBurlington.com

Southern Connector Rethinking

By Steven Goodkind P.E.

The Southern Connector Project is one piece of a larger transportation plan for Chittenden County that was formulated over 40 years ago. It consisted of a network of highways that would encircle the county through Burlington, South Burlington, Williston, Winooski, Essex and Colchester. Parts of it included existing state highways and the interstate. There were also proposed new roads i.e. the Northern and Southern Connectors and the Circumfential Highway.

These proposed new roads share many common characteristics. They were to be for the most part limited access routes that would take traffic from existing local roads and reassign it to these new segments. But just as importantly, they all contained a huge conceptual flaw by relying on the perceived benefits of the ring road concept. .

We have learned a lot in the transportation field in recent decades and it is now widely recognized that it is generally better to improve our existing system to make it safer and more usable to all modes of transportation, than to build new

roads. We have also grown to appreciate the benefits of neighborhood connections that are not separated by manmade barriers such as limited access highways or large development projects. (The Burlington Town Center is an example of the latter case).

As a result, only portions of the original plan have been constructed. They are the three “bypass segments”, including the so-called “road to nowhere” in Burlington. The ring road concept is essentially dead.

However, the old concept does live on in at least one project. The Southern Connector, especially the piece from Home Ave. to Lakeside, is a classic example of old thinking, the benefits of which are far outweighed by the negative aspects it delivers. Because the latest version of this project dumps its supposed

reassigned traffic right back onto Pine Street without a connection to Battery Street, it fails to provide any significant transportation benefit that could not be achieved by simply opening the “road to nowhere”. The current plan eliminates

existing neighborhood connections and removes the connection of Pine St. to Queen City Park Road. A better name for it might be the “Southern Disconnector”. It is a costly and unnecessary relic of the past. This is further compounded by a design for the Pine St segment that is not up to the standards that Burlington has set for “complete streets”. Even our Public Works Director has acknowledged this when he recently said, “if we were designing this project today it would not look like this.”

If we hope to be a 21st century city, we need transportation projects that have designs that reflect 21st century thinking, not 20th century throwbacks.

The Mayor and his associates say they have done their best and it is too late for that. If we don’t proceed, we will have to pay back $7 or 8 million to the federal and/or State governments. This may be a possibility, but making the city payback money for a project that has been significantly changed, (notice I did not say cancelled), is unprecedented in Vermont. Here are some examples:

1) At the last minute the Northern Connector Project was modified to end at Manhattan Drive rather than at Battery and Pearl. This was to avoid destroying a good part of the Old North End.

2) The Circ Highway has been substantially redesigned to use existing routes and much of the originally proposed design will never be used

3) About 25 years ago, governor Dean stopped the construction of the Southern Connector from Home to Lakeside because of the uncertainty that a connection to Battery Street could be built.

4) Even though ROW had been secured and some railroad facilities and the DPW offices in its’ path have been relocated, the Southern Connector route from Lakeside to Battery through the Barge Canal was abandoned.

5) The “road to nowhere” was constructed 30 years ago but never completed and never maintained.

6) In the 1980’s, South Burlington decided not to participate in a segment of the Southern Connector that would have been in their community.

In none of these cases were the communities asked to repay the money they had spent on the project. There has never been and there should never be a penalty for making a project better and/or less expensive. History in this case is clearly

on the side of RETHINKING, REIMAGINING AND REDESIGNING the Southern Connector. It is the smart thing to do! It is not too late!

SAFE STREETS BURLINGTON

Thursday, June 30, 2016

Public Meeting Update of Shelburne Street Roundabout Progress

Sunday, June 5, 2016

Coalition Re-design Cuts Parkway Construction Costs $11.6 million--NEW REDESIGN MAP!!

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