SAFE STREETS BURLINGTON: Vermonters Pay $166 Million More for U.S. Base Defense Share This Year

Saturday, November 24, 2018

Vermonters Pay $166 Million More for U.S. Base Defense Share This Year

Update of the Defense Department Numbers published in last post...

Our Congressional Delegation—Leahy, Sanders and Welch--do an absolutely lousy job educating Vermonters on the federal budget and how we all get fleeced by Trump and the Republicans. The Defense budget is the most obvious, the 2017 federal budget, part-year President Obama compared to the two Trump budgets, the one we operate under right now, federal fiscal year 2019, and the “base” budget Congress has agreed to started October 1, 2018 for 2019, total defense increase is $83.1 billion. Based on Vermont's per capita share of $2 million per billion of federal expenditure we undertake an additional $166 million share of Defense expenditures, fiscal year 2019 over fiscal year 2017. This truly is “huge.” For example, the 13,000 Vermont renter households (about one in seven statewide) receiving federal “affordable housing assistance” (30% of income max for rent) consumes about $106 million federal funds. The defense department increase equals over 1 ½ times total federal affordable housing assistance in Vermont helping 13,000 renters, one in seven rental households ! Which do you prefer, serving the needs of 1,800 households on housing assistance waiting lists alone here in Chittenden County or $166 million more for defense? Likely and correctly Leahy, Sanders, and Welch will say if they did not support the $83.1 billion defense increase, the Republican Scrooge Brigade would have gutted housing assistance and most other discretionary social support programs like our community health centers and child services. Fine, Congressional delegation, but tell the truth every day how this year Vermonters anti-up $166 million to support more F 35s, the Afghanistan War, etc. Each breath of criticizing a Supreme Court nominee, single payer health, or farmer subsidies, tell us Vermonters where our program increases tax money goes to—more F 35s and military drones. The lack of honesty from our Vermont political leaders helps explains frustration building up since about 1980 over the accelerating maldistribution of economic benefits which mostly accrue to the top 1%. Sad comment on the so-called leaders of Vermont with its town meeting government where town budgets get screened down the the last penny.

Base defense budget numbers used here does not include “Overseas Contingency Operations” ($71.7 billion FFY 2017) or other related expenditures which includes VA, and other defense support $228.2 billion budget enacted FFY 2017.

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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

Saturday, November 24, 2018

Vermonters Pay $166 Million More for U.S. Base Defense Share This Year

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