SAFE STREETS BURLINGTON: Governor Scott: Stop the Hurtful Parkway!! Start a Neighborhood Roadway Re-Design!!

Thursday, January 3, 2019

Governor Scott: Stop the Hurtful Parkway!! Start a Neighborhood Roadway Re-Design!!

December 12, 2018

Governor Phil Scott

Pavilion Office Building
109 State Street
Montpelier, Vermont 05609

Dear Governor Scott:

The members of the Pine Street Coalition would like to congratulate you on winning another term as Governor of our State of Vermont. Our Coalition is a grassroots and volunteer citizens' organization with about 100 members dedicated to safe and quality transportation in Burlington's South End neighborhood.

In addition, we thank you, along with Transportation Secretary Flynn for meeting with a delegation of the Coalition May 8 at your Capitol Building office to learn more about our neighborhood concerns over the outdated and unsafe design of the Champlain Parkway. Its last public hearing now dates back 12 years to November 2006.

The Parkway design, a vestige of 1960s thinking, was originally thought of as a segment of a four-lane limited access ring road surrounding the center of Burlington. The public comment on the project ended in 2006 and the Final Supplemental Environmental Impact (FSEIS) issued 2009. The total project cost now estimated at $43 million funding share -- 95% federal, 3% State and 2% City monies.

Since the FSEIS was issued in 2009, the neighborhood has blossomed into the most vibrant section of our City, and major changes in laws and policies affecting highway design have also occurred. The Pine Street Coalition steadfastly maintains it would be best for all if the current obsolete and invalid iteration of the Champlain Parkway roadway design is abandoned and a modern design begun through a new Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) process. A new EIS would be driven in great part by the neighborhood itself whose very economy and safety are at stake. We have suggested Re-Design Guidelines for improvements meeting current and future transportation needs—particularly by providing separate, safe walk and bike facilities totally lacking in the Parkway design. We can meet current and future needs far better and overall at lower cost. Additionally, both safety and climate change emissions now possible through “best practices” were left out of the current design considerations. Using “best practices” serious injuries could be reduced over current levels and significant reductions in climate change emissions achieved.

A re-design certainly will reduce two streets between Home and Flynn Avenues to one street, the most glaring financial waste. As well, connectivity between Burlington and So. Burlington can be preserved instead of severing one of the only two north-south corridors here in the City. Upwards of six acres can be retained for protection and preservation of Englesby Brook, park and open space, and economic development. Again, new regulations require minimizing impacts on our low income Maple/King neighborhood not even considered in the FSEIS process.

This April, the Coalition issued a detailed 240+ page set of documents detailing the changes since the 2009 FSEIS on the ground and in new laws and policies at Federal, State and City levels. This documented challenge to the City, State and Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) calling for a new EIS process will be considered by the FHWA in re-evaluation as required in federal law and regulation and

sets the basis of possible subsequent federal court action. Already since spring alleged errors in land taking procedures under State laws by the City lead to the current suits before Chittenden Superior Court.

With City representatives recently stating the project could be tied up in courts for an unknown number of years, we respectfully request it is in the interests of all to stop the Parkway now and start a new EIS. This promises a far better result than the uncertain outcome of years of litigation, increasingly likely to lead to a new EIS as time goes on. This is the same contention put forth by the Coalition to Federal Highway, Vermont Agency of Transportation and local officials in meetings since early last year.

Finally, the Pine Street Coalition respectfully requests your taking action for a new EIS process at this juncture in favor of a quality and safe roadway project. Such a decision promises not only a safe and quality project, but financial savings and certain economic progress for our neighborhood, the City of Burlington, our County and our State.

Yours truly,

Pine Street Coalition

Tony Redington - President

Charles Simpson - First Vice President

Jack Daggitt - Second Vice President

Steve Goodkind - Treasurer

Ib Nar - Secretary

cc Vermont Secretary of Transportation Joseph Flynn

Burlington Mayor Miro Weinberger

Mathew Hake, P.E., Vermont Division Administrator, FHWA

Members of the Burlington City Council

www.SafeStreetsBurlington.com

https://www.facebook.com/SSBPineStreetNOW

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Sign Support Petition! Re-Design Guidelines! Re-thinking the Parkway

NEW! Sign the New Petition to Stop the Hurtful Parkway and Start a Public Re-Design for a Street Our City Can Love!! Use the comment section to make your views known!

https://www.ipetitions.com/petition/re-design-champlain-parkway-for-safety-climate

Our Mission!!

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, January 3, 2019

Governor Scott: Stop the Hurtful Parkway!! Start a Neighborhood Roadway Re-Design!!

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