Roundabouts the Intersetion Standard, RRFBs not a Substitute

Locust Street—Roundabouts on Both Ends of Street? 

Next June we all know a roundabout gets going on the east end of Locust Street, a street home of a church, a church school and a major city playground. Two of the three Three Sisters streets go north from Locust along with another popular residential street, Hayward. The street slopes down slowly from east to west with a rather sharp decline approaching its west end on Pine Street with Parkside Terrace on the north corner and Callahan Park on the southside, a bus shelter on the east side perhaps about 100 feet south of the intersection. Callahan Park also continues a north/south pedestrian way for students who travel to and from Champlain School. 

Somehow, Locust Street either end has intersections with major change in the last decade. But are they the right changes? And what do the changes mean to safety, particularly for pedestrians? Pedestrians remain the "apartheid mode" with few efforts at high quality safety transportation investments to benefit the pedestrian, more often than not in our urban areas a person of color. 

We all walk but few bike!) Also, somehow, the west intersection of Locust, a T junction, is largely untouched by the Champlain Parkway, either in the current controversial design (my personal feelings set aside) or the coalition promoted Champlain RIGHTway (Pine Street Coalition, Vermont Racial Justice Alliance and Fortieth Burlington, LLC [Innovation Center]). (Not to say the RIGHTway coalition of three groups are truly all ears for any grassroots suggestions!!) While most have an opinion about roundabouts or at least know about them, few have given much thought to the City’s Department of Public Works (DPW) increasing use of RRFB’s (Rectangular Rapid Flashing Beacons) installed mostly without even bothering to do much analysis of intersection management choices. So about 2013 or early 2014 during the Mayor Weinberger administration the first RRFBs were installed along Pine Street. I call them fireflies because along Pine Street at night where there are several one sees them light up sporadically like fireflies. In part because there is no clear priority for pedestrian safety in the City (its’s the apartheid mode remember) not much attention has been given to the RRFB versus the acknowledged safest pedestrian intersection which is the all-way-stop, versus the traffic light which is the true enemy of the pedestrian.

Defining the differences, particularly in regard to safety, is important even if one does not care about pedestrian since the City has about a third of its traffic high crash intersections, with our a quarter, 20, on the current VTrans high crash intersection list—those intersections average 1.5 injuries a year. Our five downtown VT roundabouts average one injury a decade (0 bike injuries in 52 years recorded and one pedestrian non-serious injury). Burlington experiences about two car occupants a week and one either a cyclist or a pedestrian injury (2012-2016 data). The RRFB The RRFB started as proprietary product and owed much of its success to a great extent from advertising and public relations activity (something roundabouts and all-way-stops lack!). 

 Traffic engineers for three generations have lived off traffic signals installations and their management—many without much knowledge of RRFB performance have apparently succumbed to their allure—and cheapness, about a tenth the cost of a traffic signal (about $175,000 median price). What do we know about the RRFB? The 2008 first research mostly centered on its first use for mid-block crossings—BTV is doing this too. A more recent study, 2020 is fairly comprehensive but still centers on mid-block or mid-block with a significant private entry: https://www.oregon.gov/odot/Programs/ResearchDocuments/SPR814Final.pdf As an aside, it would nice if DPW began to seek research and analytical support in their decision making. Too much of Burlington transportation—Regional Planning too but to a lesser extent, staff as well as consultants—remains cookbook and ignoring major changes, sometimes rapid like bicycle treatments evolution at roundabouts, now proceeding. 

What we should ask and demand is transportation investments based not just on comprehensive cost benefit (sill in its infancy here in Vermont), but also on the “science,” transportation research. In a word we need a Fauci overview, the science, in our transport decisions. The 2020 Racism as a Public Health Emergency and 2019 Climate Change Emergency, both new City policies, must be afforded more than check the box response at DPW and CCRPC. So, privately promoted RRFBs are new, little research is available, particularly on use at intersections. It is true that mid-block crossing use may have benefit cost benefits versus very expensive ($1 million on up) HAWK and Pelican treatments—which do better than RRFBs but not when benefit cost is involved—still a tradeoff of cost for pedestrian injuries which is still involves careful thoughtful decision. RRFBs at the Locust St intersection.   First, the Pine Street RRFB intersection treatments apply mostly to crossing Pine Street but not along Pine crossings themselves—i.e., Marble, Locust, Howard marked crosswalks. Second, we have no thorough research on RRFB versus the normal and equally highest level of safety all-way-stop and roundabout. We must analyze alternatives because single-lane roundabout with central islands can be quite expensive, but mini roundabouts (recommended up and down Pine Street by Dan Burden in the AARP 2014 Pine Street Workshop report with preliminary feasibility designs provided for Pine/Maple Street intersection on page 1) can be quite cheap and obviously superior in safety (and most everything else!). Consider the fact that within the first few months of installation, there was a critical pedestrian injury at the Locust Street/Pine Street RRFB—more serious than any pedestrian injury (the one!) in a half century of downtown VT roundabouts tabulated. One critical injury does not mean we should reject RRFBs, but it jogs the mind and connects the new roundabout at one end of Locust, the mini recommendation of Dan Burden (58th on the list of great urbanists in recorded time) for every intersection south of Main Street, and, yes, the very fact the intersection has been unaddressed in the Champlain Parkway over half a century.

So, first, does an all-way-stop make sense at Locust/Pine as that is the traditional traffic engineer correctly staged most safe for pedestrians. Actually we have an all-way-stop at both Pine/Maple and Pine/King about seven blocks away—it is safe for the many pedestrians (most students using to access school buses a.m. and p.m. are persons of color). And yes, there is no anecdotal of pedestrian crashes there. But for sure anyone who travels, works, or lives along Pine Street knows at traditional drive time p.m. experience regular 4-7 minutes queues to clear the Maple Street intersection northbound. That would likely be duplicated for the downtown bound stream at Locust as well. The alternative roundabout here because of tight space, the mini-roundabout. First, Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) lists the roundabout as the only pedestrian safety “proven countermeasure” and is the only intersection type on the list—FHWA might consider adding the all-way-stop to pedestrian proven safety countermeasure list. Yes, Roundabouts at Each End of Locust Street Since an all-way-stop means unacceptable addition at busy intersections of more queuing with vehicle delay and increased climate heating in violation of our 2019 Climate Change Emergency policy—the roundabout becomes the default choice—which in addition to pedestrian safety equal to the all-way-stop (signals FHWA tells us generate a 20% higher pedestrian crash rate than either all way or rounds) also results in sharply lower crash rates for vehicles, reductions in climate change emissions and pollutants, drops in vehicle delay and motor fuel consumption, lower maintenance cost and not eventual replacement costs (signals have a limited lifespan, even RRFBs), improved scenic quality, and certainly some safety benefit for cyclists if only through traffic calming of speeds two-three blocks in all directions. 

 At Locust/Pine most of the land, at least on three quadrants of publicly owned (the Park and either City and/or Burlington Electric Department on the westside assure no right-of-way acquisition issues. So, the costs of a mini-roundabout would be low and development time a few weeks of design and public review process followed by construction in the next normal season—usually installing (like at Shelburne Street Roundabout) in June after both elementary schools are closed. Price would be mid-five figures likely. Certainly for costs, comparing mini to RRFB, the roundabout wins easily. So let’s proceed with a scoping of a mini-roundabout at Pine/Locust and provide the safest street in the City with a roundabout at either end?—for a lengthy roundabout dogbone round duo!! RRFBs at Shelburne Street Roundabout? Why? For some reason RRFBs are to be installed at the Shelburne Street Roundabout in spite of the fact that not a single pedestrian has every died on the 9,000 US/Canadian roundabouts on a marked crosswalk through 2020 (two deaths on marked Burlington the roughly 75 traffic signal crosswalks since1998). 

If one were concerned about improving pedestrian safety at a roundabout which cuts serious or fatal injury upwards of 90% there are certainly better, cheaper engineering choices one would be expected to take. First, one could narrow entries/exits to 10 feet (see Keck Circle in Montpelier or Grand Union in Manchester Center) versus the practice of VTrans of 12-15 feet wide entry and exit lanes. In other words, reduce area of pedestrian exposure—a principle often and thankfully employed by our DPW. No costs involved but certainly some resulting reduced speeds beneficial to pedestrian safety. Second, one could employ raised crosswalks which has been done in a few cases elsewhere. Again, no cost. The problem is if you get roughly about a 90% average decline in pedestrian safety, then additional expenditures need to be carefully considered and not controversial. Narrowing entries and raised crosswalks do not engender anything negative. A signal without some scientific support? Raises serious concern the signal could increase ped injury rate. RRFBs which are not the best practice at an intersection and where there is no science to support it, is very questionable at a roundabout (why at a roundabout, for example, but not at an equally performing safe intersection type, the all-way-stop?). I myself avoid where I possibly can ever using an RRFB at an intersection, instead of venture carefully onto a crosswalk, making sure a vehicle driver sees me and yields, then halfway across repeat with traffic in the opposite direction. The reason? Like at a roundabout (sans signals) its safety depends not only by design (medians restricting crossing to one direction of traffic at a time, vehicle speed constraints) but also by making safe crossing include an alert pedestrian self-protecting and a driver yielding—neither with any distraction like a signal. Those are absent at a traffic signal—any traffic signal which interferes with accountability of driver and pedestrian, therefore accounting for the relatively poor signal pedestrian performance and the superior roundabout pedestrian performance. 

     Locust/Pine Roundabout and Bicyclists

Right now the Locust/Pine intersection provides no treatments applicable to the bicyclists. The Locust/Pine roundabout would provide significant safety improvements. First, a standard ramp—off on approach and ramp-on at the outgoing leg would be provided—same as at the Shelburne Street Roundabout. This “choice” of take the roundabout lane or shift to pedestrian mode and benefit from the safer pedestrian crossings is a safety improvement over the current configuration. The cyclist entering Pine Street from Locust clearly gains as a stop is no longer necessary, reduced speed conditions mean easier integration to traffic, etc. For bicyclists traveling south the roundabout offers an easier left turn against slowed northbound traffic and the off-on ramping now absent. 

Final Note 

My TonyRVT.blogspot.com includes a recent monograph application of roundabouts along North Street which is termed the most dangerous community street in Vermont and through adoption of mini roundabouts potentially becoming the safest. In addition there is the archive the monograph and walkability Burlington which first saw the light of day as a six part series here on the BWBC listserv.

Tony Redington September 19, 2021 TonyRVT99@gmail.com TonyRVT.blogspot.com @TonyRVT60

The Equality Street--A Step Up from the Complete Street, Accounting for Racial Bias

The Equality Street: Battle for a Champlain Parkway “RIGHTway,”

                      North Street Burlington, and Beyond

The Pine Street Coalition battle in the South End for a Champlain RGHTway moves to a new level as the City Council may well shortly approve building the Railroad Enterprise Project (REP) before any current pending Parkway is built—this would assure the King Maple neighborhood gets immediate relief from current levels unsafety, traffic, pollution and congestion instead of an additional onslaught of traffic from the City’s’ current obsolete, unsafe Champlain Parkway design. 

The REP was always wanted by the City as the Parkway route through to Main Street (Alternative 1 in the 2009 environmental document) instead of through Pine. REP extends from Kilburn St/Curtis Lumber on Pine Street to Battery Street so the Parkway route effectively bypasses King Maple neighborhood. King Maple has the lowest median income in Burlington, over 80% low and moderate income population and highest Vermont concentration of persons with black and brown skin.

  Pine Street and Two Principal Allies, a Major Victory

    —FHWA Funds Railroad Enterprise Project for $20 million and Likely Moves to the Front Burner 

The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) promised to walk away from the now $100 million project unless the Parkway cut King Maple in two and increased Pine Street traffic there 22-37% through King Maple to Main Street. The Parkway current design through King Maple degrades pedestrian safety and delay with two traffic signals replacing all-way-stops at Maple and King thereby raising speeds and pedestrian injury rates by 20% (all-way stop or a roundabout equal in their pedestrian safety superiority). 

Mayor Kiss and City Council rather than losing all funding accepted the current route under the duress in 2009 in spite of long time community opposition. The grassroots group Pine Street Coalition began in 2015 and following the leadership of the Burlington Walk Bike Council and undertaking community outreach, adopted a set of Parkway re-design guidelines, little changed to this day. The basics: (1) full sidewalk and separate bikeway along the entire route (none now, not an inch); (2) retaining connectivity between Pine Street and Queen City Park Road Kmart Plaza versus the current design dead ending Pine short of the Parkway; (3) use of engineering “best practices” including safest-for-all modes and climate change prevention champion roundabout (the one and only FHWA pedestrian safety “proven countermeasure” intersection); (4) cutting 1.5 miles of expensive excess lanes miles of roadway; (5) preservation and protection of Englesby Brook, the City’s largest stream entering Lake Champlain which the Parkway would stuff into a long pipe; and (6) accepting the Parkway as an ordinary City street and dropping full controlled access restraint at Pine/I 189 intersection. 

The Pine Street Coalition re-design guidelines and challenge documents issued in April 2018 clearly led to a change of heart by FHWA which suddenly offered the City the REP it rejected in 2009, and later even sweetened the offer with a better financial deal for the City after Pine Street Coalition went to US District Court on D-Day, June 6, 2019. Thanks to Pine Street’s long time partner (they were there before Pine Street) Fortieth Burlington, LLC owner of Innovation Center on Lakeside Avenue and joined by the second Vermont Racial Justice Alliance (VRJA) in summer 2019 during the now ending Environmental Justice two-year-plus outreach—a direct result of the Pine Street lawsuit—REP has now moved from a $20 million initial reluctant offer by FHWA toward front burner status. 

One cannot overstate the importance of the Environmental Justice process for the education it brought to all in detailing the blatant transportation racism and injustice not only in King Maple now acknowledged, but also the special core role the safest pedestrian design plays in avoiding disproportionate negative impact of roadway projects on communities of color and low income. That core safest pedestrian design when twinned with the best accommodation of bicycles is the very definition of an “equality street” in all senses of descriptive—from transportation equity for all modes to racial equity for communities of color with their far higher dependence on the walking mode. 

  Next Challenge—Achieving Champlain RIGHTway "Complete," “Equality Streets” 

Very simply, an equality street is first and foremost a busy street with sidewalks and roundabout intersections which also contain either on-street cycle track (protected bikes lanes) and/or a separate safe two-way bikeway. There now is not a single inch of “equality street” along the existing Champlain Parkway and Rail Enterprise Project design! Quite the contrary the current Parkway and REP design are clearly racially and transportation unjust and discrimination by the inferior treatment of those who walk and bike versus those who travel by motor vehicle. Burlington actually established a landmark “equality” street model in the North Avenue Corridor Plan (2014) which contains three basics—sidewalks and roundabouts at key intersections, and end-to-end cycle track. 

It was the Parkway Environmental Justice process and leadership of VRJA, its director Mark Hughes and their staff, that led over the last two years which led to the expanded and deepened definition of an equality street. Expanded in the sense of applying directly to the lexicon of racist transportation practice where a community of color or low-income neighborhoods are present or affected. Deepened in clearly defining sidewalks and either all-way-stop or roundabout intersections as the minimum standard of pedestrian design of busy streets. It is the Parkway converting of two all-way-stop intersections with many pedestrians to traffic signals which set up the real life conflict which has arisen in the Parkway Environmental Justice process. 

The Parkway environmental document of 2009 and previous public process ended two years before the Vermont Complete Streets Law (2011) enactment which calls for consideration of safe accommodation of pedestrian and bicycle modes in road projects. Even a cursory examination of that law along with Burlington practice and plans shows the use of a shared use path treatment in the Parkway and REP fails the Vermont legal standard and is inconsistent by mixing two modes to the detriment of both as well as in an unsafe manner. Key to understanding the equality street definition, particularly the need for a pedestrian sidewalk treatment, is recognizing that neighborhoods of low income and communities of color are in fact disproportionately dependent on safe walking facilities because they are significantly pedestrian and transit dependent. In Burlington’s King Maple and Old North End neighborhoods fully 30% of residents lack access to a car. Burlington Public Works Commissioner and UVM professor Pablo Bose is not only a researcher in this regard, he is also active in assisting New Americans and others lacking a car obtain necessary transportation services.

Further, the pedestrian mode has always been pretty much ignored in transportation by government. For example there have been incentives and tax breaks for solo commuter drivers to give up their annual $2,000 parking garage spaces and $600 surface parking lot space, incentives for van group participants, incentives for taking transit to work and incentives to bicyclists—but never any formal incentive to the sizable walk-to-work set who cost the employer the least and do so in a healthy way! In a word, the pedestrian mode is the apartheid transportation mode, the right-turn-on red allowed today which kills about 30 pedestrians being the most obvious outrage of transportation discrimination not to mention the 50% increase in pedestrian deaths since 2010 (two such deaths in Burlington). 

In the larger picture of discrimination, people of color die at 50-90% higher rates per population than white-non-hispanic (Native Americans 2 to 3 times the lower "white" rate). We must assure the highest level of quality and safe pedestrian facilities in our urban neighborhoods, particularly where there are numbers of low income and persons of color—something totally lacking in the current Parkway and REP. With tabulations showing a bicycle or pedestrian injury weekly in Burlington (plus two car occupant injuries) and a bicycle or pedestrian death every five years, safety on our streets is major concern.

  Parkway/Railyard Enterprise and the Controlled Access Versus a Complete, Equality Street Standard

The Parkway and Railyard Enterprise Project are a vestige of 80 year old ring-road around Burlington concept with the circle to be closed from I 189 by the Parkway through the South End, through the waterfront and Old North End to the VT 127 Beltline which dates from the 1980s— finally the completed circle via the Circumferential Highway from Colchester through Essex to VT 289 and interchange with I 89. The Circumferential Highway was effectively canceled by Governor Shumlin in 2011 and the waterfront/Old North End section of the ring road was discarded decades before. 

Pine Street Coalition has assumed from a the start the “controlled access” of the interstate is relaxed, ending at the I 189/Pine Street/Queen City Park Rd/RIGHTway interchange intersection. From that intersection pedestrian and bicycle facilities as well as additional intersections (like one at the City Market South End parking access, for example) could be installed as the RIGHTway onward becomes an ordinary busy street following the Vermont Complete Streets Law (2011) which calls for safe accommodation of pedestrians and bicyclists, a step now better described as employing the “equality street” model contained in the City’s North Avenue Corridor Plan or the Pine Street/VRJA/Fortieth Burlington, Champlain RIGHTway design guidelines necessitated by the presence of a community of color and a number of safety considerations, pedestrian safety paramount. 

  The “Shared Use” Pedestrian/Bicycle Facility—Second Class, Racial and Low Income Discriminatory

    Accommodation for Bicyclists and Especially Pedestrians

The current design of the Parkway and REP both utilize either nothing or a shared use path (REP) exclusively thereby mixing high speed bicycles and e-bikes with on foot children, families, and those who move either temporarily or permanently by cane and walker. In a rural setting this might be satisfactory but in a busy metropolitan center like the South End of Burlington with practically unlimited space for a sidewalk and separate 2-way bike lane through out the REP and Parkway use of a shared use path considering the community of color is nothing but straight, blatant racial discrimination and injustice! 

It can be expected the REP/Parkway which connects at either end with the Burlington Bikepath (a recreation path) will bring a large number of visitors and City residents making a “circle” tour—Bikepath and "South End Bikeway”—as Pine Street supporters envision thereby aiding the South End economy. Further the longer term promise of a full service bikeway from the north tip of ONE south to Queen City Park Road is moved ahead with the “South End Bikeway.” South End residents during public meetings on the REP expressed the importance of their using the REP to access the Bikepath—now with only two South End at grade connections—one via Austin Drive/Oakledge Park and the other at Harrison Street opposite Sears Lane. Note the “new” Parkway roadway sections with right-of-way acquired decades ago (including Road to Nowhere) are about 100 feet in width to accommodate the early planned four lane divided highway, now to be two lanes requiring less than half the 100 foot width. Spending $100 million where there is more than sufficient right-of-way and getting not a single inch of sidewalk or separate bikeway is pathological and discriminating street design! 

  North Street and Beyond 

Burlington has a major task before it addressing the 20—all but one signalized—intersections on the State high crash list, 18% of the 111 statewide and averaging 1.5 injuries a year. The 19 signalized intersections (not all were tabulated in the statewide report) represent over one in four of Burlington’s traffic signals which total about 75. Not surprisingly many of the high crash signalized intersections are in the Old North End (ONE), including four of the six on North Street between North Avenue and North Union. North Street with its many commercial businesses is truly a “community street” and it can easily and cheaply be converted from perhaps the least safe Vermont community street to the most safe using the knowledge developed in the South End RIGHTway, the Environmental Justice process now ending, and the North Avenue Corridor Plan endeavors. The inexpensive mini roundabout first suggested in the AARP Vermont Pine Street Workshop (2014) is particularly adapted to the narrow right of way along North Street. So, the many lessons learned during the past several years can be applied to problem streets and intersections throughout Burlington. 

Tony Redington 

onyRVT99@gmail.com