Expanding Church Street Marketplace Walkability

 
            A Downtown Burlington Proposal: Four Mini-
     Roundabouts Adjacent Church Street Marketplace—
   Providing Comfort to Pedestrians, Aiding Climate Change   
       Emissions Reductions and Freeing Vehicle Traffic

    …Extending Church Street Marketplace walkability
    two blocks west along Bank and College Streets to Pine Street

Recently at a family luncheon at Burlington’s Friendly Toast on Saint Paul Street three members were shaken up when crossing the all-way stop Saint Paul/College intersection as a vehicle failed to properly yield almost hitting them. One moved by a walker. This spurred some thinking about the four all-way-stop intersections immediately west of the Marketplace and how inexpensive mini-roundabouts could transform the block of Saint Paul/College/Pine/Bank Streets into a much more comfortable and less stressful walking environment for both pedestrians and drivers at very little cost using mini-roundabouts.

While “normal” roundabouts with central islands can cost up to a million dollars or more each, the mini-roundabouts price is often in the tens of thousands of dollars, really reflecting their listing as a traffic calming measure.  Also, Burlington has historically employed all-way stop intersections which traffic engineers will testify are the safest for pedestrians.  The mini-like its senior regular roundabout—both dating from their inception in the 1960s in the UK—also provide equivalent safety to the all—way-stop intersections while providing some very important additional benefits: reduced delay for cars and trucks, less stress for pedestrians, greater capacity for traffic and climate change and other pollutants reductions of up to 20-30%.  The cut in emissions alone can amount to annual thousands of gallons of fuel consumed from the simple act of reduced stopping and then accelerating to speed when no cars or pedestrians are present at the intersection. 


When two or more vehicles arrive at stop signs about the same time at an all-way stop intersections, not only does this cause some “who got there first” issues for drivers to figure out before moving through the intersection, but a similar an even more uncomfortable situation for pedestrians who can must deal with cars literally able to invade their crossing from all directions before the plus vehicles approaching towards the crossing they are to negotiate. The mini-roundabout solves all these conflicts—cars yield to pedestrians immediately in front and yield only to a car already in the circular travel way.  Mini roundabouts will in many cases also provide the pedestrian with a small median space, a refuge. between lanes so only one lane of traffic is dealt with at a time.

In the case of Burlington, while it boasts mostly 25 mph streets, as a practical matter it has 20 high crash intersections (19 signalized) or almost one in five on the Vermont Agency of Transportation current high crash list of 111! Unfortunately it is, perhaps, the most dangerous City in Vermont to walk, bike and travel by car.  It experiences weekly about two vehicle occupant injures and one pedestrian or cyclist injury. At its intersections, seven have died since 1998—three pedestrians, three vehicle occupants and one cyclist.

The intersections bordering the Marketplace and downtown are especially problematic.  The east side border is South Winooski Avenue which has the reputation among engineering consultants as “death valley” with both Pearl Street and Main Street on the high crash list (Main Street the number one high crash intersection in Vermont!).  Another Marketplace adjacent intersection along Main St at Saint Paul St not only is on the Vermont high crash list but also the site of a T-bone fatality not many years ago.

On the west side of the Marketplace there is an opportunity to provide safe, comfortable for all, and high level of service mini-roundabouts to enhance the context for the many businesses and services there, accommodate hundreds residents of new apartments (some 100 under construction and about 400 slated for City Place), and make the trips of thousands of tourists who chug up and down the hill on College St between the waterfront and the Marketplace just  more enjoyable.

Vermont already has one mini-roundabout built almost a decade ago in Manchester Center—it is part of the first Vermont “roundabout corridor” composed of three roundabouts.  The AARP sponsored Pine Street Workshop in 2014 identified mini-roundabouts as the preferred choice for intersections up and down the corridor in great part because of right-of-way constraints which prevent the installation of full service roundabouts with central islands.  The Department of Public Works (DPW) in recent years considered a mini-roundabout demonstration at North St/North Winooski (a Vermont high crash intersection) and a second a block away at North Winooski/North Union/Decatur.   

Each mini roundabout will offer benefits.  First, every mini roundabout enables a vehicle to reverse direction, a very important feature with so many tourists trying to find their way around downtown.  Second, the mini-roundabout not only calms traffic with a raised center area and horizontal diversion (no straight line vehicle movement through the intersection possible) but it also discourages stop/rapid acceleration movements since there is little or no delay between intersections—and of course, no stop required if no pedestrian is present and no car in the circular travel way.  Ease of travel for larger trucks and regular Green Mountain Transit buses are responsible for for particularly higher emission cuts and benefits from mini-roundabouts versus all way stop or signals. Note traffic signals have a markedly poorer record in injury generation for all modes as well as higher injury severity levels than all-way-stop or roundabout intersection.   

Consider for a moment each mini suggested here.  For the Saint Paul/College the mini will enable easy access/egress to the parking lot at the southwest corner (former Ben and Jerry’s ice cream shop) and, again, comfort to the regular and tourist traffic up and down College St.  Ditto at College/Pine intersection where movements in an out of the Key Bank ATM on the northeast corner along with parking traffic adjacent will be easier.  The Pine/Bank intersection awaits a third leg of Pine St north as part of the City Place development. This intersection now is a two-way corner where pedestrian movement is particularly uncomfortable and a mini will help define two pedestrian crossings as well as car movements.  About 100 apartments on the west side of Pine Street—49 apartments set for occupancy this December built by Nedde Real Estate in a new building and about 50 apartments on the west side within the People’s United Bank, also under construction.

The other intersection—Bank/Saint Paul—is a 3-way stop with a fourth leg entry/exit to NBT Bank building parking areas—eventually the continuation of Saint Paul St to Cherry St as part of City Place development. There is considerable pedestrian traffic with banks, restaurants and service businesses along all four streets. Currently the pedestrian traffic includes considerable traffic connected Burlington High School housed at the former Macy’s store.

The cost of mini-roundabouts is small. Generally they do not require moving any significant amount of existing curbing.  Relocation of crosswalks may be done and, of course, circular raised central areas installed.  Mini-roundabouts share the current US and Canadian now about 9,000 roundabouts remarkable pedestrian safety record—not a single pedestrian has ever been killed on a marked roundabout crosswalk through 2020. Here in Burlington at it 75 traffic signals two pedestrians have died since 1998 on marked crosswalks. Here in Vermont our five downtown roundabouts in 52 years experienced only a single pedestrian injury resulting in just bumps and bruises.  Overall, our five downtown roundabouts average one injury per decade, 0.1 injury per year. The 20 Burlington high crash intersections average 1.4 injuries per year!   Roundabouts reduce speeds and speeds are the enemy of pedestrian safety!

It takes little time to design and install mini-roundabouts. Using competent designers, involving the community, and installation can be measured in months, not years. Note that too often advocates for bicycle and pedestrians end up unnecessary constraining vehicle travel.   

Note the proposal for use of mini-roundabouts along the first five of six cross streets intersections on west end of North St in the Old North End, all five on the Vermont high crash list.  The “Convert Most Unsafe Vermont Community Street to Safest with Roundabouts” also employs mini-roundabouts (see blog February 28, 2022 at TonyRVT.blogspot.com ).

Finally, the effect of the four downtown mini-roundabouts is magnified by the fact that on both Bank and College Streets at Saint Paul to the east there is just one block to the Marketplace which itself slows traffic to a crawl and reenforces the traffic calming by the four mini-roundabouts—and vice versa, the Marketplace intersections at Bank and College benefit from slow approaching traffic from the west and
 drivers traveling west through the Marketplace mostly aware of the ease of movement once past Church Street.  


Tony Redington
Walk Safety Advocate
TonyRVT99@gmail.com  @TonyRVT60
TonyRVT.blogspot.com

4/30/2022

Photo of Manchester Center, VT mini-roundabout on Main St