Pine Street Coalition $125 Parkway Update May 18--Rally Events June 11 and June 18!

 Pine Street Coalition Update on the Now $125 Million Fatally Flawed Champlain Parkway—May 18, 2022

WCAX covers Pine Street Coalition lawsuit May 10—report by Melissa Cooney https://www.wcax.com/2022/05/10/champlain-pkwy-opponents-seek-injunction-stop-june-construction/  Coalition injunction to stop July construction. Tony Redington interviewed.

Note 1: Burlington no longer has an obligation to pay back even a postage stamp to Federal Highway Administration in regard to Champlain Parkway now the Infrastructure Act signed by President Biden in November removes power to force state or locality of payback.  In fact it appears even under the old law we did not owe a dime. The Federal Highway and VTrans threat was a false flag! The Coalition has asked the City Council Transportation Committee to look into this and obtain a detailed legal opinion.
Note 2: Champlain Parkway which among other elements cuts King Maple neighborhood in two, lacks an inch of safe bicycle accommodation, lacks a single inch of sidewalk now reaches a cost of $125 million!  Construction cost about double long term estimates. See attached estimation.  Railroad Enterprise Project (REP) another $26 million! RIGHTway cut Parkway cost by millions!

In this update:

Pine Street Coalition Files Amended Complaint, First Steps of Injunction to Stop Any Parkway Construction as US District Court Lawsuit Begins May 16!

Call to Action Time to Take to the Streets!—Mark the Dates: Noon Saturday June 11 at File Case Sculpture/Flynn Coop Housing; and Noon Saturday June 18 for a King Maple, a “Honk and Wave” at Pine St/Maple St Intersection

Youth Movement—Champlain Elementary Englesby Brook Study Students Support RIGHTway’s Saving Acres of Trees, Englesby Brook and Natural Areas Preservation/Protection—May Testify at US District Court

Infrastructure Act signed last November deleted language allowing Federal Highway to seek any payback from Burlington for Parkway expenditures

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Pine Street Coalition Files Amended Complaint, First Steps of Injunction to Stop Any Parkway Construction as US District Court Lawsuit Begins May 16! Pine Street Coalition (Coalition) filings at US District Court this week were the first paper to move since we filed June 6, 2019. Papers were filed Monday, May 16, and include first steps for an injunction on any Parkway construction now set for July 1 until litigation ends.  The almost three year delay occurred as the City/VTrans through the now known totally empty and insulting steps to apply new Environmental Justice rules.  Yes City/VTrans ignored all the lengthy comments, meetings, etc. The City/VTrans concluded—though they had totally failed to meet the letter and spirit of the new rules (our position)—the box they checked in 2009,13 years ago, continued to be sufficient!  The 2 1/2 year process did in fact certify King Maple neighborhood a community of color but no need to change a whisker of design change. Then City/VTrans went lickety split to bid and OK’d construction ($45 million, about double budgeted) the single bid less than four months later!  An unfortunate example of government reenforcing distrust in it performance!

Call to Action Time to Take to the Streets!—Mark the Dates: Noon Saturday June 11 at File Case Sculpture/Flynn Coop Housing; and Noon Saturday June 18 for a King Maple, a “Honk and Wave” at Pine St/Maple St Intersection Let’s gather to express our opinion on the Parkway at two June Saturday events as the US District Court mulls action to stop the July 1 Parkway construction!  We have just gone through 3 years delay as the City/VTrans went through the nothing burger on the deeply serious Environmental Justice regulations—King Maple is a blatant example of transport racial injustice!  Low-income injustice too!  Let the Court know what our community thinks of the current design of the Champlain Parkway!

    Saturday June 11—Flynn Ave at Filecase Sculpture Opposite Coop

We will have speakers and exchange views and ideas on the Parkway across from City Market South End on Flynn Ave at the Filecase Sculpture.  Consider bringing a sign, help us let our District Court know we do not want this harmful, hurtful and 1950s design in an era when we want to preserve our natural areas, stop installing unsafe signals and roadway, keep our connection to SBTV, etc.  We actually thinks a sidewalk and separate and safe bicycle accommodation would be a good idea a la Vermont’s Complete Streets law (not an inch of either on the Parkway!)!  Hope to see you there!  More to come on this. Will need some volunteers to make signs, organize, etc.

    Saturday June 18—King Maple Neighborhood—Pine St/Maple St
         Intersection

A good old fashioned “honk and wave” event.  With this all-way-stop intersection we can all be reasonably safe as pedestrians—each car at the stop signs can read our signs like “No Parkway through King Maple,” “No Way for Parkway Transport Racism in King Maple!,”  “No 22% and 37% Parkway traffic jump!”  We will need some sign makers—four signs allows us to give the message to all four approaching vehicle streams!!  Parkway installs a traffic signals at this and the next intersection at King upping speeds, forcing kids to push a button and wait around to cross streets, colored lights all day and night onto adjacent housing, etc., etc.   

Youth Movement—Champlain Elementary Englesby Brook Study Students Support RIGHTway’s Saving Acres of Trees, Englesby Brook and Natural Areas Preservation/Protection—May Testify at US District Court An expert in natural areas who instructs in schools, Judy Dow who is Abenaki, has been working with group of 5th graders on scientific learning experience with adjacent Englesby Brook including how wildlife cannot traverse the Pine Street tunnel—similar to what is in the Parkway.  They students want to testify at the Court on the importance of the RIGHTway keeping Englesby out of another pipe, preservation and protection of the Brook floodway and the roughly one mile narrow natural corridor enabled by a scaled back road design between Home Ave and Lakeside Ave.


Infrastructure Act signed last November deleted language allowing Federal Highway to seek any payback from Burlington for Parkway expenditures The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), commonly referred to as the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill deleted language that in the past allowed Federal Highway Administration to on a discretionary basis seek repayment of federal transportation from states but only to the point of completing right-of-way purchases.  Since about 2012 Federal Highway (FHWA) and VTrans have threatened payback demand if the Champlain Parkway did not go forward—even though opponents have always sought making the project safe, climate positive, and avoid cutting King Maple neighborhood in two (to cite just three changes the Coalition seeks!).  In fact, the base right of way for the project from Shelburne Road through to Lakeside Ave was mostly obtained in the 1980s and all expenditures one planning and engineering since are not eligible for repayment!  That issue is moot since the new law deletes the power of FHWA to obtain payback of any funds spent on highway projects.


Thank you all for your continued support and counsel!


      Tony Redington
      Walk Safety Advocate
      for the Pine Street Coalition

Pine Street Coalition May 1 Champlain Parkway Update

 
    Injunction Against Parkway Construction at US District Court
    May 16!

The first US District Court papers and motions since the Pine Street Coalition (Coalition) first filing since June 6, 2019 due by May 16, and the Coalition will file a motion for an immediate injunction on any Parkway construction until litigation ends.  

    Fortieth Burlington Joins in Coalition Lawsuit!

Fortieth Burlington LLC (40th) which owns the major modernized office space in the historic cotton mill, Innovation Center on Lakeside Ave, joins shoulder to shoulder with your Pine Street Coalition (Coalition) in the US District Court Champlain Parkway lawsuit calling for a strong supplemental environmental document process or an entirely new one--the current 2009 document clearly now obsolete and stale.  

The Coalition and 40th immediately seek an injunction against any Parkway construction until litigation ends.  The aim of the lawsuit is to seek a major Environmental Impact Statement update (now based on 2000 Census and traffic data from 2003) or a completely new one so the transportation reality of today can be used rather than that of 2006 when the last public hearing was held—as we say “do it right the first time.”  That reality includes seriously addressing safety, climate change, racial and low income environmental justice, community economics, and major changes in practically all rules, laws, regulations and practices as well as changes on the ground since the final public hearing on the project almost 16 years ago!  

    Disappointing City Council Action

Certainly we are disappointed—but not discouraged—by the City Council action approving a contract for part of the Parkway from the sole bidder at a cost of $45 million, a figure about 100% higher than budgeted by the Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission. This shows overall construction costs at about twice the $35 million full Parkway construction estimate!  Note the Pine Street Coalition/VT Racial Justice RIGHTway would cut about $8 million in the required tax dollars!  

    The Lawsuit

The aim of the lawsuit is to seek a major 2009 Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) update (now based on 2000 Census and traffic data from 2003) or a completely new one so the reality of today can be used rather than that of 2006 when the last public hearing was held—as we say “do it right the first time.”

The stale, obsolete 2009 EIS contains not one sentence on addressing climate change, not a paragraph addressing safety for users, and identifies no issue of racial and low-income equity.  Yet, even after a three year Environmental Justice new rules application the City and VTrans (not a whisker of Parkway change!) utterly failed in application of the rules and ignored unanimous opposition at the one public hearing on the Parkway cutting in two the King Maple community of color, also designated low-income by Gov. Scott.

We all know the basics of the lawsuit

The threat of payback required of the City never made sense as such a requirement still remains discretionary on the part of the Federal Highway Administration—no law absolutely requires it.  That the City Council operated out of fear rather than the best interests and safety of its residents and businesses is troubling.  Much less the issues of racial and low income justice, air quality and climate change, Englesby Brook protection, a newly found endangered species (including the Northern Long Eared bat), and simple waste—all inherently negative in the current harmful Parkway design.

An example of waste is the building of two streets instead of one, Briggs Street and Parkway for an entire block.  Add a sidewalk to a “new” Briggs (now the mud flats), the Parkway and shared use path (mixes 20 mph ebikes and pedestrians including toddlers, those with canes and walkers, etc.)—there are upwards of 125 to 150 feet width of pavement!  This is twice what is needed!  This section is so bizarre Petra Cliffs and perhaps even our City Market Coop have been quietly informed that the City will just put in a driveway across the “new” useless Briggs Street directly onto the Parkway!  Public Works Director Chapin Spencer in the 2016 presentation to the neighborhood where not a word was allowed spoken by the 100 attending could not have been more correct when he said if the project were designed to today it would be different—those words resonate even more today, six years later!

The Flynn Avenue/Briggs Street/Parkway intersection analyzed by the now adjacent City Market Coop also fails with an average vehicle delay almost two minutes (110 seconds) at afternoon peak.  Pine Street Coalition focuses changes on the ground and numerous changed laws and regulations as the basis of its case to call for discarding the current obsolete design. But there is also substantial waste with about 1.75 lane miles of no longer needed roadway and ongoing maintenance costs which would be added to the capital costs of the Parkway.

Unfortunately our Department of Public Works retains little credibility on the Parkway safety or safety on our streets with its decade long record of no serious attention to even one of the City’s twenty high crash intersections on VTrans current list.  All but one of those 20 intersections are signalized and three lie on the edge of the low-income/people of color King Maple neighborhood. With almost one in five of the Vermont high crash intersections on our mostly 25 mph streets, Burlington streets are among the most dangerous in Vermont to walk, bike or travel by car.  About weekly a pedestrian or cyclist is injured along two car occupants.

We can and must do better when spending $130 million now and counting for our South End.  We must “do it right the first time” and install a street, almost a corridor long dedicated pedestrian only sidewalk, and a “bikes only” 2-way bikeway—in short, a roadway we can love!

Informed and focused efforts to alter a major roadway project succeeded early this century in the City supported fight against the Circumferential Highway, and in the Keene, NH citizen battle against a $80 million bypass expansion which was converted to three roundabouts with even better safety and service!

Thank you all for your continued support and counsel!