TRANSPORT POLICY: Pine Street Coalition

Showing posts with label Pine Street Coalition. Show all posts

Thursday, May 19, 2022

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

                                   ———————————-

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

Sunday, May 1, 2022

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!

Sunday, April 3, 2022

Champlain Parkway Update--Court Starts, Racial Equity Ignored, Price Doubles?, Private Group Joins Lawsuit

Pine Street Parkway US District Court Lawsuit Begins,
     Finally, May16

City Ignores King Maple Neighborhood Certified
      Community of Color with Zero Change in Parkway
      Blatant Environmental Injustice Design After
      Almost 3 Years Public Review

City Quietly Puts Parkway to Bid—Only One Bid
     Received Two Weeks Ago, About Doubles the
     Overall VTrans/City Estimated Total from $30
     million to as much as $60 million! (Yes, Pine Street
     RIGHTway would cut project construction costs by
     about one quarter!)

Fortieth Burlington, LLC Owner of Major Lakeside
     Office Complex, Innovation Center, joins Pine
     Street in Litigation at Vermont’s US District Court

April 2, 2022

Good Day Pine Street Grassroots Members:

Please note recent highlights as the Champlain Parkway moves from an almost three year delay to apply new Environmental Justice regulations (not a whisker of change in the harmful Parkway design!) to the Pine Street US District Court lawsuit filed June 6, 2019 (D-Day). And the apparent ill-timed rush to Parkway construction by the Mayor Weinberger administration. The one bid received March 18 signals a doubling of estimated construction costs! The Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission and VTrans estimates of $30 million for construction based on a partial Parkway construction bid of $40.1 million suggests construction costs doubling to about $60 million!

If you have not yet signed the Vermont Racial Justice Alliance petition to support our joint Champlain RIGHTway, please take a moment to visit the petition site provided at the end of this message. And continue to encourage our City Councilors and Legislative representatives to push for the exciting RIGHTway and its benefits (and save up to 25% of the construction estimate!) instead of the current harmful to the South End design!

When asked the question of who makes the decisions on the Parkway, one is reminded of a conversation between then former Secretary of Transportation Sue Minter following a campaign appearance in her campaign for governor when she told Pine Street leader Jack Daggitt in response to questions about the Parkway design, she responded simply “this is a City project!” Minter herself is said to have nixed roundabouts in the project in a 2015 meeting. Still, the point she makes is the Mayor of Burlington is the key person in decisions making regarding the Champlain Parkway. The Parkway is a City project!!

   Tony Redington
        Walk Safety Advocate
    for the Pine Street Coalition

Pine Street Parkway US District Court Lawsuit Begins,
     Finally, May16

Grassroots volunteer Pine Street Coalition (Coalition) filed at US District Court here in Burlington on D-Day June 6, 2019 with the purpose of stopping the obsolete, harmful Champlain Parkway design and obtaining a re-design which responds to safety for all modes, addresses climate change, and most important, relieves not adds to the overburden for King Maple neighborhood. The City now opposes and always has the current design cutting in two the now certified community of color King Maple and adding 22-37% more traffic and installing two injury generating traffic signals to an already overburdened low-income, community of color area.

Now the plaintiffs, Pine Street and Fortieth Burlington, LLC, Innovation Center owner face off with the City, VTrans and Federal Highway Administration with first legal brief filings due by May 16.

City Ignores King Maple Neighborhood Certified
      Community of Color with Zero Change in Parkway
      Blatant Environmental Injustice Design After Almost 3
      Years Public Review

It remains puzzling after almost three years and a unanimous strong public hearing opposition and comments against the Parkway cutting through the now certified King Maple neighborhood as a community of color—just why not a whisker of design change in this overburdened neighborhood where 32% of residents have no car access and are pedestrian dependent?

A major change this year is the National Roadway Safety Strategy document from the US Department of Transportation (January 2022)

https://www.transportation.gov/NRSS

This policy document calls for a “Safe System Approach” and “Safe System Intersections” (primarily roundabouts) to transport funding to address “preventable” serious and fatal roadway injuries—there are at least 21,000 preventable fatalities each year on US roads, about 30 in Vermont. (US plunged from first in world road safety in 1990 to18th today, ped deaths up 51% since 2010 with two recorded in Burlington.)

The new national strategy expressly makes both racial/low-income equity and climate change the two vital companion objectives in safety spending. The National Roadway Safety Strategy ties directly to 2021 Executive Orders https://www.transportation.gov/NRSS/SafetyEquityClimate EO 13985 on Equity and EO 14008 on Climate Change.

It is difficult to conceive of a roadway investment in Vermont which could be more damaging to racial and low income equity and the climate than the current design of the Champlain Parkway!

City Quietly Puts Parkway to Bid—Only One Bid
     Received Two Weeks Ago, About Doubles the
     Overall VTrans/City Estimated Total from $30 million to
     as much as $60 million! (Yes, Pine Street RIGHTway
     would cut project construction costs by about one
     quarter!)

On March 18, Burlington opened the one bid for construction of just part of the Champlain Parkway between Main Street and Home Avenue—that bid, reportedly $40.1 million alone exceeds the $30 million City estimates on the books for about three years. The $40.1 million when added some time in the future of the balance of the Parkway from Shelburne Rd to Home Ave (“Road to Nowhere”) means the current Parkway design will double to about $60 million the current estimates.

This number also calls into question the $20 million estimate for the Railroad Enterprise Project (REP) which just about all in the City favor being built first to bypass the King Maple neighborhood already overburdened with traffic, pollution, and social disruption of high traffic volumes. The City is responsible for 100% of REP costs over $20 million.

Some say the Weinberger administration ill-timed bid maneuver was to avoid facing the court challenge and avoid a possible injunction stopping construction. That occurred at US District Court in the Circumferential Highway lawsuit when VTrans let contracts followed by the Court rejected the environmental document and the project died—same issue here with the Parkway?

Fortieth Burlington, LLC Owner of Major Lakeside Office
     Complex, Innovation Center, joins Pine Street in
     Litigation at Vermont’s US District Court

It is news that the owner of Innovation Center on Lakeside Avenue took action recently to also oppose at US District Court the current Parkway design and seek a quality, modern South End transport facility which is safe, addresses climate change (Efficiency Vermont was a longtime tenant) and corrects the overburden for the low-income and community of color King Maple neighborhood.
Pine Street and Innovation Center have worked closely in the past in regulatory and State courts to obtain a responsible Parkway design.

Attached please note a simple example of a street, a dedicated bikeway, and sidewalk. This is the type of design Pine Street and Vermont Racial Justice Alliance call for between Queen City Park Rd to Home Avenue and from Home Avenue to Flynn Ave. It is the RIGHTway! It is “doing it right the first time!”

Please stay safe!

Yours truly,

Tony Redington
    for the Pine Street Coalition

What can you do?

Sign the Stop the Champlain Parkway Project and Choose the Champlain RIGHTway Petition: http://chng.it/tS9Ts5FjDx SafeStreetsBurlington.com

Tuesday, June 15, 2021

Pine Street/VT Racial Justice Call for Railyard First, then RIGHTWAY to cut King Maple up to 59%!!

Pine Street Fights for Environmental Justice, Safe Walk and Bike Accommodation, and Economic Growth in a Champlain “RIGHTway Street and Street Design Pine Street Wins Key Change in Parkway: Still Miles to Go! …first build Railyard connection to Battery Street slicing current traffic in King Maple by 59%, then build a redesigned the Parkway to a complete “RIGHTway” by safe accommodation of pedestrians and bicyclists, employing “best practices” for minimizing injuries for all, preserving Englesby Brook and slashing 1.5 lane- miles of excess roadway. “Stop it! Stop it Now!…We’ll be back!” Mark Hughes, Vermont Racial Justice Alliance Parkway Hearing, July 29, 2020 Two years ago—June 6, 2019—the grassroots Pine Street Coalition stopped the 1950s South End still gargantuan highway proposal in its tracks by filing a lawsuit in federal court. That lawsuit caused the feds to apply new Environmental Justice regulations to the 2009 Parkway route which today cuts in half the King Maple community of color and 26% residents with poverty incomes! Lower upscale Pine Street traffic drops 76% while stressed King Maple gets flooded with 37% more cars and trucks! Suddenly after lawsuit federal officials who in 2006 dismissed the City fight against the King Maple routing retreated saying OK, you can bypass King Maple as originally advocated by our Mayor and Council with a connection between Battery Street and Pine Street adjacent to Curtis Lumber. The “Railyard” project now in planning cuts King Maple traffic by upwards of 59% while still cutting the majority of traffic along Pine below Flynn Avenue. Still, federal and Vermont officials want to build the current design first with its full bore devastation on King Maple only to come back at some as yet unknown future year “cure” the Parkway harms. Bypass King Maple now! Kill the Parkway through King Maple! A “RIGHTway” design saves millions in cost in a project now topping $100 million! Our all volunteer Pine Street Coalition, now about six years old, is composed of about 200 citizens. Pine Street is an outgrowth of Burlington Walk Bike Council analysis and concerns 2014-2016 over lack of safe, separate walk and bike accommodations anywhere along the Parkway base route, and a larger community opposition which caused a complete rewrite of the planBTV South End to include a future vision of the South End with and without the Parkway as then designed. Add the numerous laws, policies and plans now in place since the 2009 now rescinded environmental document--plus the one the ground changes like the South End City Market Coop Store, Blodgett Oven moving out being replaced by a generator space type development, etc. Those laws, policies and plans include, among others: Vermont Complete Streets Law (2011), new Environmental Justice regulations, federal requirements that highway funds decrease serious and fatal injuries, and our own City plans and policies which include our the Climate Change Emergency (2019), Transportation Plan (2011), Racism as a Public Health Emergency (2020), and our landmark and regularly revised Climate Action Plan which dates back to the 1990s. Vermont Racial Justice Alliance and Fortieth Burlington (Innovation Center) Pine Street expanded last fall by joining with the Vermont Racial Justice Alliance (VRJA) which together with a long standing association with Fortieth Burlington, LLC (Fortieth) creates a larger group in a common cause. Fortieth owns the former 1800s manufacturing complex now reborn as a modern office complex, Innovation Center on Lakeside Avenue. Without the appeal of the Act 250 permit to the Vermont Supreme Court by Fortieth, the current atrocious and harmful Parkway design would be in place today with devastating impacts on the King Maple community of color and a harmful bubble covering the entire South End! So, our Pine Street Coalition formed a joint effort with VRJA and Fortieth last fall and individually and jointly continue initiatives along a common set of accepted re-design guidelines originally developed in a community process years ago which continues today with little change--see the new "one-pager" which describes our common design elements we seek in a re-designed, Railyard first built modern transportation facility. It is this "Railyard first" which means an immediate and permanent reduction in traffic, stress and pollution in King Maple which has come to the fore in our thinking and advocacy over the past three months! Our common cause separate, parallel and joint actions. Both VRJA and ourselves are proud of the Vermont Sierra Club inaugural Transit Equity day award early this year, a joint award which recognizes our common cause efforts to address racial equity in the King Maple neighborhood as well as a quality, safe, “equality” streets Parkway design. We here at Pine Street mark with sadness the recent passing of a founding member of our "presentation team", Charles Simpson, also a long time member of Neighborhood Planning Assembly 6 Steering Committee, and retired SUNNY Plattsburgh professor, expert in community land use and urban development!

Pine Street and Vermont Racial Justice Call for Champlain RIGHTway cutting King Maple Traffic 59%!

Wednesday, February 17, 2021

Pine Street Coalition and VT Racial Justice Alliance receive joint Transit Equity Day award by VT Sierra Club Chapter

***FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE*** 4 February 2021 FOR MORE INFORMATION: Tony Redington, Coordinator Steve Goodkind Pine Street Coalition bludriver@aol.com 802-343-6616 802-316-6045 tonyrvt99@gmail.com Pine Street Coalition and Vermont Racial Justice Alliance Receive Transit Equity Award for Champlain Parkway Environment Justice Fight Burlington. VT. -- The Vermont Chapter of the Sierra Club today issued its first Transit Equity Award to the Pine Street Coalition and the Vermont Racial Justice Alliance for their collaborative work fighting the Champlain Parkway highway project in Burlington on environmental justice grounds. The award is part of the Sierra Club’s Transit Equity Day taking place on Rosa Parks’ birthday to highlight the need to transition to more environmentally-sound transportation including increased public transit. The Pine Street Coalition is a grass-roots group advocating for safer, greener transportation, particularly for bicyclists and pedestrians, in Burlington’s vibrant South End. The Vermont Racial Justice Alliance is an advocacy organization focused on dismantling racism in Vermont with a priority on public policy regarding housing, education, employment, and criminal justice. The two groups intersected over the City of Burlington’s plan to run the Champlain Parkway highway project through the middle of the Maple-King neighborhood, increasing traffic volume and speed through this predominantly Black and immigrant community. “The City’s own numbers state that their project would decrease traffic in the predominantly white, more affluent neighborhoods further south, but at the expense of increasing traffic in the Maple King neighborhood by 37 percent. More traffic and higher speeds significantly increase the safety risk to people walking and biking in this neighborhood, especially children and elders,” says Tony Redington, coordinator of the Pine Street Coalition and a prior transportation planner and policy analyst in Vermont and New Hampshire. The Pine Street Coalition filed a federal lawsuit in 2018 to stop the Champlain Parkway. Among their challenges to the project was environmental justice. The Federal Highway Administration agreed with the Coalition’s contention that environmental review had not fulfilled requirements to analyze the project’s effects on non-White and lower-income residents. The federal court case was put on hold so that the City could evaluate environmental justice impacts. Coordinating with the Racial Justice Alliance as well as Fortieth Burlington, LLC, owner of Innovation Center office complex on Lakeside Avenue, the Pine Street Coalition engaged expert witnesses from Burlington’s academic community and submitted substantial comments detailing the racial harm inherent in the City’s highway design. “As a matter of public policy, undesirable public works are often shifted to low- income neighborhoods as the path to least resistance in overcoming public objection,” said Pine Street Coalition expert Lionel Beasley, professor of Race and Media at Champlain College. “The decision to extend the Champlain Parkway along Pine Street to the Maple-King neighborhood represents the continuation of long-standing patterns that trace their origins to Urban Renewal programs and the placement of highways beginning in the late 1940s.” The City’s highway design “smacks of racism” according to retired Burlington City Engineer Steve Goodkind. “If there is any doubt about this, just imagine if the situation was reversed and downtown and affluent neighborhoods were being asked to accept greater traffic volumes in order for traffic to be reduced in the King/Maple/Pine neighborhood. There’s not a chance in hell of that happening, and we all know why,” he said. Working with the Racial Justice Alliance and Fortieth Burlington, owner of the Innovation Center on the Parkway’s path, the Pine Street Coalition developed a solution called the Champlain RIGHTway, a re-routed alternative to the Parkway which would bring traffic relief to the Maple-King community as well as more affluent South End neighborhoods, while increasing safety, decreasing environmental impacts, and costing far less. The Racial Justice Alliance, with support from the Pine Street Coalition and Fortieth Burlington, presented the Champlain RIGHTway proposal to state and federal officials three weeks ago, who have as of yet failed to respond to their demands for environmental justice. The Sierra Club granted the award acknowledging the unique collaboration between Pine Street Coalition and the Racial Justice Alliance because it “believes that these types of partnerships are what is needed to challenge systemic racism and institutional poor transportation planning.” www.SafeStreetsBurlington.com https://www.facebook.com/SSBPineStreetNOW Stop Transportation Racism! Redesign the Champlain Parkway!

Sunday, May 17, 2020

New Street Proposal to City, Vermont Agency of Transportation and Federal Highway Officials

Let’s shape a street the City can love!

PINE STREET COALITION PROPOSAL:

NEW STREET

…An economically viable, environmentally sound alternative to the

“Champlain Parkway/Southern Connector"

NEW STREET is the forward-thinking transportation alternative to the stalled, obsolete Champlain Parkway/Southern Connector project. NEW STREET incorporates many elements of the plan, so can proceed to construction with minimal additional state and federal review.

NEW STREET eliminates previous safety, environmental and social justice roadblocks, addressing much community opposition which has until now stymied the Champlain Parkway.

NEW STREET protects the safety of travelers (vehicles, pedestrians and bicyclists) and vulnerable adjacent populations. It bolsters long-term sustainability and development of Burlington's South End. We anticipate that NEW STREET should cost millions less to build than the proposed Champlain Parkway project. The New Street design cuts 1.5 lane-miles of roadway construction, maintenance, and storm-water infrastructure.

NEW STREET incorporates the most recent Environmental Justice initiatives from the Federal Highway Administration, thus avoiding disproportionate impact to Burlington's predominant minority and low-income neighborhoods. NEW STREET responds to the Climate Emergency resolution adopted by the Burlington City Council on 9/23/19 and signed by the Mayor on 9/25/19. New Street reduces pavement, promotes bike and pedestrian travel, and protects the Englesby Brook natural wildlife corridor.

NEW STREET OUTLINE: SECTION by SECTION

RESTORE and REFURBISH as a two-way, two-lane road the EXISTING PORTION of the never-completed SOUTHERN CONNECTOR. This runs from I-189 at Route 7 to Home Avenue.

A roundabout intersection at south end of Pine Street retains connection between I-189, Queen City Park Road and South Burlington. LARGE TRUCK traffic, is REROUTED to the restored CONNECTOR roadway. Automobiles, light trucks, and bikes may travel this route or travel NORTH on PINE, and WEST or EAST on QUEEN CITY PARK ROAD.

From the Pine Street roundabout to Flynn Avenue the road will be posted as “TRUCK ROUTE.” The restored road ends at HOME AVENUE.

A sidewalk and separate bikeway is built on the west side of the restored connector from Pine Street to Home Avenue.

2. NEW STREET FROM HOME AVE TO FLYNN AVE

Beginning on NEW STREET, at the intersection of restored CONNECTOR and HOME AVENUE, light trucks, cars and bicycles may travel NORTH or SOUTH on NEW STREET, or EAST or WEST on HOME AVENUE. LARGE TRUCKS continue SOUTH ON NEW STREET which ends at FLYNN AVENUE.

A new intersection on NEW STREET serves as entrance to CITY MARKET and PETRA CLIFFS businesses.

Between HOME AVENUE AND FLYNN AVENUE the sidewalk and separate bikeway continue on the West (City Market) side of NEW STREET as well a sidewalk on the East side.

NEW STREET replaces BRIGGS STREET and a small section of BATCHELDER STREET in the new design remains as in the current design on the east side for residences access to the adjacent Addition road network.

From NEW STREET intersection with Flynn Avenue cars and light trucks will be routed WEST and EAST on Flynn and SOUTH on NEW STREET. LARGE TRUCKS are REROUTED West on FLYNN.

3. NEW STREET ENDS AT FLYNN AVENUE—SIDEWALK AND SEPARATE BIKEWAY CONTINUE TO MAIN STREET

The Westside sidewalk and separate bikeway continue NORTH to ENGLESBY BROOK—the sidewalk and separate bikeway crossing the Brook will likely feature an historic iron bridge of the VTrans program of historic preservation. The sidewalk and separate bikeway continue to Sears Lane and through to Lakeside Avenue. At Lakeside Avenue the sidewalk and bikeway turn East one block to Pine Street, then North toward downtown on the Westside of Pine to Kilburn Street-Curtis Lumber. From Kilburn Street to Main Street the sidewalk continues and bicyclists use a protected bike lanes on Pine Street. No traffic signals would be installed at either Pine Street/Maple Street or Pine Street/King Street intersections.

May 16, 2020 Pine Street Coalition L3C Rev. 1

SafeStreetsBurlington.com

Pine Street Coalition New Street Proposal--A Street our South End and City Can Love!!

Let’s shape a street the City can love!

PINE STREET COALITION PROPOSAL:

NEW STREET

…An economically viable, environmentally sound alternative to the

“Champlain Parkway/Southern Connector"

NEW STREET eliminates previous safety, environmental and social justice roadblocks, addressing much community opposition which has until now stymied the Champlain Parkway.

NEW STREET OUTLINE: SECTION by SECTION

RESTORE and REFURBISH as a two-way, two-lane road the EXISTING PORTION of the never-completed SOUTHERN CONNECTOR. This runs from I-189 at Route 7 to Home Avenue.

From the Pine Street roundabout to Flynn Avenue the road will be posted as “TRUCK ROUTE.” The restored road ends at HOME AVENUE.

A sidewalk and separate bikeway is built on the west side of the restored connector from Pine Street to Home Avenue.

2. NEW STREET FROM HOME AVE TO FLYNN AVE

A new intersection on NEW STREET serves as entrance to CITY MARKET and PETRA CLIFFS businesses.

Between HOME AVENUE AND FLYNN AVENUE the sidewalk and separate bikeway continue on the West (City Market) side of NEW STREET as well a sidewalk on the East side.

From NEW STREET intersection with Flynn Avenue cars and light trucks will be routed WEST and EAST on Flynn and SOUTH on NEW STREET. LARGE TRUCKS are REROUTED West on FLYNN.

3. NEW STREET ENDS AT FLYNN AVENUE—SIDEWALK AND SEPARATE BIKEWAY CONTINUE TO MAIN

STREET

May 16, 2020 Pine Street Coalition L3C Rev. 1

SafeStreetsBurlington.com

Wednesday, October 16, 2019

Champlain Parkway Comments Responding to City/VT/Federal Highway Administration Environmental Justice Outreach

Some Individual Comments Submitted to the City of Burlington/Vermont

Agency of Transportation/Federal Highway Administration

in Response to the Champlain Parkway

Environmental Justice “Outreach Meeting” on September 26, 2019

1. Carolyn Bates

2. James Lockridge

3. Diane Eliott Gayer

4. Mark Hughes

5. Michael Long

6. Jack Daggitt

7. Charles Simpson

8. Tony Redington

9. Marcy Kass

1. Carolyn Bates, Carolyn Street, Burlington

My name is Carolyn L. Bates and I use to live and work directly in the King and Maple St. neighborhood. Now I live and work: (my business, Carolyn L. Bates Photography) on Caroline Street, just around the corner. I have continued to work with clients in the King and Maple St Neighborhood, and spend pleasurable time at Perkins Pier. I have always been a low income, woman owned business. I am now a senior, too.

I am writing you to share my great distress with the present design of the Champlain Parkway Project that is proposed for our neighborhoods and with an urgent need to move this project along. Now this project must undergo an environmental justice review. This means the project planners must show that the project will not have a disproportionate impact on low income and minority neighborhoods like mine.

I think it does have a horrifically huge discrepancy and impact. This project must be stopped NOW, and never go forward. Look at your own projected chart on the volume of traffic in the multi page handout you gave to us. It is on Pg 27. Wealthy neighborhoods have a reduction of 72% and 56% in traffic. Lakeside, with some low income people, has an increase in 9%.

Our neighborhood of King and Maple, has 37% increase at Maple St and Pine and another 22% on King and Pine. It is the second poorest neighborhood in Burlington, with 200 section 8 people, and at least 21
housing projects. It also has a huge population of non-English speaking African Americans.

DPW of Burlington held one, poorly announced meeting, where we could make comments but not ask questions about the large confusing displays of the parkway design. And then you are not allowing other meeting though many of us asked for one. It was held outside of the neighborhood at dinner time. Only two families from the African American group were able to come. You are allowing less than two weeks to reach out to those people who would have liked to come to a neighborhood meeting, and tell them what we can and get them to make comments. This is the first time since the early 2006-2010 we have been able to comment.

As the enclosed chart on page 27 shows, the King (22%) and Maple St (37%) neighborhood will see way over a one third increase in traffic while other neighborhoods will see their traffic drop by more than half (ie 72% and 56%). To me, this clearly shows the incredibly huge violation of the principles of environmental justice.

This increased traffic will cause an enormous increase in heavy pollution and noise (people today can’t open their windows in the summer because of the existing pollution nor enjoy sitting outside and playing with their children). Today traveling up and down Pine St is impossible much of the time. Buses are stuck in the same traffic as cars. The safety and health is already eroding. And YOU want to build a highway exit here? And make it totally impossible for anyone to live here safely. There are HUGE apartments here, too.

My summary, very similar to others, so we stay within the boundaries of this review:
With regards to the environmental justice review by the Federal Justice Department of the Champlain Parkway as it is designed today. I believe that it is totally unfair to decrease the traffic in other neighborhoods while greatly increasing it in ours (ie King and Maple St Neighborhood) with this project. We do not need more traffic. The impact will be intolerable. We already are impacted too much with the traffic we have. We are low income, section 8, seniors, disabled, minority people generally living in small spaces with lots of other people. We need our outside air CLEAN, noise levels REDUCED, and travel IMPROVED and SAFER. We need A SAFE separate bike and pedestrian pathway so we can travel easily in our wheelchairs to buy groceries, bike quickly to work, and visit friends. We want to improve our lives, and health. And the present parkway as designed will only destroy what little we have left now. The injustice is beyond unfair. The impact overwhelming for the King and Maple St Neighborhood.

I am aghast that you all have needed the Pine St Coalition to challenge you on the fairness of this, in order to get you to STOP and hopefully LISTEN to us and STOP THE PARKWAY from being built as designed.

It is so blatantly unfair and unjust to put this HUGE UNJUST IMPACT into my friends and clients and all the new non-English speaking families lives and everyone else’s in this neighborhood. Especially to all of the CHILDREN.

What we really need is a road far safer than you have designed, with roundabouts, reduction in noise, cleaner, safer, faster, easier with very safe and separate walk and bike paths from the southern end of Burlington into downtown. Having Electric small buses that run every 15 minutes so we can all leave our cars behind would be wonderful. Please do it this way instead. This way we can regain the 6 acres of land we gave up a long time ago and rebuild the houses and businesses we had before, and make Englesby Brook clean, and into a park to enjoy by all instead of sticking it into a 200 ft enclosure, and move Burlington into the Future instead of sending it back to the 1960’s

2. James Lockridge, Maple Street, Burlington

I’d like to offer a public comment to the Champlain Parkway project in Burlington as a resident of lower King Street.

I’m disappointed that the protected bike/pedestrian path ends at Kilburn Street and does not extend into the King/Maple neighborhood. I was told at the public meeting that this design decision was made to preserve on-street parking. I feel that this prioritizes a taxpayer-funded entitlement of free parking for people who can afford cars over the basic safety of all neighborhood children on bicycles. I perceive this as a shallow politically motivated decision rather than one built on values of improving the safety of transportation for all.

I also wish there were roundabout-style intersections at King and Maple Streets, which keep polluting vehicles moving past homes rather than idling in front of them, and are known to be safer than traffic lights for pedestrians. If any kind of roundabout fit into those intersections, it would be closer to best practices for transportation safety and neighborhood wellbeing than old fashioned traffic lights would be.

Thank you for accepting these comments into the record.

3. Diane Eliott Gayer

I am responding to a request for comments on the Parkway that are due by today.

I have been involved in the community conversations, as well as studied and reviewed the engineered designs as they’ve come out of the decades and current years. I have led community-wide charrettes for the neighborhoods surrounding the Pine Street area (both 3-years ago and twenty-years ago) as an architect and regional planner.

So here are my comments: There needs to be a new EIS study. The conditions that the engineering and landscape design are based on have dramatically changed. There are any traffic and environmental conditions that will be worse with this current plan.

1. Do NOT dead-end Pine Street at South Burlington. Make the connection to 189 a roundabout facility.

2. Continue the street network in the south end especially at Batchelder. A grid of street is much friendlier on a neighborhood than thoroughfares.

3. Do NOT design the Parkway for high-speed clearances and then post it for low-speed travel. This does not work and is not proper engineering standards.

4. End the Parkway at Flynn Avenue. Do not extend it across Englesby Brook, just to dead-end it at Lakeside instead… forcing a right-turn and difficulty for Lakeside Resident access.

5. Develop a coherent plan for King and Maple Streets before shoving more traffic through the intersections. Publicly proposed (and used elsewhere in Burlington as traffic-calming measures) is a one-way loop from Pine to Main and back again on South Champlain…. creating half the traffic in each direction as it flows thru.

6. Impact of stormwater flow and sewer line connectivity are still troublesome in this area and these are not being addressed by the City as part of this project, to my knowledge. Which means that the project does not meet Livable City standards (which Burlington claims) or Stormwater Management Permit conditions. This is a failure of the current plan and could be mitigated with a proper EIS. No doing so is legally actionable.

7. Thinking to the future, the pattern of residential and industrial/business uses in the South End has changed over the last 20 years. The Parkway was not designed to address the new uses and street functionality needs that are building up within the area. The old concept was to get trucks and cars speedily into Burlington’s center… now it's a layering of increasing local traffic (including festivals), many fewer trucks headed for Burlington (down to 4%), and commuter traffic (both bike and car).

Please take into account these and many other comments you receive. It is our money after all that you are spending.

Thank you for your time,

Diane Elliott Gayer, Burlington , VT

4. Mark Hughes, ED, Justice For All Coordinator, Vermont Racial Justice Alliance http://justiceforallvt.org

This memo is in directed to you out of serious concern surrounding the community engagement process and and the fatally flawed environmental justice review of Champlain Parkway Project. We find it difficult to believe that this $47M highway construction project is moving towards implementation, given this new plan to route traffic across Pine Street, directly through the Maple/King Street neighborhood, the most racially diverse community in Burlington, save the Old North End! We feel that communities of color should have been afforded sufficient opportunity to be a part of discussions on this matter.

Further, it is unacceptable that draconian environmental justice processes are being used as a part of the Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement on a project with such far-reaching implications. It is our hope that this project is brought an immediate and indefinite halt that serious consideration may be given to the vast racial demographic and socioeconomic changes happening in Burlington since these plans began and the adverse and disproportionate impact that this project has on one of the most diverse and socioeconomically disadvantaged communities in Burlington.

Most disturbing is that this project blatantly protects white affluent communities at the expense of the health and prosperity of black and brown and poor communities (traffic, pollution and property values). It ignores the fact that the superfund site exists because of the white capitalist greed and is complicit at best in the unwillingness to do what so clearly best for all in addressing the mitigation of the superfund site in conjunction with (or as a condition for) this project. Instead of cleaning the site, the decision has been made instead to run a highway through the middle of the second most diverse community in Burlington? This is wrong.

As the racial demographics of our State continue to change, we owe it to ourselves both morally and economically to create and maintain an environment where the black, brown people and poor are safe and made to be able to prosper. We can do better and we must do it now. Stop the project and include the impacted community in planning.

Respectfully,

Mark Hughes, ED, Justice For All, Coordinator, Vermont Racial Justice Alliance

5. Michael Long, Brookes Avenue, Burlington

With regard to the Champlain Parkway design as proposed, the projected one third increase in traffic through the King Street/Maple Street neighborhood is incongruous and unacceptable for a project that is ostensibly intended to alleviate traffic congestion, particularly through residential neighborhoods. That this new road will degrade the status quo instead of improve upon it in this economically challenged neighborhood is especially onerous and embarrassing even. It’s reminiscent of the common practice of bisecting city neighborhoods on the “wrong-side-of-the-tracks” when the intestate system was routed through urban areas years ago.

We should know and care more about environmental justice by now. Do we?

Additionally this project is outdated as designed. State of the art from decades gone by will not serve the future well. Continuous protected and dedicated bike lanes should be a given as should safe roundabouts instead of obsolete signaled intersections.

A 20th century road is senseless when we’re nearly two decades into the 21st century already.

6. Jack Daggitt, St. Paul St., Burlington

October 1, 2019

This letter is in response to the Champlain Parkway Outreach Meeting held September 28 at Burlington City Hall. This meeting was the first chance for public comment since 2006 and may be the last so it's important that aspects of the project be thoroughly considered now.

If a street connecting Shelburne Road and Lakeside Avenue is opened up it is foolish to think motorists will observe a 25 MPH speed limit on a smooth freshly paved surface. Without roundabouts at critical intersections we can only expect increased speed, air pollution and danger to both bicycles and pedestrians.

Shared use facilities for both bicycles and pedestrians serve the needs of neither. Bicycle need protected bike lanes not just a white stripe on a road heavily traveled by motor vehicles.

Pedestrians ned a safe walkway separate from bicycles especially now tha E-bikes capable of 20 MPH will be coming into increased use.

At one point Briggs Street, Champlain Parkway and Pine Street all run parallel north and south within a few hundred feet of each other. This is an unnecessary and wasteful duplication.

My wife and I live in the King Street/Maple Street neighborhood and the latest iteration of the Champlain Parkway will have a negative impact on our health and safety. This also applies to the low income neighborhood families that are served by the King Street Center directly across from our home and the laundromat down the street.

The present version of the Champlain Parkway and its 2009 EIS is outdated and obsolete. It ignores environmental concerns and the impact on low income families. It should be abandoned or redesigned and an antirely new EIS developed to reflect the needs and laws now prevailing. The cost of this project is great enough that we should take the time to get it right.

Jack Daggitt, 161 St. Paul Street #103, Burlington, VT 05401 802-540-0760

7. Charles Simpson, 83 Summit St., Burlington

Hello,

I hope you are carefully considering the analysis made by the Pine Street Coalition titled Champlain Parkway Change Analysis, dated 3/30/18. It is trenchant. Let me add my own thoughts.

Considering major changes have occurred to the South End since 2009, a new EIS is required before any construction of the Parkway is contemplated. Why?

1) New USDOT requirements include consideration of disproportionate impact on low-income and racial minority populations. The planned route will dump considerably more vehicles than at present into the Pine/Maple/King area which is well above city averages for those over 65, for racial minorities, and for low-to-moderate income residents. Because Decker Towers houses a large concentration of low income and physically challenged residents, this is of special concern. We know that in the last 8 years, pedestrian use of Pine Street has doubled as it has evolved into an arts, restaurant, and enterprise zone. Because the profile of nearby residents includes lower income and physically handicapped people, this means that the old, those on electric wheel chairs, young families with toddlers, and cyclists would be competing for the use of the same shared-use paths for much on Pine, clearly a dangerous design in violation of USDOT regulations.

2) As we face torrential rain episodes that stress the capacity of our rivers and wetlands to absorb and redirect surface water, the current plan would squander the ability of Englesby Brook to mitigate flooding by channeling 200 ft. of it into a culvert under the planned expressway, accelerating its flow and associated erosion and lake contamination. Rather than exploit the potential of this riparian channel as a safe pathway to Champlain Elementary School, as a natural area, and as a rain garden slowing and absorbing surface water, the Parkway paves much of it over with an impermeable surface. In an era of climate emergency, this is unconscionable.

3) Our Municipal Plan calls for complete streets, which include not only separate and distinct bike and pedestrian paths, but street connectivity. The current plan for the parkway adds zero separate paths and creates dead ends on numerous streets that are now connected. The most significant of these truncated streets is the main commercial thoroughfare of the South End itself, Pine Street. This will deprive residents of essential access to the adjacent commercial district in South Burlington, including low income residents in South Meadow and will further congest Shelburne Road, making it the sole route out of the South End. Buses and emergency vehicles will be greatly limited in their routes as well as walkers, bikers, and drivers. Commercial routes from Pine Street will be cut off. This makes no sense and is retrogressive from a traffic planning perspective.

4) Recent history tells us that Briggs street and the surrounding area floods with heavy rain. This area is also the site of significant commercial investment, with City Market and Petra Cliffs. Rather than solve the flooding problem, the City has continued with their "wait and see" approach, neither upgrading the road or even paving it. Other than in parkland, Briggs may be the only dirt road left in the city, even as a large retail food store was construct on it at Flynn Ave. Why? The City is replicating the approach it used 30 year ago in refusing to complete the C1 section at Home Ave in order to blackmail the public into approving a more comprehensive road plan. Only when the Parkway is in does the City plan to rebuild Briggs. And yes, to create yet another dead end on a vital commercial and residential street. And what will Briggs St. be at that point? A service road parallel to the Parkway and mere feet away, adding useless additional paved surface to a flood-prone area. How thoughtless! How expensive!

5) The purpose and need for this traffic conduit from I-89 to downtown has been obviated by changes to the downtown and South End over the last decade. As an Enterprise Zone, the South End is not a traffic corridor as envisioned by the earlier plan but a vibrant commercial and cultural area. It is also the site of university operations. And the downtown is no longer the destination of those seeking access to department stores. The downtown mall is gone, Macy's is gone, while nearby malls in South Burlington and Williston provide the big box shopping area consumers seek. Downtown has become much more residential and boutique oriented around restaurants and small shops and offices. Transient parking is sharply reduced. While it remains a recreational and tourist destination, downtown is no longer the focal point for mass shopping. What's needed is not a $45 million limited access roadway but frequent electric buses on Pine and nearby streets to accommodate the new reality. At the same time, we need to preserve the job-growing potential of the South End's Enterprise District, not pave much of it over with a limited access highway. This is wrong-headed.

What to do?

Open the C1 section with a roundabout at Pine and the terminus at Home. Cancel the C2 from Flynn to Lakeside completely. Improve Pine with separate bike/walk corridors; and rebuild Briggs Street from Home to Flynn as a complete, neighborhood Street. Finally, add mini-roundabouts at Maple and King. This is cheaper by many millions and saves the South End from useless destruction.

Thanks, Charles Simpson, 83 Summit Ridge, Burlington, VT.

8. Tony Redington, 20 North Winooski Ave. Apt 2., Burlington

Comments Regarding the Environmental Justice Impacts of the

Champlain Parkway on the King/Maple Low Income/Minority

Neighborhood

Tony Redington

My name is Tony Redington and I reside at 20 North Winooski Avenue, Apt. 2, Burlington, VT 05401. I am a walk safety advocate, a published transportation researcher, and a policy development specialist by profession—now retired. A graduate in Chemistry from Norwich University, I received a Masters in Public Administration (1977) degree from University of Maine Orono.

My public administration experience included statewide housing planning and state agency housing director followed by 20 years in policy and planning at the New Hampshire Department of Transportation and Vermont Agency of Transportation. As a walk safety advocate by default became a policy expert in roundabouts, the safest pedestrian infrastructure in the world and now the acknowledged intersection standard. In 1992-1995 led a Montpelier community, then City Committee which developed the first roundabout east of Vail and north of Maryland, Keck Circle (1995). I am the author of several research papers and presentations on the subjects of roundabouts, pedestrian safety, and commuter rail development.

Have participated in and/or been an advisory committee member in City studies including North Avenue Corridor Plan as a representative of Neighborhood Planning Assembly Ward 3, the PlanBTV Walk Bike (2017) as the AARP Vermont delegate, the Colchester/Barrett/Riverside intersection, the Cambrian Rise multi-faceted development as part of the Cambrian Rise group, and the current Winooski road corridor study.

Like several who are commenting in this Outreach Meeting and after, I am a member of the grassroots democracy experiment initiated by Mayor Bernie Sanders 37 years ago—I am a member of the Steering Committee of Neighborhood Planning Assembly Wards 2 and 3.

The King/Main Street part of Pine Street section of the Champlain Parkway is part of our two wards. So in the “NPAs” we learn about our neighbors and issues and try to do so in a neutral and fair manner. And in the process we learn, hopefully, what it is to be a good citizen and how to participate in our areas seeking a better future.

In Burlington have been a leader of the Pine Street Coalition seeking a re-design of the Champlain Parkway for manifold reasons centering around safety and modern “best practices.” The grassroots group of over 200, the Coalition’s single mission is ending the current project through invalidating the Federal Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (FSEIS) dating from 2009 so that a new EIS process for a project can take place by this generation using “best practice” and safe designs of today. My involvement with the Parkway dates from the roughly 1998-2008 period when two of my sons lived across from Champlain School on Pine Street and the Parkway plan at that point did not include safe intersection control—i.e., traffic signals instead of roundabouts which clearly signaled unsafe conditions for my family living in Burlington’s South End.

My concerns were expressed in a detailed letter outlining estimated differentials of injuries with four traffic signals instead of roundabouts containing an analysis of the roundabout versus signal option—the letter dated May 11, 2006 was send to political and administrative City, Region, State and Federal Highway officials (see Attachment 1). The analysis was based on a roundabout versus signal performance tied to a value engineering report in a City response January 17, 2005.

There really is a two fold historical process in regard to these comments: (1) a downturn in US highway safety at the common federal/state/municipal levels in the United States which places the Champlain Parkway in stark relief as almost a perfect example of systemic safety design failure which grew over a three decade period; and (2) secondly, the particular subject of this set of comments directed at the intra project “disproportionate” impacts on the clearly low income/minority King/Maple Neighborhood (King/Maple).

Devolution of U.S. Highway Safety—the Nexus of Champlain

Parkway Design

From 1990 when the U.S. along with the U.K. were number one among modern nations in highway safety performance (deaths per vehicle mile) the U.S. steadily

dropped to 18th in the most recent OECD series on national highway safety performance. Now the U.S. has more than twice the deaths per vehicle of the top our nations—U.K. (still at the head of the pack), Norway, Switzerland and Sweden. Lack of systematic highway safety policies is a short explanation of our continuing failure leading to our current 23,000 excess deaths yearly versus the rates of the top four nations (plus hundreds of thousands excess injuries).

But there is another factor at play very important when applied to King/Maple. While leading nations in safety, mostly in Western Europe, retained transit and walking/bicycling in significant proportions, those nations from 1990 onwards placed particular emphasis on walking and bicycling safety infrastructure—something still absent in the U.S. at all levels even today when there are beginning signs this is changing.

What is the relation between American safety policy over the last three decades and King/Maple? First and foremost massive federal investments in the interstate highway system did so in almost the complete absence of any use of federal funds for walk and bicycle infrastructure. At the time of the 1991 Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act (ISTEA) only $20 million was allowed by States for separate walk/bike infrastructure with the State of Ohio having tapped the majority of these funds for some time! At that time Vermont also began to use those funds when suddenly ISTEA literally opened the floodgates of both walk and bike eligible federal project funding.

The need for safe walking and bicycling facilities is mainly an urban need and predominantly benefiting the U.S. urban population where low income and minorities are located. The fact that Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) regulations—finally after the Parkway design was completed—set requirements to determine the presence of disproportionate and, if so, then minimize impacts of federal highway project on low-income/minority areas truly created a head on crash with the reality that these community and neighborhoods had been—and are in the case of King/Maple—subjected to an incredible, in this case a surely high level of environmental injustice.

Add to this fact that from 2010 pedestrian fatalities have grown 45% in this nation, another indicator of the critical need to bring federal and other investments to deal with, in our case, the “best practices,” “safest practices” to our urban areas.

A closer look at King/Maple shows perfectly the direct connection between the past 30 years of highway investment and the disproportionate impacts on low income/minority populations. Our two highest proportion of low/moderate and diverse populations in the City of Burlington—the Old North End and King/Maple (both over 80% low-moderate income)—also are neighborhoods where about a third have no access to a car and therefore are dependent on walk, bicycle, and transit modes! For 30 years minority and low income areas have been neglected at all governmental level either by design or neglect when it comes to transportation investments—the current Parkway design is the very embodiment of that practice. Safety for those who walk and bike in Burlington are not isolated phenomena. The Winooski corridor study collected five years of Citywide data and on average there are 150 injuries per year (one pedestrian fatality in the sample), 50 bike/ped and 100 car occupant. The City Walk Bike Plan analysis found the “dirty 17” mostly signalized intersections with an average of one injury a year (about 75 signalized intersections in the City). Our five downtown roundabouts average about one injury a decade wit 52 years tabulated on the books.

Disproportionate Impact

On the first level regarding walk, bike and transit aspects of the current Parkway design clearly fails on all aspects of safety and service. A $47

million urban neighborhood investment without a single inch of sidewalk (some sidewalk actually removed) and not an inch of safe/separate bikeway/cycle track. A project which shuts down the one alternative route for the regional local transit services. A project that takes two intersections

in the heart of King/Maple now the safest non-roundabout control, all way stops, and converts to higher pedestrian crash rate traffic signals along with inevitable longer crossing wait times. (Ditto for the low income 28 unit apartment with about 20 children, Flynn Avenue Co-op at the corner of Flynn/Parkway.) In the adjacent Shelburne Street corridor the first County busy street roundabout 100% federally funded is nearing construction while obsolete and admittedly high crash rate traffic signals are inflicted on King Maple! (It was the late Senator Jim Jeffords who put the road “roundabout” in federal transportation statue for the first time about 2005, a word added to list of safety transportation measures eligible for 100% federal funding.)

So, first, it is clear that nothing in the project design provides current “best practice” safe infrastructure for any mode (we assume the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety 2001 landmark study showing about a 90% reduction in serious and fatal injures with roundabouts replacing signals and sign control, a study that included the Brattleboro Roundabout—also assumes the 52 year record of five downtown Vermont roundabouts with 0 bike injury, one pedestrian injury and four car occupant injuries, none serious). Note that AARP, Geico, AAA all support roundabouts over signals and converting existing signals to roundabouts. (Sweden has more roundabouts than signalized intersections.)

Yes, we have Census evidence from 2010 (not available in the FSEIS) which reveals both a low income population and a growth of minority population 2000-2010. (See the Pine Street Coalition documents from April 2018, Specifically pp. 4-44 submitted directly to the City, VAOT and FHWA Division office.) In addition as per the Attachment 2 photo taken this past week on Pine by Carolyn Bates who lives it the neighborhood, we see in graphic form the high concentration of young minority residents, here embarking on the GMT morning school bus. King/Maple is a low income and minority income neighborhood.

While residents already complain about the traffic levels and associated noise, walking discomfort and pollution, King Maple very simply must face a 29-37% increase in daily traffic as outlined in FSEIS traffic analysis, shown in the the graphic presented by CHA consultants in the Outreach Meeting (Attachment 3 as annotated by Carolyn Bates). At the same time, the graph shows sharp traffic declines on lower Pine—Home to Flynn down 72%, Flynn to Lakeside down 56%. The bulk of traffic benefits occur south of Flynn, a predominately home owner neighborhood with very small numbers of renters, low income and minorities. Not only no benefit comes to King Maple but only markedly degraded conditions and safety. Simply the Parkway has a disproportionate amount of negative impacts to mostly renter, mostly low-income, high minority King/Maple—while markedly benefiting a primarily a homeowner, low low income and far smaller minority population area south of Flynn Avenue.

Finally officials have overstated community engagement. Contacts for the Outreach Meeting were spotty at best, about a third of those attending were urged to do so by Pine Street Coalition. At best by the presentation there has been not meaningful opportunity to speak publicly at a meeting on the Parkway in at least a decade—the so-called November 2015 meeting at Champlain School did not allow a single word to be uttered by the public (again Pine Street promoted attendance there) as speakers presented nd then answered only some questions posed which could only be submitted on index cards in writing.

Thank you for the opportunity to comment on the question of the Champlain Parkway design environmental justice impacts.

9. Marcy Kass, 202 Sunrise Drive, Williston

To Governor Scott, Federal Highway, Mayor Weinberger, I support Champlain Parkway re-design to make it a safer and more friendly thoroughfare for driving, biking and walking. The current antiquated design is wasteful and dangerous. I support building a roadway that makes sense and our City can love!

I live in Williston and sometimes put my bike on the bus and ride into Burlington. When I ride my bike onto Pine Street, there's something in the air. I don't know what it is. A freshness. That says a lot for Burlington, I think currently still one of the most livable cities in America. Let's keep it that way.

I spoke to many people about this project. Chapin Spencer is someone I hold in high regard. My sense is that he was trying to make the best of a not-great plan; that he's bound by his job as Director of Public Works to do that. The neighborhood and those of us who love Burlington are not similarly bound. Let's do the very best we can! Why not?

I understand that there is possibly much money to lose, if the this project doesn't go ahead as planned. There's also the possibility that that will NOT happen.

More importantly, if we are paying attention, especially to young people, we will get it that money is NOT the bottom line, truly. It is our lives and our futures!

Thank you for your consideration,

Marcy Kass 202 Sunrise Drive Williston, VT

Place to sign petition to support a new EIS/modern roadway design:

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

Websites: SafeStreetsBurlington.com

https://www.facebook.com/SSBPineStreetNOW/

Note the complete statements of these commenters below can be viewed at TonyRVT.blogspot.com

Pine Street Coalition October 17, 2019