Some Reflections on the Burlington Main Street Project—
Between South Union and Battery Street
Carcentricity over the decades strangled our City core—Downtown and Old North End/King Maple neighborhoods. You know, the areas with 25 mph streets which host the majority of the 20 Vermont high crash intersections, the center of pedestrian, bicyclist and car occupant injuries, many serious and some fatal. Walkable and bikable still remain out of reach for our urban core—safety must rule for all modes!
Now with traffic calming and led by roundabouts there is an antidote to continued decline and hope to shift many current core trips from car to transit and walk/bike, building out from our sacred pedestrian Marketplace. The opening of our first roundabouts this summer is a harbinger of the kind of change to transform our streets.
The subject of safety and walkabiity for our core streets could not be more timely as upwards of 530 apartments/condos alone either under construction including the 430 City Place nearing a start!
We escaped the “ring road,” the interstate roadway from I-189 through the South End, the waterfront, through ONE to the belt line and final connection via Colchester, Essex and Williston to I-89—that last section, the Circ died after a US District Court fight in the early 2000s. The other ring road vestige from the 1950s, the Champlain Parkway after a 3-year delay by the City finally reaches the US District Court where carcentricity in Burlington may finally be laid to rest.
The high traffic and crash rates in Downtown/King Maple/IONE show in history how transportation, however well intentioned, ends up in racial and low-income injustice as all these areas—nor surprisingly—are the epicenter of our lowest income residents and our largest community of color.
The Main Street project is put forth as part of a transformation but this project lacks clarity, particularly in the area of safety.
On the $20 million+ Main Street project from a number of standpoints there remain lots of questions and about lack of public discussion, engagement and outreach on the Main Street project. And absolutely no analytics!
The project approved by the voters was opposed by those with three major concerns: (1) lack of attention to the four of seven high crash intersections which now generate about 70 injuries per decade at a value of about $3.5 million, almost two injuries per intersection per year; a questionable financing source, Tax Increment Financing (TIF), which can put all Burlington taxpayers at risk; and (3) questionable sewer improvement in the “ravine” rejected in the past as not passing benefit cost tests versus alternatives and spreading public benefit to private interests. These questions remain. The vote did not impact these questions other than make them more important.
The “Great Streets” brand got inserted in the Burlington Transportation Plan competed in 2011. Few realize it dates to that time.
The first question might be where is there a Great Street of the this brand for any to see or look up to look into ones completed?
Main Street has only one short reasonably level block-and-a-half section between Prospect Street and Union Station—it starts at So. Winooski and ends at about the Flynn where the grade, again, increases.
Second, one has to look at the larger aspect of Burlington’s Main Street. Main Street by geography presents a challenge not addressed in any way by the project—it is a long hill with sharp grades except for the So. Winooski-Church Street block. This means absent a compensatory support like light rail which did operate from about 1890 through 1929—modes like walking and bicycling conditions have less potential than flat streets like North, North Winooski, and Church Streets to reach “great” status.
Actually Vermont features one "Great Street" today which anyone and visit and enjoy--Main Street Manchester Center! This street got to "great" status in 2012 with completion of two roundabouts (one a mini-roundabout and one really a "bridgeabout" over the Battenkill River) so when added to 1997 third roundabout Main Street reached greatness as the first roundabout corridor in Vermont. Already touting itself as the "5th Avenue of the Mountains," Manchester Center along the roundabout area features an unending tourist shopping and dining choices, incomparable scenic quality of the surrounding mountain heights, and yes the river with a now meandering pedestrian trail from Main/Depot roundabout eastward along Depot Street, the other main shopping leg being designed to move up to "great" street with roundabouts status. Other downtowns and and village centers would be adivsed to copy the Manchester Center 1995 plan which created the blueprint coming to reality today.
Few recognize the importance of the College Street free shuttle continuing today on the economics of businesses from the waterfront to the UVM Common—think of the YMCA, the Marketplace, and all retail and service businesses along its length. The free shuttle with reasonably frequencies acts to flatten College Street—there is no similar route on Main Street other than the University Mall very frequent run—but it only goes down hill from So. Union to Battery on Main Street—so of minor benefit. A similar renewal of pedestrian and bicycle access along Main Street (light rail today would include a car with walk-on bike corrals) with a return of light rail last studied in the 1990s with either College or Main Street the initial first routing between the waterfront and UVM/Medical center for first phase. It is important in any change to Main Street to retain vehicle travel way width to accommodate a standard light rail vehicle and space on either side for a motor vehicle to pass.
Again, only a frequent bus or light rail vehicle can Main Street reach it former status early in the 20th century as a “great street.” Consider what cable cars do to flatten California, Mson and Hyde Streets in San Francisco—clearly high grades than Main Street but reflective of the principles at work.
Also consider the advocacy of Rep. Curt McCormack and many other residents for a cable car oriented to tourists between the waterfront (likely Union Station) up Main Street to the UVM campus. Such a service can work side by side with light rail and both need to be kept feasible in any Main Street redesign.
Local Motion properly identified the need for uninterrupted bicycle facilities in the current design. Now there are 2-way bike lanes on both sides of Main Street except for the south side between So. Union (at Edmunds public schools complex) and South Winooski. Am fully supportive of their concerns. A petition can be found here:
But this raises a question—why 2-way bike lanes on each side of street, why not one lane on one side, 2-way on the other and reallocate the about five feet for plaza/pedestrian business use?
Since bicycling up or down Main Street for any distance is unlikely to generate the flow of College Street (less traffic, few signals today), then why is this street a high priory other than to have safety addressed at its high crash intersections and obsolete signals replaced on a priority basis over time.
Note that the current signals versus roundabouts increase green house gas emissions by about a third. And unfriendly signals depress both walking and bicycling potential. Signals delay everyone compared to a roundabout and build up much longer queues which hinder emergency vehicle movements.
It is clear now we need to reduce speeds on many of our urban streets to 20 mph in order reduce pedestrian and bicycle crashes. Most of our high crash intersections are on 25 mph streets in downtown and ONE. Enabling the setting of 20 mph speed limits will require Legislature approval and a change in minimum speed limit setting by town and cities dating likely from before World War II.
Tony Redington
Walk Safety Advocate
@TonyRVT60 TonyRVT.blogspot.com
