Some Comments on Transportation, etc. to the VT Climate Council--Motor Fuels, Walk, Transit, Rail

VERMONT CLIMATE COUNCIL PUBLIC INPUT FORM https://anrweb.vt.gov/ANR/ClimateCouncil/PublicInputForm.aspx?PKID=2633 Below are comments submitted today, May 20, 2021 Good Day All: My comments--as former transportation policy development chief for VAOT writing its first two policy plans incuding Act 200--centers on transportation but also from my experience as a statewide housing and rail planner in NH as well as a director of the NH Housing Commission there. VT in transportation is really in an enviable position compared to our northern NE neighbors even considering we had an unexpected growth of population 2010-2020 according to first Census reporting. Immediately below note that going into 2020 when we know there was a sharp drop in vehicle miles (13% nationwide while road deaths increased 8%) we only needed to drop motor fuel consumption 16% to each a goal of 1990 motor fuel consumption. We likely came within a percent above or below motor fuel consumption of 1990 this past year--though this creates a lot of pressure to maintain that in 2021! https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/policyinformation/statistics/2019/mf202.cfm (FHWA, Highway Statistics, Series) Net Motor Fuel Taxed (000 gallons) State Vermont Maine New Hampshire Year 1990 329,543 709,799 550,014 1995 391,512 732,829 626,638 2000 411,065 856,796 770,059 2005 415,386 895,578 812,635 2010 388,988 850,450 803,334 2015 379,108 974,479 808,211 2019 381,931 914,922 835,032 NH: 2019 versus 1990 +51.8% Maine : + 28.9% VT: +15.9% No reason to jump for joy, but an clear indication that CAFE standards and beginning efforts at demand management and other actions to reduce driving have had a substantial impact creating a downtrend in motor fuel usage for a decade in Vermont! The major cause of Vermont and national sprawl has been federal and state subsidies of car use and homeownership--yes, we have such subsidies, Canada does not have federal housing and transport programs and has half again urban densities as a result. Electric cars will not overcome Vermont sprawl, only a stop to federal and state subsidies for auto ownership and operation, and misguided tax homeownership policies. This must be part of any climate solution policy set!! We live in a period of a highway fatality and serious injury pandemic---now 21,000 excess deaths in America (30 in Vermont) yearly versus the top four nations average (Norway, Ireland, Switzerland and UK now on top, US now number 18, we being with UK number 1 in road safety in 1990!). Vermont needs to adopt a program of replacing hundred of the approximately 400 traffic signal systems with modern roundabouts. Each roundabout will aid in reducing sprawl, reduce engird consumption the equivalent of 3,000 to 20,000 gallons of motor fuel use, and enable safety walking and bicycling in our downtowns and urban centers, the exception not the rule (think Middlebury and Manchester Center) today. AARP, Geico, AAA, and Insurance institute for Highway Safety--all advocate converting signals to roundabouts for safety. There is an equal reason, cutting climate change emissions! Vermont has no transport policy in the area of safety or climate change. This vacuum must end. Evidence of change toward walkability and bikeability can only be measured by the number of roundabouts found in downtown, mixed urban areas, etc.--and miles of cycle track installed. Note that our Vermont downtown roundabouts in 52 years of data did not record a single bike injury, just one non-serious pedestrian injury and average one injury a decade versus, for example, 20 Burlington high crash intersections which avenge 1.5 injuries per year! There is an equity issue at play which has been ignored as walkability remained in the vineyard of apartheid transportation. Those living in poverty including much of the population of Vermonters with black and brown skin are disproportionately dependent on walking and transit as 30% of residents of Burlington's Old North End and King Maple neighborhoods lack access to a car. Nationally pedestrians with Black skin die at almost twice the rate of white, Hispanic persons about 50% higher and Native Americans at two-three times of white pedestrian fatality rates. When spending to help well-to-do to own e-vehicles, we must also invest heavily in walkable urban and near town centers, particularly along transit routes (safe routes to the bus stop!) and locations with multi-use land development. National and Vermont transportation investments can be characterized as malign neglect and if we make safety the first consideration--as USDOT Peter Buttigieg espouses--the walking and bicycling investments will be made so incentives to use transit, walk and bike, will have a fertile context rather the lumps of coal now mostly in place. You will find my commentary on the role of light rail and commuter rail at my blog, TonyRVT.blogpost.com In short, we need to install a light rail network in Chittenden County (about 3 years to do as the $6.3 billion Cdn. begins operation next spring to be supplemented already another $10 billion Cdn. being pumped in on Montreal island. We could do a light rail system here in three years too. Intercity and commuter rail should also be on the table which when connected to Greyhound and VT Translines and our regional transit operators brings an entirely new system, lower levels at low fare and fare free, for moving around Vermont in our daily car-free! Yours truly, Tony Redington Walk Safety Advocate 125 Saint Paul St Apt 3-03 Burlington Also cited SafeStreetsBurlington.com website

Bringing Renewal to the Historic Burlington-Winooski Axis, Now Vermont's Povertyville Section

4/9/2021 Draft Burlington-Winooski, the Two Centuries Old Historic Economic Axis Engine Declines to Vermont’s Povertyville Section—Ready for Renewal from the 1980-to-Date Devolution towards a String of Urban Pearls for the 21st Century? …A future Burlington-Winooski as a Shining 15-Minute Shangri-La Urban Corridor “The gods of the valleys are not the gods of the hills” Ethan Allen 1770 “There must be a radical redistribution of political and economic power in this nation and in this town” Mark Hughes, director of the Vermont Racial Justice Alliance speaks as Burlington officials and 30 organizations declare “Racism a Public Health Emergency” July 2020 The Current Burlington-Winooski Axis Decline Extends Back Decades Since the early 1980s about every Vermont major economic indicator save the education export economy crept slowly down or stagnated in Vermont. This mirrored the trends of loss of good paying manufacturing jobs which spurred the post-World Ward II economy upward ending about 1980 then moving to decline—what significant real growth incomes occurred in the last four decades in the slow-growth states of the northeast and mid-west rust belts tilted to the well-to-do. This recent trend impact on the historic economic centuries old engine of Vermont represented by the Burlington waterfront to Winooski City riverside “axis” has been most pronounced and profound. During both the post-World War economic boom ending about 1980, subsequent decline population and wealth shifted away from built-up Burlington and Winooski to the suburbs and rural Chittenden County towns. For almost two centuries the two cities remained the economic engine of Vermont but since the 1980s their role faded. For Vermont, the 1960s investments by then Governor Hoff in being the first state in the nation to buy their critical major rail operator (the Rutland Railroad) and literally birthing the ski industry with two unprecedented major speculative public ski road investments—helped the state avoid the empty storefronts and dominating skeletons of former manufacturing facilities as the 1980s and 1990s progressed. Springfield in 1960 was the home of a major portion of the machine tool industry of the nation! A critical player in the manufacturing industry of the day. The Springfield incomes of a unionized workforce were the highest in the state and the slow but sure economic decline as the industry atrophied left the community begging a state prison to rescue its depressed economy. Compared to northeastern New York and all Maine except for the area a two hour drive from the Boston metro, Vermont faired relatively fairly well only because of the ski/tourism and educational economic sectors growth until the plateau of the ski economy in the 1990s followed by education plateau in student numbers beginning in 2010. For Vermont that buffering of economic and social stagnation arose from the baby boom education bulge in its colleges during the 1990s and first decade of this century which plateaued in 2010 and now succumbs to the demographic collapse of college age population. And yes that boomers boomers were the first ski generation. The education industry future seems even more murky as record lows in birth rates in the northeast and nationally continue. Not even mentioning distance learning and the competitive disadvantage of norther New England state universities with the highest tuitions in the nation. Private St. Michael’s College, for example, planned ahead for the student bust and carefully with full participation of the college community managed the 16% decline from 1,900 students a decade ago to the 1,600 today. UVM and the State colleges systems did not plan—as is obvious now—as educational bankruptcy measures are in place for the state colleges and UVM’s modest 3% drop in students in fall 2020 signals the first statistical slight downtrend dating back to the peak year 2010. UVM’s current approach to the future appears unplanned and undirected. The drop of direct employment by IBM in Essex Junction of about 8,000 at its peak in the 1980s to now about 2,300 at successor Global Foundries—still the State’s largest private employer—gives the best evidence of the past and continued manufacturing decline. UVM rates as the largest Vermont employer excepting state government itself. The pandemic has given all a pause to reflect on our economic and social history, and ask the question where do we in Burlington Winooski “axis” go from here in a predominantly rural state where among many challenges is the requirement to sharply reduce non-renewable resources to stop global warming? Of course, Vermont never really possessed non-renewable energy resources in the first place. Note that over half the Vermont non-renewable resource consumption centers on petroleum fuels used to power the motor vehicle dominated transport sector. Longer History View and Recent Arrival of “Povertyville” To ask the question where do we go from here, consider Vermont and most important the driving engine throughout our history being primarily the story of the economy of Burlington and Winooski. Those two communities began with transportation centered along the Burlington waterfront accessing markets by water and Winooski riverside manufacturing production driven by the Winooski River waterpower. The Burlington waterfront where transportation to markets occurred was centered—first just to the lake and northward to Canada, then with the Erie and Champlain Canals accessing markets south the New York City and the west in the 1820s, then amplified by the arrival of the railroads in the mid-1800s, finally redirected into the “modern” highway oriented economy with the completed interstates here in 1982. That original economic engine spread from the Burlington waterfront to the Winooski falls area—more or less defined today by the King Maple neighborhood and Old North End (ONE) in Burlington onto really the entire geographically small Winooski City itself, where former manufacturing along the riverside drew from the immediate residential areas fanning outward to that City’s borders. It is fair to say that Burlington/Winooski with its waterfront as a harbor for exchange and movement of goods along the the manufacturing along its own and adjoining Winooski mills not only became the “economic spine” of the Vermont economy during Ethan Allen era ending about 1800, but also became a permanent dominant economic fixture of the state. First, reflecting the changing economy during the era of waterborne traffic until the railroads came into prominence, then the auto age emergence early last century followed by the interstate. Ironically, the completion of the interstate coincided with the overall crest and shortly thereafter relative stagnation of the Vermont economy which endures today—the Burlington Winooski axis being the primary victim. From the beginning of the interstate era the historical “spine of the Vermont economy,” Burlington and Winooski population and influence declined. Once the majority of Chittenden County population, Burlington now amounts to less than a quarter—both Winooski and Burlington populations outside of Burlington’s New North End have been in decline for decades. Again, a surge of students population growth from 1990 to the present day helped to mask this population downtrend trend. From 2000 to 2010, the Burlington population small population growth was entirely attributable to the increase in the college age numbers along with a small but important immigrant population of New Americans. The slow deterioration in Vermont through suburban carcentricity was mirrored by the decline of historic built-up Burlington and Winooski into a poverty belt. Today Census data shows King Maple/Old North End/Winooski City feature poverty rates of residents of 26-29% compared to under 12% for Chittenden County and Vermont. This poverty belt seems an unlikely candidate for a caterpillar to butterfly transformation—but that is the very opportunity which appears to exist through undertaking some key public investments today. These investments do not differ a great deal from the kind of investments which led to the successful transitions in the past, including those of Ethan and Ira Allen period themselves. And one must not forget the native American population which Ethan himself engaged with in his full lonely winters near Salisbury trapping furs to take back each spring to sell in order to support his family back home in Massachusetts. (Little wonder Allen stood up for his Indian allies when all were captured in the ill-fated foray to capture Montreal and his subsequent imprisonment as an enemy combatant by the British.) Housing The renewal of the historic Burlington-Winooski corridor remains central to this thesis in order to repair, remediate and expedite a natural economic and community potential ignored for decades. That both transportation and housing elements are key to this process can no longer be ignored. The decision to expand bike lanes and shift road space away from parking has been well underway now for years. Those changes are significant and show a change in community viewpoints but still incremental—in the right direction but only point to the larger issue of community renewal requiring a far more extensive change in transportation infrastructure combined with changes in housing. Housing programming must address the low and moderate income. Housing is not a subject here but the raising of the issue nationally and in Vermont to a priority is a clear indicator that transportation change must also be matched by making safe and sanitary housing available to all regardless of income. That President Biden and Vice-President Harris who proposed universal housing vouchers (30% income rent max) is an encouraging sign of kind of movement critical in the housing area. Enter the 15-Minute City Approach to Urban Design, Urban Life Transportation and land use go together—it was the lake as a transportation mode and waterpower of the Winooski River as a power source for manufacture that created with the presence of developable land adjacent the Burlington-Winooski axis in the first place. Consider for a moment past compact community design thinking in town and city planning. Creating complete new towns and idealized city designs became a cottage industry in the late 1800s in England with “Garden Cities of Tomorrow” by UKer Ebenezer Howard the leading proponent and movement leader who actually built more than one “new town.” Several more have been built since in a practice that can be found now scattered across the globe in one form or another. Reston, VA near Washington was one such American “new town” experimental community developed in the 1960s. Howard ’s base design involved a circular community with a one-mile radius featuring a public “white palace” and park in the center with rings outward of retail/commercial, housing, and heavy industry with rail—passenger and freight—at the periphery. All told 30,000 residents would live within the “garden city”—slice off the New North End, compact the rest around the waterfront here in Burlington and that is not so far off from the “garden city” concept and population. What is important is the garden city was accessible to just about everyone on foot, easily accessible when you add provision today for light rail and bicycles. Cars which consume about 25% of urban lands today in satisfying parking and road street needs prevented compact development worldwide. Just the opposite, particularly in America. The car age and pro-car policies and subsidies for homeownership jointly produced American sprawl since World War II. Canada is a perfect counterpoint as their urban areas are at least half again more dense, explained in great part because Canada does not subsidize either homeownership or cars. Canada levies a $1 Cdn per gallon of gasoline, a national tax used for general fund purposes—it has no federal highway program. It has no significant homeownership help. The U.S. has used its under 50 cent gas tax to support the highway system! The U.S. sprawl was created by intentional public policies and expenditures! The garden city from an urban planner perspective really is the pre-cursor to the “15 minute city” ideas advocated by urban planners today—to the extent feasible meet as many human needs within a 15 minute walk/bike/transit trip within a small geographic area (see https://www.15minutecity.com ) Burlington-Winooski: Pedestrians, Environmental Justice, Remediation and Structural Redesign There exists a confluence of forces making the Burlington-Winooski poverty corridor, Povertyville, ripe for a hoped for community transformation and renewal. The corridor already has in place a significant density, an historic rail network radiating in three directions from the Burlington waterfront. Except for re-establishing light rail in a configuration not that dissimilar to that of a past trolley history, a safe walkable/bikable/transitable area is easily installed. The major barriers to transportation the in Burlington and Winooski “poverty corridor” remain like most older urban center lack of walkability, about century removed from trolley service, and presence of numerous, dangerous/delaying new fangled traffic signals. Until this century with the late in the game U.S. use of the modern roundabout technology using stone age materials, little was done to repair the car-ravaged urban environment of modern America. Simply for decades to accommodate the car we wiped out existing urban space, much of it to park cars and build parking garages. Older urban space increasingly became the home of low income and BIPOC populations—symbolized by the traffic signal which when compared to a modern roundabout, especially kills, injures, delays pedestrians and overall pollutes, uglifies and heats the planet. The forces today at work include emergency demands for reductions of non-renewable resources both because they are unavailable in states like Vermont and because of commitments at all governmental levels to reduce consumption of them in order to stop the increasing world temperatures rising with just the continuation of status quo. That half Vermont use of non-renewables sits in the transport sector dominated by the car and clearly reigning in car subsidies—particularly parking and general government funds—means transportation will be a continuing dominant element of public policy in regard to global warming. Cutting car subsidies and homeownership subsidies which promulgated sprawl are not enough. There must also be a commitment to safe, energy efficient transportation—read transit, walking and bicycling which only thrive in relatively dense corridors and communities. The old urban areas and corridors have all the ingredients to respond to the demands and opportunities for a reduced carbon life—in a word the densities already exist there. High densities, transit services such as they are, and potential for walkabilitating through use of roundabouts are obvious. Except for the Church Street Marketplace neither Burlington or Winooski score particularly well on walkability—the 20 high crash state intersections mostly in the Old North and downtown alone testify to that. It was the very threat of cutting King Maple in two with the Champlain Parkway which led to our understanding of how the traffic signal in built up areas becomes a weapon of economic, social, and racial injustice—and the converse principle—how to reverse the historic destruction of livability forced onto the urban fabric by accommodation of the car through traffic signals which in turn literally injures the low income/BIPOC residents at higher rates than whites and embodies the context of both unlivable urban space as well as heightened incentives for use of motor fuels on most to move to lower density areas. In a word transportation inefficiency—read poor walking, biking and transit conditions—worked and works now directly opposite to efficient density and energy/resource use reduction which only density can provide! So the now two-year process of Environmental Justice discussion of the Champlain Parkway leads to an understanding of both the opportunity to renew Povertyville, but also its absolute necessity. That absolute necessity does mean a makeover of transit too, primarily in the form of light rail infrastructure! Without light rail combined with density there can be no successful economic renewal and only a continued shift of population to other northeastern metro areas who will have solved the transportation/energy equation. Nationally in a slow but sure fashion light rail has begun to return to major urban areas. It is the arch enemy of the car! Nearby, when Vermonters are allowed in Montreal again they will see nearly completed light rail line ready for use next year, the current $6 billion project already is set for a $10 billion expansion! Beginning in 2022 one no longer will have to drive onto Montreal island, no longer have to braves the wilds of to get to Trudeau International Airport. Just jump on the automatic light rail line at the large retail complex the Vermont side of the Champlain Bridge and safely, quickly, and comfortably travel to downtown, Trudeau Airport and a dozen other locations. See map and schedule—Brossard southern terminus to downtown set to open in 2022: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R%C3%A9seau_express_m%C3%A9tropolitain Base information: https://rem.info/en/light-rail Already being expanded: https://www.rtands.com/rail-news/extended-light-rail-line-in-montreal-will-be-one-of-the-longest-in-the-world/ Burlington along with adjoining towns went through a light rail study in the 1990s with an agreed on first step a line between the waterfront and UVM/UVMMC via the Marketplace. Extensions to the airport and University Mall and even to Essex Jct. via Winooski were examined. The base cost of the first section from waterfront to UVM/UVMCC was about $80 million—not much different than the current $109 million planned investment in the Champlain Parkway. So, initial studies were undertaken and preferred routes determined for light rail in the 1990s. Has anything changed in the City since? Economically, socially, population, etc. Other than the trends outlined here what have been the changes—(1) increase, plateau then declines in college students; (2) stagnant “povertyville corridor” population and incomes; (3) regular decline in primary tech jobs reflected in transition from IBM to Global Foundries; and (4) Chittenden County population growth almost entirely outside Burlington and Winooski cities boundaries. One other trend is important to note. While senior population remained about 12% of the Vermont population through 2010, the major change in demographics—senior population doubling to 1 in 4 residents by 2030 and non-senior population declines (only in Chittenden County does non-senior population remain relatively constant). The statewide population rapidly slowing growth turned shifted into a slight decline 2010-2020. The implication is quite clear, only bringing in a significant change in direction of public investment can one expect these trends to suddenly change—particularly as far as the historic Burlington-Winooski corridor. Systemic change was demanded at inflection points the 200-plus years of the Burlington/Winooski axis and systemic change is required today. There must be a working with neighboring towns, a collaborative effort to change the economic and community structure of the still dominant economic driver of Vermont, the Burlington-Winooski axis. Some Thoughts on Light Rail Routes A complete background on Burlington trolley services history, the 1990s study and future potential along with exploration of the “bus rapid transit” (BRT) fad, can be found here in a paper prepared at the time of the last City Transportation Plan (dated 2011). https://www.burlingtonvt.gov/sites/default/files/Burlington_Streetcar_Briefing_Report_FINAL.pdf (BRT is notoriously expensive, energy inefficient and consumes wide swaths of urban land.) The original trolley routes were, first, Burlington waterfront to Winooski along North Winooski and Riverside which for the first few years in the 1880s were horse drawn then electrified. A line was added out along North Avenue to Ethan Allen Park, a Main Street line to UVM, and the Winooski line eventually extended to the rail connection at Essex Junction. The 1990s study included a connection to the airport as an important potential line. The study was very much in isolation without consideration of economic trends, demographics or the faintest hint of a non-carcentric community design—the idea of light rail was an add-on, a very expensive extravagance. Discussions during both the Railroad Enterprise District, recent Pine Street Coalition outreach on Champlain Parkway design and the North Avenue Corridor Plan process found significant support for a north-south light rail line, something not considered in the 1990s plan. In purely historical and community development, the prime high rail line would repeat the Burlington waterfront to downtown Winooski. That would directly address the Burlington-Winooski axis, i.e., Vermont Povertyville. The “Winooski line” would move through the Marketplace via College, then along North Winooski Ave, Riverside Ave and at Colcheter turn left to Winooski downtown. The natural waterfront to UVM-UVMMC also starts for a block or so with the Winooski line then ascends. The question is whether this line is shifted over to Main Street (a 1990s route suggested) and onto University Mall and new South Burlington “downtown.” The third line would follow the suggested north-south route from Flynn School at the north end to the South Burlington border at Pine street then very likely along Perimeter Road southward through KMart Plaza, Palace Theater, etc. Walkability, Racism and Remediation of ONE, King Maple and Winooski Downtown Light rail for the Burlington-Winooski axis is not an add-on but part of a larger multi-modal redesign starting on walkability and safety on the streets. The pedestrian mode remains the apartheid mode when it comes to street engineering and the task of remediation of this in Povertyille remains very much both a transportation undertaking and one to repair decades of transportation racism still a daily experience for the BIPOC and low income who comprise a large segment of this and other older Vermont urban spaces. Weekly in Burlington a pedestrian or cyclist suffers an injury in a car crash in addition to two crash injuries to car occupants. Nationally the U.S. road fatality pandemic amounts to 21,000 excess deaths in a nation once first, now 18th in highway safety—Burlington experiences one fatality on its streets every three years, the majority since 1998 pedestrians (3) and cyclists (1). Discussed elsewhere, the 20 high crash Burlington intersections, all but one signalized and concentrated in Povertyville each average 1.5 injuries yearly and account for 28 injuries a year while five downtown Vermont roundabouts, the new standard intersection, record about one injury a decade, all non serious in the first 52 years recorded. The point is the renewal of the Burlngton-Winooski corridor depends on both integration of a light rail network but also reparations and remediation to the area which has suffered decades of pollution and high rates of pedestrian, bike and vehicle injuries. And the victims in Povertyville of discrimination in the apartheid mode, walking, continue to be disproportionately people with black and brown skins. Tony Redington TonyRVT99@gmail.com @TonyRVT60 TonyRVT.blogspot.com A walk safety advocate, Redington is a policy development specialist with 20 years experience with the NH and VT state transportation agencies, author of several transportation research papers including some on the subject of modern roundabouts, and five years as a statewide housing planner and director of the New Hampshire Housing Commission. Since moving to Burlington in 2011 has lived car free. An Aside—Mostly Living the 15-Minute City 1976 to Date Except for about four years 1980-1984 when residing in suburb 6 miles from Concord, NH, have lived the 15-Minute City life in Concord, NH, Montpelier, VT, San Francisco (North Beach), Montreal (adjacent Atwater Metro, cycle track network) and now Burlington (within a block of the Marketplace). In all locations shopped within two-three blocks from just about all basic needs ranging from food stores, shopping, schools, employment, etc. In all that time generally never used a car to travel to work, most all vacations from 1990s on via Amtrak and extended public transit (mostly in Canada’s metro areas), and mostly (like today) within a few feet of a bus stop, a few blocks to a transit center. In Burlington, Montpelier, San Francisco and Montreal presence of a major supermarket or two was critical to the 15-minute life along with a job. In all four cities a car was not only no needed, it was relatively useless and not cost effective. Yes, the bicycle fills in the “mobility” need year round except in 0 degree weather. And as important our family learned the 15 minute life experience in Montpelier, how to use public transit, and how to live carless. Living and modeling the 15-minute City life can be inherited! So to me, the 15-minute City has been most of my adult life—it certainly was the bulk of my life growing up in Keene, NH where most years I lived within a few blocks downtown and all schools including high school. My favorite grades 1-2-3 were spent about 2 blocks from two doors north of Union Street to Court Street to School Street. Home to middle school was about six blocks and to high school varied from a couple of blocks to a half mile. All Keene home addresses were less than six blocks from the central shopping district on Main Street. Until college except for one year in the suburbs, the 15-minute life! Interestingly Keene is now home to five going onto seven roundabouts likely the highest concentration of any New England city. The historic traffic circle there—Central Square—is now bounded at the other end of the commercial/retail Main Street by a neat two-lane roundabout which acts as a gateway to the downtown and Keene State College with a the post office on one corner and the College on another—downtown three north south Main Street sidewalks on its way to renewed walkability. Tony Redington

Burlington North-South Corridor: Separate Bike Facility, Light Rail and Sidewalk! --A Burlington Green Transport Corridor!

Create a Multi-modal Sustainable North-South Burlington Corridor by Adding Companion Light Rail to:  The “Burlington Bikepath” Gets a City Length Twin, “Ethan Allen Bikeway”?

        —the Burlington “North-South Multi-mode Corridor”: sidewalk, 

            separate bike facility and light rail 

Within a day or two of proposing a north-south separate/safe bikeway it became clear from feedback one needs to add a companion which came up in discussions of various planning and development undertakings including the North Avenue Corridor Plan, the Rail Enterprise Project (REP), Sinex’s initial public meetings on City Place and various Pine Street meetings on a workable Champlain Parkway:  a north-south light rail line.  To use a name to start (community must make the final one) let’s call it the “Burlington Green Corridor” (BTVGC).  The BTVGC features a north (from Flynn School) to South (continuing into South Burlington from Pine St/Queen City Park Rd/I 189-Parkway) a sidewalk, a separate/safe bicycle facility and a light rail line (like the new system opening this year in Montreal and found in Toronto, Sacramento, San Francisco and my other North American cities).

Most Burlington recent transportation planning centered on connecting the waterfront, Marketplace and UVM/UVMMC—that was the route chosen in the 1990s in a light rail study.  In Sinex’s City Place I even suggested a north-south and waterfront—UVM line would intersect in an underground station.  

So, a multi-modal north-south corridor composed of light rail, a separate and safe bike facilitation (protected bike lanes [cycle track] and two-way bikeway, and a sidewalk.  A plan process can get us ready for a sustainable future in the Queen City, the Burlington Green Corridor!

Here is the bike corridor put out over the weekend.  Please excuse the name “Ethan Allen”—any name should be something determined by the Burlington community at large—Alexander Twilight and Abenaki have been mentioned—Montpelier went through a public process in naming Stonecutter’s Way and the East West Bikepath, Siboinibe.

                                   ——————————

      

A series of unrelated planning, policy, and advocacy processes weave a new and very possible bikeway route from Plattsburgh Ave in the New North End to the  South Burlington border at Queen City Park Road and Pine Street—the “Ethan Allen Bikeway” route.

The “Ethan Allen” features 100% protected bike lanes (cycle track)/or a separate 10-foot wide two-way dedicated bikeway.  The difference between the “Ethan Allen” and the “Burlington Bikepath” (Bikepath) is two fold: first, the Ethan Allen is for cyclists only and, second, it is a fully lit, year-round maintained transportation facility.  

There are at least four key sections which have been discussed separately: (1) the North Avenue Corridor Plan (2014) which calls for cycle track end-to-end, Plattsburgh Ave to North Street; (2) the North Champlain two-way bikeway between Manhattan Drive and Pearl Street though the heart of the Old North End; (3) the City Place reconnection of Pine Street between Cherry and Pearl Streets; and (4) in its latest iteration, the Pine Street Coalition redesign guidelines in the form of New Street ( SafeStreetsBurlington.com ) developed this spring which extends a separate bikeway from Curtis Lumber/Kilburn Street through to Home Avenue even further on the Parkway to connect with Queen City Park Road and Pine Street, the interchange with I  189.

Two planning documents completed in 2017 provide a backdrop to the Ethan Allen outlining parts of it as protected bikelanes or a bikeway: PlanBTV Walk Bike adopted by the City Council and “Active Transportation,” the plan completed by the Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission.

Here are some further important “connectors” necessary:

1. Starting from Plattsburgh Ave, there would be a link from North Ave to the North Champlain Bikeway via Ward St and Manhattan Drive, or North Street. 
2. A one-block “jog” occurs between North Champlain at Pearl Street and Pine Street—likely by protected bike lanes.
3. Pine Street from Pearl to Main Street involves addition of protected bike lanes and the necessary re-design of the restored Pine Street through City Place which currently has no provision for quality, separate, bicycle accommodation.
4. As everyone knows, there is not a single inch of protected bike lanes along the existing design of the Champlain Parkway—a key reason (along with a net loss of sidewalk and not a single inch of sidewalk along the Parkway route, no roundabouts, etc., etc.!!) the Walk Bike Council endorsed the Pine Street Coalition Redesign Guidelines in 2016.  At that time the separate two-way bikeway from Kilburn St/Curtis Lumber ended at the Home Ave/Parkway intersection.  Thinking has evolved in part from new Coalition members from the “borderlands” residential areas both in South Burlington (Red Rocks, for example) and Burlington’s southwest corner area.  So the idea came forth to extend the bikeway right down to Queen City Park Rd/I 189/Pine Street Parkway interchange.  This also recognizes the importance of City Market South End as a major attraction of walk/bike trips in a wide area.  Of course, New Street provides an at-grade connection between Ethan Allen and Bikeway at Sears Lane/Harrison Ave at Lakeside Terrace.

The above presents an outline with details that need to be filled in along the entire route through a full corridor planning effort—but if the Parkway can be redesigned to accommodate all cyclists and the City Place Pine Street altered to add dedicated cycle service, an Ethan Allen is a very real possibility!

Tony Redington

TonyRVT99@gmail.com

August 4, 2020

A New World of Transportation for Vermont?

A New World of Transportation for Vermont? 

During a February Burlington (VT) North Avenue corridor study meeting the question of funding for carrying out a “vision” of a livable street led to government types lamenting the scarcity of funding.  Then came President Obama’s March proposed budget starting October calling for a 25% increase in federal transportation program funding meaning a likely increase of $50 million or more for Vermont yearly over the $196 million currently budgeted.

Pretty much ignored by the press—no expects the expansion to pass Congress—the President’s proposal marks a historic but inevitable shift of funding from gasoline taxes to general funds.  As important, the budget calls for additional highway and transit funding plus two entirely new program categories, rail and multimodal.   

After car travel growth slowing for more than a decade, it flatlined beginning in 2007 and that peak year remains the national record to this day.  As car travel plateaued (it only grew 3% 2000-2010 in all of New England) so did gas and diesel tax revenues.  By 2010 the ramshackle federal Highway Trust Fund used for roadway and transit projects went bust (it raises about $37 billion a year) and Congress for a temporary fix dumped $14.7 billion into it from general funds. The President’s budget addresses the problem and more.  The budget calls for a $18 billion a year spending increase with corporate income tax reform raising about $36 billion yearly covering the spending increase and closing the current accumulated deficits.

While highway travel growth came to a halt, public transportation growth continued and accelerated.  In 2012 public transportation trips reached the highest level in a half century.  Rail and public transportation needs increase meaning more funding to meet demand as well as fostering transportation modes known for higher levels of safety and per passenger mile reductions pollution, emissions, and global warming gases.  In addition this means increased emphasis and investments in long neglected urban and town center walking and bicycling modes infrastructure—particularly the new technologies of cycle track (protected bike lanes) and roundabouts (one laners are truly “intersection safety belts” for all users).

While no immediate federal program expansion is expected, the new transportation finance direction is clear, and states also began last year moving away from highway vehicle-only sources for transportation finance.  Virginia last year abolished its gas tax and moved all transportation funding from a dedicated general sales tax.  Massachusetts seriously considered sourcing additional transportation funding at a rate of  $1.9 billion in income taxation to deal with the evaporating car-based revenues twinned with higher public transportation and highway funding demands.  Further, the near term solution to transportation funding for states can only be resolved with federal assistance since over half the states contain constitutional provisions and laws, mostly dating from the 1930s, prohibiting gasoline and motor vehicle taxes being used for anything but highways.   

An injection of $50 million federal funding into transportation in Vermont posed by President’s budget along with shifting federal programming strongly toward multi-modal and rail would signify substantial opportunities for the State.  Here are some Vermont examples of estimated capital costs for rail passenger services and basic walking/bicycling infrastructure composed of cycle track (protected bike lanes) and roundabouts:

(1)  Commuter rail: between Burlington and Montpelier-Barre/St. Albans/Middlebury--$60 million (includes track upgrades and rail passenger equipment).

(2)  Intercity rail: extension of rail passenger services to Bennington, St. Johnsbury and between Bellows Falls-Rutland--$60 million (includes rail passenger equipment).

(3)  Light rail: extending outward north and south from Rutland downtown-$60 million (includes light rail vehicles).

(4)  Light rail: Burlington north/south line North Avenue’s Flynn School to south end of Pine $60 million; and Burlington’s waterfront to Fletcher Allen Health Center/University of Vermont/Champlain College via Church Street Marketplace--$80 million estimates (includes light rail vehicles).

(5)  Cycle track for urban and town centers: $2 million a mile

(6)  Urban roundabouts (single lane): $2 million per intersection average (roundabouts are designed with separate/shared paths for cyclists).

Of course Vermont and other states must also address their overall transportation funding and in most cases reflect the same kind of movement toward general fund revenue sources found in Virginia, Massachusetts and the federal proposed budget.

The new and revised revenue streams for transportation present challenges and opportunities but these cannot be avoided as the age of car travel as the primary funder of all transportation modes recedes into history.  Currently in urban U.S. about four percent of commuters go by bike and on foot with another six percent using public transit.   When all is said and done, Vermont urban and town centers—like those of the rest of the nation—will come to more closely resemble those in Western Europe where about half of all urban trips each day occur on transit, by bicycle and on foot.

NEW DIRECTIONS--VERMONT TRANSPORTATION POLICIES/PROGRAMMING

VERMONT TRANSPORTATION BOARD 

        COMMENTS ON TRANSPORTATION-RELATED TOPICS 

TONY REDINGTON

  November 29, 2013

 Good day.  My name is Tony Redington, citizen of Burlington, Vermont,

20 North Winooski Avenue Apt 2, 05401 Email: TonyRVT99gmail.com, Blog: TonyRVT.blogspot.com.

My background and experience includes extensive public and private service in housing and rail transportation policy development, planning, and administration as well as published research in the fields of the walking mode and various aspects of the modern roundabout with its manifold aspects of its impacts on ground transportation, land use, and safety.

            Introduction and Background: the Vermont Transportation Policy Context Today

Thank you for the opportunity to comment on “transportation-related topics” as part of your legislative mandate to hold hearing and submit a report to the Legislature on transportation program related considerations.

First and foremost, transportation programming and finance takes place in a state of chaos at all levels of government today, a condition directly related to the wholesale change in the transportation “marketplace” from dominant car-centric condition dating from end of World War II to the beginning of this century when a new trend of reduced car travel paralleling high rates of growth in public transportation, walking and bicycling modes.  This now undeniable change in the marketplace and a new emergent paradigm recognizes and responds to: (1) reducing car travel; (2) increasing development densities to take advantage of non-car travel mode efficiencies; (3) proactively addressing energy conservation, cutting pollutant emissions, and curbing global warming gas generation; (4) attacking economic competitiveness issues related to transportation waste, inefficiencies, and infrastructure deficits involving movement of both of people and goods; and (5) for the first time employing the tools of roundabouts and cycle track to create urban infrastructure enabling freedom of choice for all citizens to walk and bicycle in safety and comfort regardless of skill levels or age.

The backdrop in transportation change particularly can be seen today as high single and double digit growth in urban public transportation and both walking and bicycling modes take place while car travel car travel stagnates or even declines in slow growth areas of the nation, like New England, other parts of the Northeast and the North Central areas of the nation.

Practically all demographic and economic data nationally as well as Vermont show the chaos and change well advanced and continuing.   For examples, the Census projects growth of senior 65-and-over age population through mid-century will be almost 100% while the younger far higher car traveling population grows only 20%.   In Vermont Census projects 124% 65-and-over population 2000-2030 increase and under-65 age population up under 2%.  Meanwhile in part because of economic factors and part consideration for the environment needs to reduce pollution and energy consumption, all population groups travel by car declines and the young 18-30 age population rate of driving licensing has declined 10%.  Here in Vermont employment growth and car ownership plateaus and the last decade of New England car travel change barely edged up 3%.

State Transportation Finance—For the First Time Deserting Car Based Taxes and Fees for General Fund Sources

Except for Massachusetts and Virginia which dumped car oriented taxation this year as the driver for transportation investments, no other states—including Vermont—have responded to the changed transportation marketplace and the required change in funding sources which must be made to provide needed the transportation infrastructure and services of today, much less meet the needs of the future.

The current approach of tinkering with car-oriented taxes to deal with the State’s transportation finance really does compare to the boy sticking his finger in a small crack in dyke to stop an impending flood.

Using Massachusetts as a guide, Vermont needs to tap general funds for transportation about $90 million a year. Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick is in the process of announcing their first year of $890 million in projects from non-highway oriented revenue source funding.   Using the Massachusetts appropriation on a pro rata population basis, a Vermont $90 million yearly can fund within a five year period, for examples: capital costs of commuter rail services along three corridors (Montpelier, Middlebury and St. Albans); other intercity services (such as a feeder passenger service from Bennington); capital costs for one light rail line (such as an east-west and north-south line within Burlington and a Rutland line north-south connecting the Mall to the downtown shopping area to the northern edge of the residential areas); a down payment on the major costs necessary to for the first time provide infrastructure making downtowns and village center both walkable and bikable (principally through roundabout and cycle track along corridors, town centers and areas); and, finally, long—but not least--deferred investments in bridges and other highway infrastructure.

These examples assume no federal matching funds and availability of federal funds expands the possible scope of annual investments.

One additional aside on United States transportation finance.  Of the roughly $100 billion spent annually on all highway construction and maintenance, the user pays only 62% with the balance coming from property taxes, general fund taxes and other non-highway related taxation (see FHWA “Highway Statistics 2010, Table HF 1).  (For this reason Vermont town highway grants supposed to support street maintenance and improvements needs to be substantially increased and and formulas revised to take into consideration such factors as lane miles year round cycle track and sidewalk as well as overall traffic volumes to reflect relative maintenance costs.)  Today there exists little relationship between the user costs placed on the highway system versus revenues—whether those user costs on the system are weight related measured by routine cost allocation updates, maintenance costs at the town level mostly property tax supported, or social costs at all levels.  

Because the majority of states—over 30—restrict use of highway related taxes and fees to highway use only, for highway finance to change in a way which meets national needs, federal taxation—particularly of gasoline and related highway imposts—must be expanded.  If the States—in this case Vermont—were able to employ a European level gasoline tax of $4 gallons instead of about twenty-five cents, a revenue stream of $800 million which mostly would be allocated for general fund expenditure.  Because of state to state competition enacting a large gas tax is not possible—and only a federal gas tax re-distributed to the states and easily bypass states constitutional restrictions of their own auto-oriented taxes to highway use only.

         Specific Recommendations for Immediate Transportation

         Actions

There follows here specific policies, activities and changes recommended for Vermont transportation programming today. 

I  Amtrak

1.    Start an Ambus between St. Albans and Montreal connecting with the Vermonter which will immediately reduce overall State support costs to Amtrak and add back the 10,000 annual passengers per year lost when the bus connection ended.   Impact: reduce State annual support requirements for the two Amtrak services initially by about $400,000.

2.    Accelerate the schedule of extending the Ethan Allen service from Rutland to Burlington—immediately preferred by 2016 at the latest—the 2017 schedule now represents a two-decade timeline to extend the service the 80 miles between the two Vermont cities.  Impact:  While little change in annual State support costs would likely occur, numbers of annual passengers would increase and overall economic benefits to the Rutland, Addison, and Chittenden Counties would be significant. 

3.    Immediately revise current regional public transportation providers routes and schedules to provide connectivity to Amtrak passenger train stations throughout the State.  Impact:  Coordinating public transit connections with Amtrak trains would increase slightly the passengers numbers on Amtrak trains with resulting economic benefits to the regions surrounding the stations and a slight reduction in the State’s annual Amtrak support costs.

II Commuter Rail and Intercity Rail Passenger Services

As part of a “Vermont All-Mode Transportation Initiative of General Fund revenues annually dedicated to transportation: (1) initiate commuter rail service between Burlington and Middlebury, Montpelier and St. Albans; (2) initiate a “circuit train”, Burlington-Rutland-Bellows Falls—White River Junction—Montpelier-Burlington designed as the foundation for a full intercity rail passenger service with connections along all existing rail corridors; (3) a north-south light rail line in Rutland from the south end Mall via the City center area through the upper residential area; and (4) create full connectivity between rail services and the routes and services of regional transportation service providers.  Impact:  Each worker using these services on a 20 mile one-way commute in place of solo driving increases after tax income (between Burlington and St. Albans, for example), a 40 mile commute $7,000 (between Burlington and Montpelier, for example).  Note a study I authored earlier this year, “An Action Outline for Commuter Rail Passenger Service along Three Burlington Corridors” provides a complete market, capital cost, and operating cost analysis for Chittenden County-Washington County, Chittenden County-Franklin County and Addison County-Chittenden County commuter rail service.

III  Vermont All-Mode Transportation Initiative (VAMTI)

Establish a “Vermont All-Mode Transportation Initiative (VAMTI), a yearly appropriation starting at a $90 million level from General Fund revenues dedicated to transportation with a multi-purpose approach including:  (1) economic development; (2) transportation sustainability (with emphasis on land use transportation relationships); (3) energy conservation and pollution reduction; (4) downtown, town center, and urban investments in walkable and bikable infrastructure, particularly roundabouts and cycle track; (4) reduction motor vehicle travel through investments in demand management; and (5) transportation safety upgrades.

IV Urban and Town Center Walking and Bicycling Infrastructure: Cycle Track and Roundabouts to Move Busy Vermont Streets to Walkable and/or Bikable Status

Vermont city downtowns, town centers generally show the same pattern of lack of walkability and bikability found throughout North America.  Notable Vermont exceptions include: (1) Church Street Marketplace, Burlington’s four-block walkable mall dating from 1981 with shared space intersection areas for all modes; (2) walkable town center roundabout nodes in Montpelier and Middlebury; (3) bikable and walkable cycle tracked Dorset Street between Williston Road and Kennedy Drive in South Burlington (though not served by any roundabout intersections); (4) Vermont’s first walkable street, Main Street along the corridor of three roundabouts in Manchester Center completed in 2012; and (5) arguably, walkable/bikable shared paths along Stone Cutter’s Way in Montpelier, Riverside Avenue in Burlington and Kennedy Drive in South Burlington—again several street segments without any roundabouts at key intersections.

Walkable and bikable streets provide for all users regardless of age, skill or disability safe and comfortable accommodation for both modes along street segments and at intersections.  Street segments attain walkable and bikable status through presence of separate cycle track and sidewalk, or in combination which can include accommodation on a side path.  Generally, to attain walkable and/or bikable status each key intersection accommodation is supplied by a pathed roundabout for both modes or through traffic calming.   Generally, signalized busy intersections, lack of sidewalks, and unprotected bike lanes signify the type of busy streets which a minimum standard of walkability or bikability.

Address the almost complete lack of bikable and walkable urban, downtown and village center busy streets through: (1) initiation immediately of a roundabout/cycle track program as a the major thrust of the “bicycle pedestrian” program along with an initial allocation of $10 million annually from the Vermont All-Mode Transportation Initiative (VAMTI);  (2) initiate regional planning projects identifying all urban and town center streets and corridors to be sidewalked/cycle tracked/roundabouted into walkable and bikable status and prioritizing projects the corridors, areas and nodes so identified; and (3) since pathed roundabouts and cycle track when installed along with sidewalks comprises the very definition of a “complete street”, incorporate these three elements through revisions to existing projects where appropriate as well as in all new urban, town center, and downtown projects with priorities for funding guided by town and regional plans.  Comparing the cycle track, about two miles in Vermont, versus the Netherlands on a per capita basis the Dutch have 670 miles of cycle track versus Vermont’s 2 miles.

Finally, state transportation agency policies and regulations need to be revised to reflect the superior safety and service of roundabouts and provision of walkable/bikable busy urban street treatments in all projects.  Note three state transportation departments (New York State DOT since 2005) and two Canadian province departments operate on a “roundabouts first policy” and a similar approach needs to be adopted in law and Vermont state agency policies and regulations.  It is noteworthy that a search of the Vermont Agency of Transportation website of “roundabout” response is the site lacks any information at all.

Thank you for the opportunity to comment on Vermont’s transportation-related topics.