COSTS NO BARRIER TO COMMUTER RAIL SERVICE RIGHT NOW!

COMMUTER RAIL EASILY FUNDED RIGHT NOW--OVER $60 MILLION NEW MONEY APPLICABLE EVERY YEAR IN U.S. DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORATION FUNDS TO VERMONT

Part 2:  No Barriers to Funding Commuter Rail Services

Vermont yearly household expenditures for local transportation reminds one of the recipe for horse and rabbit stew—key ingredients are one horse, auto expenditures of about $1.8 billion, and one rabbit, all public transportation expenditures, about $40 million or less than 2 cents on the household dollar spent on car travel. The $40 million includes a tax subsidy of about $28 million. Vermont public transit riders pay about a third of the cost of service or $12 million.

But many Vermont workers—increasing by the day—abandon the car and look to the rabbit in the stew for essential transportation to and from work. That explains how in the span of less than a decade about a third of central community workers in the Burlington-Montpelier corridor, about 260 by the next June, pile onto the 22 buses each workday to and from their job. The 40 mile Burlington-Montpelier bus commuting fares do not come cheap, about $160 a month, still very attractive compared to solo driving costing upwards of $800 monthly with total car expense approaching 50 cents a mile.

So, thanks to public policy there exists a bus an outlet for workers to get to work and reduce commuting expenses. But why not increase the public and user $40 million now going into public transportation to initiate and operate commuter rail services along the Burlington-Montpelier corridor as well as add stops at the IBM parking lot, Middlesex, Winooski, and Richmond? Assuming one spreads out capital costs over a few years, one easily could start and continue service at perhaps $4-5 million and make some savings with reduced current bus trips, equivalent to less than a half a penny on estimated current household car expenses. Commuter rail offers a more pleasant, safer, more attractive way to get to and from work than a bus. Ultimately a statewide network could serve not just commuters but all types of intercity transportation, including provision of service to tourists.

Based on 2011 complete year information, Vermont received federal funds of $210 million—and over $60 million of those funds can applied to the purchase or operating costs of commuter rail services. That is a new apportionment of $60 million each year! Delay a highway project a year or two and the funds need to start an eventual statewide commuting and ultimately intercity network represents an easy lift—and the taste of the horse and rabbit stew will change little.

While the federal funds require about a 20% state match, the $4.5 million appropriation last year—all state dollars without a match--for the two Vermont Amtrak trains served fewer passengers than the three corridor Link services out of Burlington expected the year ending next June, about 225,000.

Besides the commuter rail service can handle three to four times the number of passengers per trip than a bus, provide lots of room for bicycles, and shift traffic off congested streets and highways. And, downtown and village centers receive an economic boost and businesses access to a workforce with a quality, reliable and low cost transportation commuting mode.

The only barrier to starting commuter rail services in Vermont rests in the public domain, willingness of Governor Shumlin, legislative transportation committees and regional transportation committee to shift a few federal resources from highways to rail passenger services, easily done without interfering with the taste of the transportation stew. The shift to commuter rail equals shifting less than half a cent of 98 cents of household expenditure per dollar now spent car transportation to travel in Vermont communities. And, all this can be easily done in just a few months—remember the original Montreal Metro construction took about a year!

COMMUTER PROGRAMS AND INTERSTATE TRAFFIC IMPACTS

IF ABOUT 260 BURLINGTON-MONTPELIER, VT COMMUTERS TRAVEL BY “LINK” BUS THIS YEAR, THEN WHY SO MANY CARS ON INTERSTATE I 89....NOT

Earlier this week this Blog described the phenomenal growth of commuters on “Link” bus services since being introduced about 2005 with words like “astounding” and “astonishing,” as symbolic of a seismic shift from car travel in Vermont and New England. And in a changed commuting environment this Blog has also advocated for immediate installation of commuter rail services in the commuter corridors leading to and from Burlington as the first step in establishing a statewide rail passenger network.

A parallel finding in a Blog this week found the joint transportation services agency formed by three major employers recorded employee surveys results of a solo driving decline of 15% 2000-2010. The “troika” of Burlington employers—Fletcher Allen Health Care, University of Vermont and Champlain College--employment totals 10,000 workers.

If so many commuters ride the Link services now—about 225 this year daily in the Burlington-Montpelier corridor alone—and employees of three major Burlington have switched to everything from bicycling to carpooling and public transit, then why are so many cars still traveling the I 89 corridor between Burlington and Montpelier? Well, in actuality, as one would expect, traffic numbers decline on I 89 since 2000 on a key leg reflect in part the switch of solo drivers to bus and car sharing. The Link services and the “troika” programs designed to decease solo driving to some degree are reflected in traffic numbers on I 89.

From a 2006 average through April this year, traffic along I 89 between Middlesex and Montpelier declined 7 percent. This stretch of interstate contains a minimum of short distance “local” traffic and mostly longer distance trips in the 40 mile Burlington-Montpelier corridor. Even a look at a longer interval shows a tiny annual 0.2% gain in traffic numbers starting 15 years ago in 1997 to April this year.

Another key question is how a decline of 225 commuters daily impacts the “peak” travel as commuter buses primarily service the 7-9 am and 4-6 pm peak hours, the times most traffic engineers look at because these are the “congestion” hours on the highway system. Again, what is the the impact of 225 commuters switching from car travel? Assume half switched to a Link service versus a solo drive and the other half from a carpool of three—the impact of those 225 represent a 9% decline in peak hour travel on I 89 between Middlesex and Montpelier where 12-month daily traffic numbered 24,151 this April. The idea that the rugged individual Vermonter would never give up the sacred car to take a bus to work truly belongs to the mythology of yesteryear.  (Note all 225 commuters are ascribed to a peak period of 10% of total travel in one direction.)

In summary, the daily 22 Link commuter service buses in the Burlington-Montpelier corridor clearly contribute to the depressing or declining of I 89 traffic numbers and that impact amounts to a sizable proportion. Transportation planners and policy makers mostly gave lip service in the past to “demand” management centered on employer programs and public transit impacting car travel, often dismissing impacts as being insignificant, most probably in the low single digit territory—no more! Those assumptions must deal with the new reality that public transportation and programs to divert workers from solo driving can and are having a substantial impact. And workers and employers alike seek alternatives to costly commuting by car. With Vermont car traffic expected to drop slightly this decade that decline will likely be accelerated by growing efforts of employers and public programming aimed at reducing commuting costs, saving energy and cutting pollution. Alternatives to solo driving offer less stressful and safer travel choices. It is apparent expanding public transit makes employment and businesses accessible to a working population increasingly resistant to using an automobile to get from here to there.

VERMONT COMMUTER RAIL--"WHY" AND "WHY NOW"

WHY VERMONT COMMUTER RAIL PASSENGER SERVICES AND WHY RIGHT AWAY?

Count the reasons for commuter rail passenger services in Vermont, but the most important remains the ability of self-propelled rail diesel cars (RDCs) to smoothly move hundreds of existing daily commuters crowding buses and handle growth in excess of 20% each year. Simply, as the post-auto age evolves and households deal with the reality of constrained incomes and competing needs, increasing numbers delay getting a driver license, curtail driving or quit cars altogether. Those necessary trips switched from cars--like getting to and from work—come to light in the form of surging commuter bus numbers. In the Burlington to Montpelier 40 mile corridor served by 22 buses each workday in less than a decade about 260 commuters, about a third of the total market, will travel by commuter bus during the coming twelve months.

The explosion in commuter bus usage in Vermont, particularly the three corridors leading to Burlington deserves such descriptives as breathtaking, unprecedented and astonishing. But so too are the first decade of the new century numbers in Vermont and regional numbers in just about every statistic related to the car. All kinds of numbers show the sea change. New England states recorded a first ever single digit increase in overall car travel, totally 3% for the 2000-2010 decade with Rhode Island actually declining slightly. New England—and Vermont—car travel now moves toward a likely negative number for this decade, reversing the region's upward trend dating to the Stanley Steamer. National data shows a first ever decline in the younger age population getting driver licenses.

The commuter “Link” services out of Burlington began about 2005 and one employer survey data cited covering “before” and “after” the introduction of the Link services reflects partly the impacts of the commuter bus service introduction. The Link” services operated by the Chittenden County Transportation Authority (CCTA) now operate along the corridors to St. Albans, Montpelier, and Middlebury—46 buses weekdays which did not exist in 2000. This coming year about 500 commuters will utilize the commuter buses out of Burlington including the 260 traveling on 22 buses each weekday in the Montpelier-Burlington corridor, about 225,000 individual trips overall.

Other factors working against driving include: (1) flatlining of Vermont driving age population 200-2030 while over 65-year-old population doubles, a population which drives 40% less miles per year and drives less at peak times; and (2) employer side initiatives which drive down commuting and driving, again driving down mostly peak hour traffic numbers. Burlngton has the the first “transportation management association” (TMA), CATMA, currently composed of the troika of the University of Vermont (UVM) Champlain College and Fletcher Allen Health Care (FAHC). CATMA runs a bus service, manages parking, and provides a wide range of planning and commuter choice programming for the troika's 10,000 employees and 12,000 students.

The CATMA periodic employer and student survey picked up the downtrend of solo driving during the 2000-2010 period. But a dramatic drop in solo driving—about 15 percent overall—accelerated after a “free” universal pass on all CCTA buses began in 2003. Latest national data shows solo driving to work hovers around 90% while the latest comparative number for CATMA member employees is 54 percent with about a quarter of those solo drivers using a shuttle bus to complete the work trip. Again, these CATMA numbers drive home the behavioral changes finding expression in part through the introduction of Link commuter buses and a universal bus pass during the 2000-2010 period.

          The RDC, the rail stations, and Vermont planning law

The RDC, the type of equipment used at the end of scheduled rail service in Vermont in the 1950s, can carry 140-180 passenger in two-car units, about three to four times the capacity of buses used now. From planning perspectives commuter rail service cannot be matched by any other transportation type in furthering the Vermont planning law goal: “maintain the historic settlement pattern of compact village and urban centers surrounded by rural countryside.” Consider the stations along the base 40 mile Burlington-Montpelier route: Montpelier across from the State House, Montpelier Jct., Middlesex, Bolton, Richmond, Essex Jct., Winooski and Burlington's Union Station. Add to this route IBM at the main plant parking lot and a second Winooski stop within a block of Vermont Community College and two-blocks from Champlain Mill, the Winooski City Center Roundabout, and Vermont Student Assistance Corporation. One authoritative study calls for a base service with about an hour between Montpelier and Burlington, including stops, would be ten trains weekdays in each direction, including the current Amtrak runs.  A Burlington-Montpelier service would naturally extend to Barre downtown and Berlin.

While transportation policy still remains mostly invested in highways, the “customer”, the Vermont citizen, changed the direction of their transportation choices some years ago—and catching up in transportation programming must include commuter rail services which serve not only to meet current demands and economic as well as community development needs --but inevitably leads to a network of rail passenger services, a network as important if not more important in the future than the existing major highway network.

Clearly the market for commuter rail exists today. Are there transportation funds available to start such a service?—that is the subject of the next blog.

VERMONT BUS COMMUTING, AMTRAK AND COMMUTER RAIL

BUSES WEEKDAYS SERVING COMMUTERS OUT OF BURLINGTON (VT) 46 —COMMUTER TRAINS 0: TIME TO SHIFT THOSE NUMBERS, TIME FOR COMMUTER RAIL PASSENGER SERVICES

Evidence mounts Vermont rail priorities place workers abandoning solo driving in second class status, literally stuck in buses with little financial support while the Amtrak lovers get millions of dollars of State subsidy with service expansions in the near future. Why don't Vermont workers doing the right thing by reducing congestion and cutting energy use and pollution deserve first class rail passenger service to and from their workplace?

Recently this blog decried the “forced busing” of commuters on the then 18 buses a weekday along the Burlington-Montpelier corridor:

           Feel “transportation discrimination”? Well be a commuter in or out of Burlington,

           VT exercising “commuter choice” by abandoning the car and what do you 

           get?--second-class transportation in the form of a stuffy, jammed and sometimes 

           standing room only bus (and room for only two bicycles). Welcome to the 

           transportation quality of service typically found in less developed nations!

Now with June additions of a commuter bus from Montpelier to Winooski center (Vermont Student Assistance Corporation [VSAC]) and a second from Montpelier to IBM the total bus numbers each week day jump to 22. Projecting the Montpelier Link numbers into the next service year starting in this July, a 20% growth in numbers of commuters comes to about 260 by next June, and individual trips annually reach 119,000. Recent actual passengers per Montpelier Link bus run reached about 22, and the increase in passengers recorded for the nine months ending in March hit 40%--a definite surge.

The success of the Burlington-Montpelier Link (Montpelier Link) bus services—now 22 buses scheduled each workday— proves without doubt a simple commuter rail service long overdue in the 40 mile corridor serving, among others, the largest private and public employers—IBM at its main parking area, and the State complexes located in Burlington, Waterbury and Montpelier. Other Burlington corridors with commuter Link services are in order of market potential: St. Albans-IBM-Burlington (once IBM's first choice), Middlebury-Burlington which hosted a commuter rail demonstration service, and the Route 116 Commuter to Bristol/Middlebury.

          Comparing Montpelier-Burlington Commuter Rail Service to Amtrak Numbers

With the announcement this month of $8 million in federal funds to upgrade trackage from St. Albans north to the Canadian border, the rumor of Amtrak service extension to Montreal within the next two years gains increasing credibility. How do Amtrak numbers compare to the expected Burlington-Montpelier 119,000 trips in the coming year? (Note the Burlington to Middlebury and Burlington to St. Albans commuter corridors bus runs total 24 additional trips each weekday.) The best estimate for the current year of Amtrak numbers for the two train services—the Ethan Allen Express from Rutland to New York City, and the Vermonter from St. Albans to Washington—comes to 140,000 passengers. Numbers last year were below potential because of using buses in place of trains during scheduled track improvements and repairing the unscheduled damage from hurricane Irene. Clearly the three corridor commuter route total passengers number--Burlington-Montpelier alone at 119,000-- already surpasses Vermont Amtrak users but obviously commuters taking much shorter trips.

The importance of the commuter corridor services at this point comes from the fact that about 90 percent of users are in fact commuting to and from work and that practically all users are adult Vermonters—Amtrak users includes sizable proportions of tourists, retirees and students. Increasingly the current Vermont commuter bus services attract those wishing to access services and the growing mid-day numbers reflect this expansion of usage.

But there are cost and subsidy issues here. The 140,000 Amtrak users cost $4.5 million yearly in State dollars, about $32 per passenger—and this subsidy has been decreasing as each year public transportation passenger numbers increase. While public transportation grows routinely at high single digit and even double digit rates, car travel New England-wide growth shrivels, a tiny 3.2% growth 2000-2010, the lowest decade growth number since the advent of the car. New England car travel may well decline this decade and in Vermont as well.

One reason for the rapid growth of the Burlington “Link” commuter services has been the users, mostly paying $4 a trip which covers a high percentage of operational costs. This allows expansion of bus runs based on demand. Commuter rail also can be expected to pay a substantial portion of its operating costs. The original Eugene Skoropowski proposal of 1989 (he now heads Florida's high speed rail authority) calls for 18 trains weekdays in the Burlington-Montpelier corridor in addition to Amtrak services. It is reasonable to expect a majority of initial operating costs—but not capital costs—to be paid by commuters.

The eventual expansion of the commuter train operations to additional corridors would increase efficiencies all around. The ultimate goal remains a statewide commuter/intercity network serving businesses, tourists, commuters and connecting major Vermont cities and towns.

While a train to Montreal would be nice, don't Vermont workers and citizens deserve rail-based service too starting with commuter routes out of Burlington—right now?

PART 1 OF 2: WHY AMERICAN TRANSPORTATION SUCKS...

WHY THE AMERICAN LOCAL TRANSPORTATION SYSTEM SUCKS (PART 1)....AND HOW VERMONT UNIQUELY CAN ADDRESS THEIR PART OF THIS PROBLEM (PART 2)

PART 1: WHY THE AMERICAN LOCAL TRANSPORTATION SYSTEMS SUCK

Admit it, we are tired hearing the routine comments from recent travelers and TV commentators touting the great European high speed trains, how frequently they run, their great on-time performance, and ease finding local transit connections to and from final destinations. (Why some European nations even boast networks for bicyclists and walkers from various transit centers—but let's not get into that subject here!) The follow up unwelcome comment continues with a question like “why doesn't the U.S. have quality rail services.” The reason why we do not want hear this any more--like the mention of the every 20 minute (you don't need a schedule) high speed service from early morning to late night in Taiwan connecting their their largest cities, yes, Taiwan, not to mention the extension underway now of the older high speed South Korean “KTX” service to the Winter Olympics base city of Chuncheon—comes not from the idea America no longer competes but from the suspicion our leaders do not really care any more or are just plain deaf.

By looking at the the “state of transportation” in a small state like Vermont, the U.S. “transportation problem” and its solution becomes easily apparent. Vermont transportation officials point to the State's supposed high per capita expenditure on public transit services, mostly through regional agencies running buses--a figure of $40 million a year in public monies gets mention.

The real question is what is $40 million in the overall Vermont “transportation market” and the place of public transportation in the overall scheme of things. Look at the answer first: it appears an in-state passenger rail system providing an integrated commuter/intercity network in that “overall scheme”--an expenditure of $10 to $50 million or even more in startup funding (primarily capital) followed by a programmed expansion involving more capital investment--represents a drop in the proverbial maple sap bucket in Vermont transportation expenditures.

Consider the current Vermont market, mostly cars.  Using 2010 U.S. typical household expenditure of $48,109 (after taxes) transportation represented 16.0% or $7700 ($7,697 rounded to the nearest $100).  Vermont median household income was within $100 of the U.S. (see U.S. Census “Quick Facts” online). When this number is multiplied by Vermont's 256,612 households it totals $1.986 billion.

How does this $1.986 billion for Vermont consumer transportation expenditure annually break down in terms of public transportation, the car and “other” (primarily air but also intercity bus and rail)? The online “Urban Transportation Fact Book 2004 gives an indication urban breakdown which reflects a public transportation dimension: 94% “user operated” (best known as a car), 1.44% “purchased local transit” and 4.56% “purchased intercity.”

Using 1.44% “purchased local transit” against a Vermont total figure of $1.986 billion gives consumer purchase of local transportation figure of $28.6 million. This figure—as one would expect in Vermont which has a much smaller typical urban footprint—appears too large when you consider that for the FY 2013 budget the total estimated consumer expense (fare box and “purchased services”) for the Chittenden County Transportation Authority (CCTA) is $3.99 million out of a $13.75 million revenue total.

The best estimate—and certainly on the high end—simply involves taking the CCTA numbers and multiplying by four since the County represents 24% of the State population, or $55 million expenditures by public transit agencies and $16 paid by users (who certainly pay under 30% user of trip costs). These numbers clearly overstate the actual numbers, but do give a rough dimension. In terms of consumer expenditure in Vermont.   From the Urban Transportation Fact Book, consumers spend 65 times “purchased local transit” on “user operated” car travel--and using $16 million expended by Vermont riders on public transit and 94% of $1.986 billion on car travel, the ratio of  Vermont car travel expenditures to public transit expense is 117 to 1. Admittedly the a sizable chunk of Vermont public transit operations provide for low income and older folks and the system is not expected to pay its way.

As we all know, U.S.--and Vermont—car travel gets huge per mile subsidies in the form of about 40% of all highway infrastructure paid for by non-user taxes and fees, high subsidies for parking at work and at other destinations (much of it provided for free), subsidies required to provide for orderly motor fuel markets, and devoting about a quarter of all urban land to the street system in great part to accommodate motor vehicles.

One cannot escape the conclusion that shifting a small amount—tiny in terms of the $1.9 billion overall Vermont household annual transportation expenditures and governmental consumption from the automobile to create a sustainable commuter and intercity passenger rail system not only is possible but desirable as already a substantial latent demand exists for an alternative to being a slave to the car. Consider the over bus 300 commuters—and growing by double digits yearly--to and from Burlington. These folks left cars for the “Link” bus services, all done a few short years—and almost no one chooses a bus to work if quality rail were available. Weekdays 18 Link commuter buses a day run the Burlington to Montpelier/Waterbury corridor with the average bus over half full. Self-propelled rail cars--with more comfort and greater safety--can serve twice the number of commuters in corridor with as few as half the trips.

As a practical matter we know that a rail-based service in a short period of time would shake the auto-centricity of this State to its very foundation.  Several basic feasibility studies date from 1989. Very likely and quite quickly a rail passenger network with integrated bus and bicycle connectivity replaces the unsustainable car system and becomes the preferable and permanent way of “getting from here to there” in Vermont.

DEAD END TRANSPORTATION CONSTRUCTION PROGRAM

Vermont transportation investments need to put first things first. The “biggest transportation spending plan in State history” touted by Governor Peter Shumlin yesterday does not contain the elements needed for a re-direction of Vermont transportation in an age when more Vermonters daily reject the 100% auto centric life. The following comment online today responded to the Burlington Free Press report and points to the two principal gaps in our transportation investments:

Vermont transportation projects continue down a dead end street, failing to address two key, long-neglected priorities—(1) establishing commuter rail, a start towards an in-State rail passenger network which recognizes rail the emerging backbone of Vermont transportation as more Vermonters every day join in reducing or abandoning altogether an unsustainable car lifestyle and (2) improving urban areas and town center walking and car circulation through a dozen or so new roundabouts annually—like the two under construction in Manchester Center. AAA calls for a “zero fatality” rate on our streets and anything but a roundabout on average increases serious injury and fatality rates about 900% per the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety decade old study. Car travel in Vermont declines now while public transit, bicycling, and Amtrak grow at single to double digit rates. Time for a change in transportation, our lives depend on it.

Other important elements in the changing transportation market include: (1) the need for businesses and government agencies to enable and support employees use of their own dollars to take advantage of the incentives in the federal tax code allowing tax free commuter benefits for those who commute by transit, bicycle, or carpool--sorry walkers, you get left out in the cold on this one; (2) supportive bus networks which work in harmony with rail passenger services and extend or take the place of rail where it is uneconomic or where the rails do not go; and (3) re-examining the entire highway network to see where in a changed environment federal and state highway networks can be downsized to conform to the reduced demands for highways as car travel declines.

BURLINGTON TRANSPORTATION CENTER, ROUNDABOUTS AND PUBLIC TRANSIT SERVICES

Letter today to Assistant Director Aaron Frank of the Chittenden County Transportation 

Authority (CCTA):

Thank you for taking the time to talk with me at the Cherry Street terminal on the “information day” regarding the excellent new Transit Center design proposal. I plan to attend the public hearing this week and speak in favor.

One of my concerns is whether the concept anticipates a doubling or tripling of Transit Center use as all data shows a growth spurt for transit continuing as public habits change toward less use, licensing, and need for the motor vehicle. The rapid growth of the Link service shows the tip of the iceburg of change in Vermont and U.S. transportation away from the car to other modes and public transportation. European modal shares provide a sense of where the U.S. urban modal shares will move towards, potential shares also applicable to Burlington.

Roundabouts and public transit...

Upon further reflection on your comments regarding use of “pre-emption” for transit bus accessing Pearl Street, it became clear that one really needs to look at the “customer”--in this case the walker or the driver primarily—when considering intersection improvements. I have suggested, for example, in past PlanBTV comments:

1. remove the signal at Church/Pearl and install a median refuge which also diverts traffic slightly to constrain speed, thereby leaving it for walkers and vehicles to work out in a “yield to walker” context rather than using a very often ignored signal (including walkers who decline to actuate the signal so as not to delay vehicles)--this new betterment would also facilitate the highest level of accessibility if the PlanBTV concept of expanding the Marketplace with development along with periphery of the Unitarian Church lands moves forward (“shared space” would be the ideal), and
2. install single lane roundabouts along Battery beginning with Pearl and Main intersections which present the least constraints—ultimately leading to a series of roundabouts along all the intersections from Main to to the north end of Battery Park (also adding a narrow median and cycle tracking to what becomes essentially, “Battery Parkway”.

Key Question: How does CCTA benefit from roundabouts?

As I pointed out, installing a mini roundabout at St. Paul/Pearl would enable ease of entry an exit of all vehicle on St. Paul—and a similar treatment on Cherry/St. Paul also makes sense. In both cases experience predicts increased walker safety and reduced delay for all users—and a large portion of those walkers are your customers. Customers safety and their reduced delay need to be CCTA's two major concerns. Minis have the greatest level of safety for walkers and car occupants—about a 90% reduction in serious injuries, and single laners reach about the same level of safety. (Note that with about 12,000 “roundabout years” recorded in North America since the first roundabout in 1990, not a single fatality has been recorded—the first one is, unfortunately, expected in a year or so.)

But our talk leads to the larger question as roundabouts become the rule—like they are across the pond: how do roundabouts benefit CCTA and public transit in general? Generally, at busy intersections all roundabouts reduce delay for all users—and reducing delay at a number of intersections may be able to reduce transit route times. Not much of an issue here. Further, by reducing delay for walkers, the distance a walker can normally negotiate increases—planners sometimes calculate such distances from various key locations in an urban center through “reach” diagrams. Simply for public transit, improved “reach” for walkers equates to increased numbers of walkers who can access a given bus stop. Not much of an issue here. For drivers the reduced conflicts and movement of walker crossings about two car lengths from the circular travelway also reduces bus/walker conflicts.

We know that in France where there are hundreds of roundabouts associated with intersections which also provide passage to light rail—many splitting the center of the roundabout central islands—showing roundabout and transit vehicle compatibility.

Here in the U.S. a reasonably small city with a large number of roundabouts is Carmel, IN. The mayor there, James Brainard, in a recent Economist issue suggests his 70,000 population city is about two thirds the way with about 60 roundabouts to converting all but one signal to a roundabout—Carmel then becomes a one traffic signal city with one hundred roundabouts. Among Carmel intersections are those serving about a half dozen freeway interchanges.

My suggestion is that CCTA contact its public transportation equivalent in Carmel to identify the benefits—and hopefully no drawbacks—to the spread of roundabouts on their operations, schedules, driver comfort with roundabouts versus signalized intersections, etc. Then CCTA can take that knowledge—along with any other gained from Carmel's public transportation agency's suggested further contacts—and apply it to Burlington's situation and the immediate case of the Transit Center accesses to nearby streets.

Finally, CCTA and its sibling, GMTA in Montpelier, already deal with a few roundabouts on their existing route structures: (1) the two Montpelier roundabouts; (2) the what I term a “hybrid”, the Winooski City Center; and (3) the roundabout at the termination on the Middelbury Link service in Middlebury. Note the first official Vermont “mini” roundabout is now in construction in Manchester Center along with a second at the once termed “malfunction junction” (will Essex Five Corners, another single lane roundabout candidate become Vermont newly annointed “malfunction junction”?).

Again, thank you for taking the time to listen to your customers and please consider this message as input and comment on the new proposed Transit Center.

Respectfully,

Tony Redington

20 North Winooski Avenue Apt. 2

Burlington