More Vermont Roundabout Corridors Arriving!

More Roundabout Corridors Coming to Vermont!

Roundabouts, about 3,500 strong now in the U.S. and Canada, now arrive in bunches, 3, 4, 5, and even more. Three or more roundabouts along a mile or two qualifies as a “roundabout corridor” and Vermont's first in Manchester completed in 2012 soon gets company with two planned and others in the offing. The first five roundabout corridor along Brattleboro's Putney Road corridor now reaches the design stage with VTrans. The commercial retail will include full walk/bike facilities along what amounts to a business strip of retail and food outlets. The business community wanting to compete effectively with nearby Keene, NH pushed for making the corridor an attractive, congestion free environment for all modes.  (Keene, NH boasts five going on six roundabouts in the City including one just outside on the road to the airport.)

Roundabouts cut serious and fatal injuries about 90% according to an Insurance Institute for Highway Safety study. And a recent study of over 50 U.S. roundabout corridors in place found little difference in through traffic travel times as reduced delay at intersections overcame the positive result of reduced speeds through the corridor.  Burlington's North Avenue Corridor Plan adopted last October converts at least three signalized intersections to roundabouts along a mixed use corridor. Four intersections comprising all of Montpelier's Main Street in the downtown found roundabout feasible include the oldest roundabout in the northeast, Keck Circle at Main and Spring Streets and a second intersection at Barre Street in pre-design, an intersection which enables final connection of Winooski East and Winooski West transportation paths (bikepaths fully lit and plowed in the winter).

A second three roundabout corridor planed along Depot Street (VT 11) in Manchester has an anchor roundabout at the Main Street over the Batttenkill River. This corridor would complete making Manchester reaching signal-free status.

In Burlington an AARP Vermont workshop report and the Burlington Walk Bike Council supports a roundabout corridor along both Pine Street and the Champlain Parkway overall about ten roundabouts.  

               

Burlington's (VT) Walk Crash Record--When did the Canary Stop Singing?

The recent revelation in the Burlington Walk Bike Master Plan process, planBTV Walk Bike, of the “dirty 17” Burlington intersections with nearly one walker crash per year average for 2011-2014 brings to mind the silence of a canary signifying dangerous gas buildup in a coal mine. When did the canary stop signaling here?

A little arithmetic translates the four years of data, 61 intersection-related walk crashes, to 150 injured pedestrians for the decade plus 2.5 fatalities. Burlington recorded one fatality on a crosswalk in 2011 and another walker died in a crash on the Sheraton/Staples crosswalk just beyond the City boundary in So. Burlington last fall. The 150 estimated injuries suffered by those on foot for the decade equals about one per hundred City households.

The 150 injured pedestrians estimate applies to only the “dirty 17” intersections—many more occur yearly at other City intersections.

Burlington prides itself in being “pedestrian friendly” and certainly the Marketplace precinct and Bikepath deserve that raring.. But for residents who must ply the other streets of City including those needed to access the Marketplace and other key destinations—City Market, Fletcher Free Library, and neighborhood stores, for examples—conditions remain less than friendly.

Since speed remains the primary factor in frequency of walk mode crashes and injury severity, a real reduction in speeds at the “dirty 17” and other City intersections must be the first and foremost way to reduce injuries and fatality to those who move on foot. Education and enforcement cannot overcome the speed factor, safe infrastructure comes first. The one and only treatment which reduces the existing rate of walk mode injuries about 90% at intersections is the single lane roundabout. It does the same for walk safety at intersections as does installing a sidewalk along street sections, also a walk mode reducer of injuries by about 90%.

Most of the “dirty 17” intersections can be converted to roundabouts (American Association of Retired Persons [AARP] advocates converting signals to roundabouts for reducing senior driving fatalities). The U.S. dropping from first to 19^th in safety among nations in significant part can be explained by its failure to rapidly adopt roundabout technology. There are other traffic calming measures which can be used to reduce speeds—medians which divert the vehicle straight path, raised crosswalks, speed humps/bumps, and similar measures. Measures which do little to diminish speeds—signs, flashing lights and pavement markings.

“What if” the “dirty 17” were converted to roundabouts, what would the the likely result? Well, instead of 61 injuries per year at the 17 intersections, the number would be six and those injuries less severe on average. Fatalities? Instead of 2.5 per decade estimated above, the number would drop to one every four decades!

The American Automobile Association (AAA) in a study found the costs of injuries were far higher than congestion costs in metropolitan areas. The Federal Highway Administration uses dollar figures to estimate the cost of a highway crash injury--$126,000 in 2009 and a separate figure for a fatality “Value of a Statistical Life” (fancy way to say value of your life) which in the most recent policy ranges between $5.2 and $12.9 million. The life value is taken from a number of economic studies. AAA used the high value in their metropolitan congestion versus vehicle crash costs analysis.

Taking the $126,000 per walker injured and $12.9 million for a pedestrian fatality and applying that to the estimated 150 walker injuries for the decade and 2.5 walk fatalities for Burlington this decade provides a sense of the dimension of the cost of pedestrian crashes at the “dirty 17” Burlington intersections 2010-2020: $44.7 million total.

What Burlington needs to concentrate on are “safe” streets. Then there remains the subject of bicycles crashes in the City...

Burlington's "Dirty 17" Most Pedestrian Injuries 2011-2014

The Burlington, VT “Dirty 17”: Walk Mode Injury Generating Intersections 2011-2014

During the 2011-2014 period, 17 Burlington intersections generated on average 0.9 walk mode injury crashes yearly. Of the “dirty 17”, 13 were signalized with at least two with the highest technical designs with a dedicated pedestrian phase, and four were stop controlled. Every one of the five intersections along South Winooski Avenue parallel and accessing the Marketplace made the “dirty 17” list.

Any of these intersections replaced by a single lane roundabout (or mini roundabout) which reduces walk mode injures by about 90 percent, would drop one injury a year predicted to one injury per decade as well as a reduction in injury severity. The corollary: replacing a roundabout with a signal or sign control on average will increase pedestrian injuries by about 800%. Injuries recorded 2011-2014 are in parenthesis. Any intersection recording more than one pedestrian injury a decade (except those in the Marketplace area bounded by Battery St./Main St./Pearl St./So. Winooski Ave. and a few others) needs to be of special concern and if feasible converted to a roundabout. Further, the South Winooski Avenue intersections parallel to the Marketplace demand attention and part of any improvements to those intersections for pedestrian safety should include speed management designs.

The intersections along South Winooski Avenue between Pearl and Main Streets certainly have both a heavy volume of vehicles and pedestrians crossing. The Murray St./North St. crossing is noteworthy (as is Shelburne St. “rotary”) for bordering elementary school grounds.

1. So. Winooski Ave./Bank St. (6)
2. Archibald St./Intervale St. (5)
3. So. Winooski Ave./College St. (5)
4. So. Winooski Ave./Main St. (5)
5. Main St./St. Paul St. (5) Kaye Borneman, 43, driving vehicle, in fatal crash 2010.
6. Riverside Ave.--Intervale St. to Hill St. (4)
7. North St./near Murray St. (4)
8. No. Prospect St./Loomis St. (4)
9. No. Winooski Ave./Pearl St. (4)
10. So. Winooski Ave./Cherry St. (3)
11. No. Winooski Ave./North St. (3)
12. Pine St./Lakeside Ave. (3)
13. Colchester Ave./Barrett St. (2) Bruce “Sam” Lapointe, of Winooski, fatally injured on Barrett St. crosswalk 2012.
14. Colchester Ave./East Ave. (2)
15. Pine St./Locust St. (2) Critical injury 2014 on “rapid flashing beacon” (installed about a year before) crosswalk.
16. Shelburne St. “Rotary” (2)
17. Shelburne St./Home Ave. (2) Linda Ente, 48, Winooski, supermarket employee, fatally injured on crosswalk 1998.  
    
    
    Note: injury data from draft documents of the Burlington walk bike master plan process planBTV Walk Bike.

"Intersection of Death" Lives at Least until 2021

Shelburne Street Roundabout--Burlington, VT

A contact Monday (September 14, 2015) with the Vermont Agency of Transportation (VTrans) section handling the design and construction of the Shelburne Street Roundabout at the “rotary” intersection in Burlington finds the Chittenden County's first roundabout on a busy public street now scheduled for construction 2020-2021.  The project is for safety improvement as the intersection has a high accident rate history.

As this intersection is one of the "dirty 17" in Burlington identified this year averaging one walk mode injury per year, the period from the time base design was completed in 2010 to actual roundabout constructed, 2021 about six individuals crossing the intersection will suffer injuries.  

VTrans engineer Michael Lacroix explained there will be some exploratory work related to underground utilities at the Shelburne St./So. Willard St./St. Paul St./Locust St. shortly but that work does not signal construction. The intersection project also addresses easing entry and exit to Ledge Street just three or four car lengths south of the roundabout as designed. The 100% federally funded roundabout with safety program funds involves a single contract for construction with the first year, 2020, re-configuration and any new/upgraded various utilities which criss-cross the intersection, and 2021 the actual construction of the roundabout. Lacroix said there is no truth to a recent rumor in Burlington that a design contract send out to bid found no takers.

In fact the project with the roundabout design completed in 2010 following the final public meetings and reports in 2008 still requires time consuming right-of-way acquisition before the bid plans are prepared, the bidding process takes place, contractor selected and construction begins. Interestingly the first northeastern U.S. roundabout in Montpelier took three years from authorization by the City of a committee to opening for traffic, development period which included a twelve month pause for addition of funds to the City budget for the project.

At the present pace the project, first discussed and began its development process in 2002, will be completed after 19 years. Meanwhile the high level of walk, bike and vehicle injuries and crashes the roundabout chosen to address continue. In the four year period 2011-2014 two pedestrian crashes occurred. The intersection ranks among the “dirty 17” with highest walk mode injuries in a draft report from the planBTV Walk Bike master planning project now under way. The average frequency of walk mode injuries at the “dirty 17” intersections reaches almost one per intersection per year. A single lane roundabout based on Vermont roundabout experience and research findings can be expected to reduce injuries for those who walk, bike or travel by vehicle—particularly serious and fatal injuries—by about 90%.

Comment on Champlain Parkway in the Vermont Digger Srory Today

Posted by Tony Redington

The Parkway design now set for construction actually features not a single inch of quality

 walkable/bikable or even high safety drivable roadway. Against the City’s walk bike council 

advisory developed over six months and delivered to Mayor Weinburger in December, not a 

single recommendation can be found in the design–no separate walkway and bicycle 

facilities to assure safety, and not a single roundabout to assure safety for each mode at 

busy intersections. And, the lack of connectivity from Pine St. to points south using a 

roundabout gets shelved. A “Happy Days” 1950s design prevails for the Parkway which 

guarantees decades of relative desolation and commercial blight for the South End. Most 

important will be the needless serious injuries and a fatal or two over the life of the project 

which quality design prevents. Clearly the design represents an indelible black mark for the 

VTrans leadership of Secretary Minter and Mayor Weinberger whose administrators 

continue to mislead the community about this wolf in sheep’s clothing. One merely lays the 

landmark 2.8 mile North Avenue Corridor plan adopted last October against the Parkway to 

see the obvious fatal flaws in the South End project.

City Snookered by State Highway Agency?

Is the Vermont Agency of Transportation Snookering the City on the Champlain Parkway?

Any careful observer of the evolution of the Champlain Parkway since the last full public hearing in the fall of 2006 might guess the latest meager crumbs this year of public information indicates a complete abandonment by the State to any improvements at all along Pine Street and Lakeside Avenue—the project now may be just the “new” roadway from the base of Pine Street with intersections at Home and Flynn Avenues ending at new third signal intersection at Lakeside Avenue.

For nine years the public of Burlington mostly resemble an audience at a long play with the curtain never going up as a number of major changes develop on stage. As a practical matter for the $43 million project there remains no playbill, a simple public document describing what the Parkway is all about in the first place and noting the changes, if any, since 2006. Some involved in Act 250 say there will be a signal at Maple and Pine Streets but how would the public know if that is true?

Earlier this year a strange almost surreal exercise took place at the Burlington Walk Bike Council as attendees were asked to move lines around on Pine Street without being able to move the curblines as one would do if the Parkway project were a re-construction as described in early renderings. The current project in addition to new roadway includes the intersection Lakeside Avenue then existing street to Pine Street, then north on Pine Street to the Maple Street intersection where the Parkway project ends. At least that was the case in 2006. Now, apparently nothing really is involved on either Lakeside or Pine except for rearranging pavement markings.

Some would like for the Parkway project to respond in a meaningful way to further agreed upon aspects of the vision contained in the planBTV South End draft plan recently released. But a Parkway plan—certainly the resources are there—as recently intimated will do nothing of the sort.

Of course from what we know those interested in quality, high safety facilities for all who can walk, bike and travel by vehicle were left out of the 2006 design—yes, there is not an inch, not a penny of walkable or bikable along the route and not a single safe intersection for those traveling by car. Reduce delay for all? No. Energy efficient? No. Minimum pollutant and global warming emissions? No. Any roundabouts?  No.  Any cycle track (protected bike lanes)?  No.

So, the question remains shrouded in mystery behind the curtain out of sight of the public—what is the Champlain Parkway and why have nine years gone by without a plain and simple document that residents can ponder over and discuss? The latest on Pine and Lakeside appears to indicate the Vermont Agency of Transportation has abandoned any consideration of carrying through on investments to benefit the South End along Pine Street and Lakeside Avenue—how sad if true that 98% federal/State funding of those potential benefits have been lost somewhere in goings on behind the curtain. Looks like the City may be snookered by the Agency. Time to raise the curtain? 

First Northeast Roundabout Becomes 20-something

The First Modern Roundabout East of Colorado and North of Maryland Reaches 20^th Birthday This August: Keck Circle Montpelier, VT.

At eventide on August 16, 1995 just after application of the Spring and Main Streets modern roundabout's first course asphalt paving, two young bicyclists circled a time or two on the still hot circular travelway. A few minutes later after the paving equipment fully cleared, traffic barriers came down and the first modern roundabout in the northeast opened for four-wheeled vehicles too. So began the first hour of Keck Circle in Montpelier, Vermont's first roundabout--the first north of Maryland and east of Colorado, and 19^th built in the U.S.

That roundabout, Keck Circle, so named by City Council action commemorates citizen-activist and member of the Montpelier Roundabout Committee Andy Keck who died just weeks before the opening of his namesake roundabout, is located a block from grades 6-8 Main Street Middle School. Keck Circle traffic calms a block or two along each leg including the main crossing to the school, and has never been found to require crossing guard protection at school times. To all Montpelier school students today Keck Circle has been in place their entire lives. The roundabout defines one of the four corners of the simple rectangular Vermont Capital City downtown street grid composed of north-south Main and Elm Streets and east-west Spring and State Streets.

Controversial up to and in its early operation, a survey a year later found 85% acceptance and support. That survey was the first U.S. public opinion survey undertaken on a roundabout after construction. To date in almost 20 years of operation no serious injuries were recorded and in the first decade injuries were less than the decade previous. With about 3,000 roundabouts built as of the end of 2014 in the U.S. and Canada not a single walk mode fatality was recorded. (In Burlington, VT two walk mode fatalities occurred at the City's 75 traffic signals between 1998-2014 alone and a third at a signal adjacent to the City border in South Burlington.)

The single lane roundabout with a diameter which averages about 106 feet continues to serve about the same traffic approaching along its three legs,12,000 total vehicles entering it on an average day. About 42 tractor trailers a day travel through the roundabout as it is located on Route 12, and large tour buses are a frequent users during the fall foliage season. Designed by Michael J. Wallwork, Alternate Street Design, Orange Park, FL, Montpelier leaders at the time were Mayor Charles Karparis, City Manager Ryan Cotton and Department of Public Works Director Steven Gray. The Montpelier Roundabout Committee members included: Peter Meyer and Tony Redington (co-chairs), Keck, Gray, then Police Chief Douglas Hoyt, Donna Bate, Alan Lendway and then City Planner Joseph Zehnder. Keck Circle cost $162,000 and involved only City funds. From concept to ready-to-construct, it took two years, then one additional to complete accommodation within the City budget.

Since the opening of the roundabout the other three major intersections along Main Street received favorable preliminary feasibility studies for roundabout conversion—Main and State, Main and Barre (now in detailed study), and across the Winooski Bridge at the south terminus of Main Street at River Street/Northfield Street/Memorial Drive. Montpelier's second roundabout, a single lane roundabout at US 2/302, opened in 2009. Through 2014 there are now 14 modern roundabouts with downtown roundabouts in addition to Keck Circle in Waterbury, Manchester Center (3) and Middlebury. The three roundabouts in Manchester Center with the last two completed in 2013 constitute the first Vermont corridor of roundabouts and first walkable busy corridor in the State.

Wallwork, one of a handful of engineers who designed and promoted roundabouts from their inception in the U.S. in 1990 through today, wrote in 1992: “...I predict that engineers will increasingly realize that traffic signals are not the cure-all and, adopting a more international outlook, roundabouts will proliferate in this last major bastion of the traffic signal. Roundabouts will be used in residential streets to reduce speeds and accidents, and on arterial roads to reduce accidents and provide higher capacity. In all instances they will be more cost effective and aesthetic...” (“Roundabouts for the U.S.A.” 1992).

In the United States, once first in highway safety, fatality rates continue to slide below now a total of 18 nations with top nations (including the U.K., birthplace of the roundabout, in first place). Roundabouts cut incapacitating and fatal injuries about 90% for all modes. The U.S. fatality rate per mlle of travel now is twice that of nations at the top of the list. This means about 20,000 additional deaths each year here, as reported by Malcolm Gladwell in New Yorker Magazine, May 4. Most of the nations ahead of the U.S. heavily invested in roundabouts as well as in urban areas a full range of safe walk and bike infrastructure.

To see Keck Circle in action at school closing one can view this 5 minute-43 second video taken on the afternoon of November 1, 2013 by R.J. Lalumiere of Burlington during a field visit of North Avenue Corridor Plan Advisory Committee members. http://goo.gl/DdajOC

Notes: 1. The public opinion survey report referenced, Montpelier's Modern Roundabout at Keck Circle Neighborhohod Opinion Survey: January 1997” can be viewed at:

http://www.alaskaroundabouts.com/KeckCircleSurvey.pdf

2. The New Yorker article referred to: “The Engineer's Lament” by Malcolm Gladwell, May 4, 2015 New Yorker Magazine

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/05/04/the-engineers-lament

3. The base reference for the “about 90%” reduction of “incapacitating and fatal injuries” obtained by installing roundabouts is: R. Retting, B. Persaud, P. Garder, D. Lord. (2001) “Crash and injury reduction following installation of roundabouts in the United States” American Journal of Public Health
. This study because of sample size did not apply directly to either bicycle or walk mode rates, only “all modes rate.” Separate studies of single lane roundabouts do show reductions of serious and fatal injury rates of about 90% for walk mode and bike mode.