ANYTHING WORLD CLASS IN BURLINGTON AND CHITTENDEN COUNTY TRANSPORTATION?...THE REMAINING PATH TO GET THERE
The following comments (third year with no particular response to date) were submitted to the Chittenden Country Regional Planning Commission on Friday, January 24 in response to their invitation to comment on their Unified Planning Work Program for the coming year.
“Achieve a world class transportation
corridor with quality service and highest safety for those who walk, bicycle
and travel by motor vehicle or transit.”
Thank you for the opportunity to comment on the FY
2015 Unified Planning Work Program (UPWP).
Preface
The comments below reflect the kaleidoscope of
transportation transformation and the desperate need for State and Chittenden
County planning and policy in transportation to catch up with the resulting
investments needed to accommodate the change whether it is light rail,
passenger rail (including commuter), and most important walking and bicycling
infrastructure.
No need to cite the shifting numbers—from 50% car
travel growth in Vermont in the 1980s to the peak in urban car travel about
1990 symbolized by the subsequent decline on key Burlington arterials showing
an 8 to 28% decline since (and very likely negative growth overall for the
State this decade), the growth of Burlington commuter Link services from zero
in 2003 to about 500 a day on over 50 schedule buses, the continued growth of
Amtrak passenger numbers, and through the joint efforts since 2000 of Fletcher
Allen Health Care, UVM and Champlain College who employ one-of-three workers in
Burlington solo driving to work soon will dip under 50% compared to Vermont
average still in the mid-70th percentile.
The challenge to public policy which CCRPC uniquely
takes responsibility for comes from the fact that as family choices move from
car-centered transportation to other modes, all those other modes depend on
substantial public investment and support (forget the subsides to solo driving
like the $150 million each year for employers to provide Vermont workers “free”
employee parking!).
The financial issue is twofold. First, the Vermont household median spending
on transportation—about 16% of the family budget—mostly goes to cars, about
$1.8 billion for everything from car ownership and maintenance, gas, and
insurance. Meanwhile, for example,
regional public transit agencies in Vermont, like CCTA, must make due with
about
$12 million farebox revenue to develop and maintain
regional networks of primarily of bus services. The change of consumer choices is
unprecedented with recent data showing 3% `of all workers choosing something
else than a car to get to work—a shift of 9,000 since 2000 to walking, transit,
bicycling and working at home (car pooling numbers haven slowly declined for decades).
On one side of the coin then, the “demand” side of
transportation if you will, clearly moves and moves rapidly from motor vehicles
to something else. The flip side of the
coin which CCTA faces in policy and planning comes in the form of a strangulation
of car-based revenue sources which in Vermont began in the 1990s when the car
travel slowdown began (as it did in New England and to a lesser extent in other
parts of the nation). From the 1990s car
related revenues grew at a rate of about two percent and then actually
flatlined at times, well below the costs of maintaining much less improving the
highway system.
As Virginia as the first state did in February and
Massachusetts similarly attempted, transportation funding for the future
depends no longer on gas taxes and car-related sales taxes (though they need to
remain in place) but on general fund revenues.
Virginia cut the car revenue cord by abolishing the gas tax and
established a new across the board sales tax to support all modes of transportation. Gov. Deval Patrick obtained about half the
$1.9 billion requested including substantial income tax revenues to meet the
Massachusetts transportation needs over the next decade. An equivalent increase in revenues for
Vermont now in place in Massachusetts is $90 million—sufficient to fund
commuter rail, intercity rail, walking and bicycling infrastructure needs in
the urban areas and town centers, and light rail for Burlington and Rutland
during the next ten year period—the sort of minimum program to meet the minimal
current needs of Vermont, Chittenden and Burlington transportation to bring us
toward the efficiency and safety enjoyed today by most Western European
residents.
One last note regarding change. This set of comments submitted to your yearly
invitation for public input. Three major changes in these comments are: (1)
recognition of cycle track as an integral and necessary part in the company of
roundabouts at key intersections, together comprising a “truly complete street”
(TCS) versus the flimsy, fuzzy “complete street” language used in policy and
law; (2) completion of my paper “An Action Outline for New Vermont Commuter Rail
Passenger Service along Three Rail Corridors out of Burlington, Vermont” not
only determines commuter rail feasibility but covers a number of issues ranging
from demand management successes as well as trends in Chittenden County, State
and New England related travel and transportation; and (3) through involvement in now several planning processes in
Burlington and the region, it is clear that the preliminary language and public
process in the North Avenue study gives guidance, a standard if you will, on
what we need to seek as a community for our major urban thoroughfares serving
all modes:
“Achieve a world class transportation
corridor with quality service and highest safety for those who walk, bicycle
and travel by motor vehicle or transit.”
The North Avenue goal sets the table for where we want to
go. The North Avenue Advisory Committee
discussion included calls for cycle track along the entire 3-mile corridor, single
lane roundabouts at key intersections (pathed to allow bicyclists to avoid the
necessity of using the vehicle travel lane), light rail to connect with the
waterfront-Marketplace-Fletcher Allen—UVM-Champlain College line, and walk/bike
infrastructure spurs to the Bikepath and key public and private facilities and
schools. Bike lanes which primarily
serve with complete unsafety young-adult-white-males generally do not belong on
any high traffic volume urban street.
The young, the old, non-male gender and less skilled in the population
are excluded from use of simple marked bike lanes. The reason for the sudden move to install
cycle track along busy streets comes form the fact cycle track along street
segments provide a safe and comfortable environment for those of all ages,
skills and gender.
Recommendation
1: Study all County intersections technically for conversion to roundabouts
with the assistance of a nationally recognized roundabout design firm--much of
the rejection of roundabouts arises from the use of traffic engineers who see
the roundabout as, justifiably, a threat to the jobs in their profession.
This recommendation, needed now more than ever,
continues to be a major problem. The
study of Pearl St./Prospects Street/Colchester Ave., now sitting with a traffic
light recommendation, completely missed the mini-roundabout alternative with
its safety and no-delay benefits for walkers and bicyclists, and the ability
through FAHC and UVM to manage peak traffic numbers (projected increases
arguable in view of current and historical trends). The Parsons Brinkerhoff consultant for North
Avenue lacked sufficient background or expertise in roundabouts nor did the
firm obtain competent expertise knowing from the first instance that
roundabouts would be a key consideration at all busy intersections. The Champlain Parkway with recommendations
for roundabouts early for cost saving were reversed into signals, again,
without even allowing offered roundabout expertise.
Now that cycle track has become a desired treatment
on busy urban streets, the importance of bicycle safety at busy intersections
escalates as a pathed single-lane roundabout in research shows performance of
increased safety over signals approaching the walker reduction benefit of 90%.
Further, it has come to light over the past year the
importance of roundabouts to seniors as half of all senior fatalities on our
roadways occur at intersections compared to a quarter of all fatalities for all
ages—it is little wonder then that AARP policies urge conversion of signalized
intersections to roundabouts. It is
time for the UPWP to undertake a Countywide planning process for evaluating and
prioritizing intersections for roundaboutization, perhaps combining that process
with cycle tracking thereby taking into consideration the prioritization of
both so that that in the case of roundabout conversions accommodating cycle
track is incorporated at the very first instance.
Recommendation
2: There are three studies of light
density commuter/intercity rail dating from 1989. Vermont is unique with
all of its cities connectable by modern single unit diesel-electrics
similar to the Budd RDCs. For Burlington, runs from Main Street Station
in terms of commuter services could operate to Barre-Montpelier, Vergennes, and
St. Albans. Stops would include IBM entrance at railside and possibly the
few hundred feet feeder to BIA. These services would integrate to the
larger intercity services using the same equipment statewide in part designed
to shift basic transportation to the tourist industry from cars to rail
passenger.
My 2013 study—done at no cost—fulfills the request made in this
instance. One other important aspect is
for CCRPC review and provide for interconnectivity of all bus services under
County jurisdiction—which includes GMTA services in Washington County—with
Amtrak services. This study can be
coordinated with Central Vermont Regional Planning, CCTA and Amtrak—and
preferably through a statewide effort coordinated by VAOT. Right now there are service breaks—or no
service at all—in terms of regional transit services and Amtrak stations. Transit agencies work to connect their own
service routes but seem tone deaf when it comes to other transportation modes. Again, on this topic, the free College Street
Shuttle changes route in the summer to serve the waterfront station adjacent to
Echo but the needs of those connecting to the Lake Champlain Ferry during the
summer season remain un-addressed.
3. The CCRPC
needs to place emphasis on planning for those who walk, not those who bicycle
whose interest groups have dominated the discussion and investments in
non-motorized travel. Actually, roundabouts are themselves are
primarily a benefit and fostering of the walking mode--even though all modes
and transit also benefit. A roundabout qualifies as a bike/pad project
too!
Let these 2014 comments alter the view expressed in 2012. While still maintaining “CCRPC needs to place
emphasis on planning for those who walk,” it also should give equal weight and
consideration to the needs of bicyclists who after those who walk are next on
the list of those most affected by malign neglect among the transportation
modes. As clearly pointed out above,
the roundabout not only is critical to walker safety, it also fulfills the same
function for cycle track at intersections—the bicycle community itself through
the Palo Alto research decades ago identified the safety of sidepaths as one of
high intersection crash rates erasing whatever advantage the sidepath might
provide by giving the bicyclist physical separation from road segment traffic
(as cycle track does). Simply, the
roundabout with an off-travelway path for cyclists addresses the issue
identified in the Palo Alto study for both sidepaths as well as cycle
track. Note that the Champlain Parkway
current design repeats the very treatment found unsafe in the Palo Alto study,
a side path which passes through four signalized intersections!
Recommendation
4: It is fair to say that transportation
planning and particularly projects in Chittenden County have failed miserably
to serve business and economic growth and
viability.
There are many blatant examples. Can any state be pointed out with a
poorer entrance for its largest employer than IBM in Essex Jct.? A
roundabout as an entrance at the Park Street and Maple Streets entrance would
show that Vermont really is concerned whether IBM stays or leaves. While
the decades old Church Street Marketplace cannot be overpraised, the failure to
expand the "shared space" elements along Bank, Cherry, and College
Streets remains inexcusable--time to work on expanding "shared space"
to bring merchants on those streets the same kind of expanded opportunity to
draw customers as those on the Marketplace. Other locations in the County
need examination for Marketplace-type conversion to shared space.
With the possible sale of the IBM plant as part of IBM-Lenovo
deal along with more Essex Plant reductions in force since this recommendation,
is it not time to consider the entries on Park and Maple Street to IBM and
space now shifted to others and called Technology Park?
With the construction of the new Burlington Transit Center the
expansion of the Marketplace outward to serve businesses makes even more
sense. So also does the introduction of
cycle track along adjacent streets—Battery, Pearl, Main, and S. Winooski in
particular. And, of course single lane
roundabout where they can fit in—South Winooski/Main Street may well
accommodate a single lane roundabout, act as a traffic calmer and a formal
gateway to the Marketplace itself. While
this may seem somewhat extreme, a study of how a “bicycle spaceway” along the
center of the Marketplace might make sense now as increasing numbers of those
accessing the marketplace or wanting to move within it will be traveling by
bicycle.
Recommendation
5: Bike track needs to be installed
starting in town and city centers--expanding off the Dorset/Kennedy Drive bike
track type grade separated paths in South Burlington and off the Church Street
Marketplace in Burlington. For example, why not bike track from the Marketplace
down Main Street to the Main Street Safety [Landing}--with a roundabout first
at Pine Street. Such an installation might well have prevented the tragic
fatality at Main/St. Paul in December 2010.
“Bike track” means “cycle track” in the language of today—this
is discussed in more detail above.
Cycle track from the Marketplace to the waterfront became the one cycle
track contained in the City’s “Plan BTV.”
Other
recommendations: "…revising estimates of vehicle travel growth taking
demographic changes into consideration, fitting housing development needs to
changed demographics…”
Among a short list of other recommendations, it is clear that
CCRPC lacks a coherent rationale for evaluating modal level changes, vehicle
miles of travel changes, population and employment change, etc. Using the word “growth” must now be altered
to “change” since many changes today involve decrease as opposed to
increases. Certainly estimations and
projections are not easy—perhaps a high and low estimate might be provided and
project
determinations be far more nuanced by potential changes with
consideration, for example, of employing demand management to maintain a low
traffic estimate in a corridor as a way to utilize a safer roundabout
alternative over the clearly less favorable signal alternative.
Review of 2013 Recommendations
submitted February 19, 2013
The 2013 UPWP recommendations reviewed the 2012
recommendations which were generally ignored by CCRPC and with some variation
repeated the 2012 recommendations. The initial
commuter Action Outline draft received attention as did the "transportation
tectonic shift" in state transportation finance just emerging in Virginia
and Massachusetts. (Note that overall
FHWA’s “Highway Statistics” shows of all public expenditures on highways, about
$200 billion in 2011, 38% came from non-user levies including property taxes,
general funds and bonding proceeds.)
Finally, the CCRPC invented population and employment growth
projections which suggest a County growth of 1,700 each year 2015-2035, about
35,000 total. Yet statewide Vermont
growth 2010-2013 amounts to 277 yearly or 23 monthly over three years. Not a very good warmup for the Chittenden
“population express” launch next year.
There is a growth of 1,700 a year, however, going on right now, the
projection 2000-2030 of over-65 population by the Census doubling the percent
of Vermont population over-65 from 12 to 24 percent (U.S. percentage by 2030
about 20%). Note the over-65 crowd car
travel drops by 40% compared to the high car travel group aged 25-55. And not surprisingly seniors travel more by
planes, trains, and public transportation.
The “black hole” of walking and
bicycling infrastructure in Burlington, Chittenden County and the State—and the
United States
The balance of comments directly relate to the “black hole” in
walking and bicycling infrastructure in the City of Burlington Chittenden
County and the State.
But first, consider the study needs already directly enumerated
or implied:
1.
The need for updates of feasibility and routing of light
rail, a first phase to align from the waterfront through the Marketplace to
FAHC/UVM, and finally (my vision) under Main Street to connect east and west
UVM facilities and ending at the edge of Champlain College. In addition the waterfront section can be
extended from the rail passenger loading platform northward parallel to Lake
Street ending near the New Moran facility thereby providing access to tends of
thousands of visitors and Vermonters to the waterfront facilities and services. And undertake a new study of a north-south
light rail facility extending from Flynn School on the North End to the bottom
of Pine Street on the south end.
2.
Revisions of studies and approaches to project evaluation
as they relate to population, employment, traffic, etc., such that flexibility
is provided in possible options. Benefit
cost analysis should be applied to all projects, costs and benefits which
incorporate social costs as well as environmental, motor fuel, and crash costs
and benefits.
3.
Complete examination of all major streets and
thoroughfares for inclusion of cycle track and roundabouts.
4.
Working in a coordinated fashion with Central Vermont and Franklin
County planning agencies, undertake an update of past plans and detailed
feasibility for commuter rail services along with a consideration of potential
and actual intercity services.
5.
Initiate a series of town centers—Essex Jct., Williston,
and Hinesburg, for examples—for full re-construction which includes both
roundabouts and cycle track. Note the
irrelevance of bypassing Essex Five Corners when single-lane roundabout
accommodates all traffic (as also found, for example, in the Taft Corner
scoping). Can the CCRPC explain why a
simple solution is not even evaluated in a scoping study for that intersection?
6.
Revision of all
current designs for streets—particularly the Champlain Parkway with a cost of
$37 million—to insure roundabouts and walkable/bikable infrastructure is included. Almost by definition the absence of
roundabouts—like in the Champlain Parkway design—means the new roadway is
neither walkable or bikable in spite of street sections with a shared sidepath. With an annual transportation program of
about $160 million in federal funds it makes no sense to spend any of that
money for poor quality, substandard walking and bicycling infrastructure.
When describing walking and bicycling modes in our nation,
State, County and City one must only look to Rutgers’s Professor John Pucher
and his study of walking and bicycling fatality rates and injury rates to
determine the almost complete absence of safety for the “active” modes—our
urban fatality rates for walking are four times per mile of travel on foot and
almost three times by bicycle even though mostly young adult men bicycle in the
U.S. while the Germany/Netherlands study comparison involves bicycling by all
ages and skills in the comparison countries.
An even more startling statistic is the U.S. bicycle injury rate per
mile of travel 25 times that of the two Western European nations urban areas.
While Burlington does have a “bicycle friendly” and
“walking friendly” designation it represents more a sport equivalent of making
a good effort than any objective measurement against gold standards set by a
multitude of Western European urban areas.
In reality when it comes to walkable and bikable streets our urban areas
constitute a black hole.
However we can point to
few isolated examples of the kind of infrastructure here in Vermont, the
seeds of what require hundreds of millions of dollars of urban and town
investment to reach a status of solid walkable and bikable urban
infrastructure. (Many urban areas since
1990 have developed excellent seasonable recreational paths, including the outstanding Burlington Bikepath and other
similar facilities in other Chittenden County towns but these are by definition
seasonal, generally unlit and unplowed, and do not qualify, therefore, as
mainline transportation facilities.) There
are two notable walkable corridors in Vermont.
The first is the Burlington Church Street Marketplace, a four block long
shopping walkers-only corridor on Church Street, which opened in 1981. The second, completing half a 1995 plan, Main
Street in Manchester Center came on line with the completion of two roundabouts
(three total now) in November 2012 including a “bridgebout” roundabout
replacing “malfunction junction” there in the center of this self-described
“Fifth Avenue of the Mountains.”
In the case of Manchester Center the three single-lane
roundabouts with sidewalks provide first class walkability. The second half of the Manchester Center plan
of roundabouts replacing two signals on adjoining Depot Street can easily be
revised to include cycle track to create a true walkable/bikable street.
The Middlebury town center roundabout and Montpelier’s
Keck Circle (1995) represent other points of light in walkability in an
otherwise black hole of walkability.
One can argue that although they do not meet the intersection criteria
(pathed roundabouts, preferably of the one-lane kind) the cycle track along
Dorset Street, South Burlington between Williston Road and Kennedy Drive, the shared
sidepath along Kennedy Drive there and the Riverside Avenue shared side-path in
Burlington qualify as bikable—certainly very close to bikable status. But compared to the East and West Winooski
paths in Montpelier with a plan in place to connect the two at some point with
a roundabout the Burlington and South Burlington cycle track and sidepaths
remain on the lower rung of bikability.
If one rejects the Champlain Parkway design—as it should be rejected as
unwalkable and unbikable for lack of one-lane roundabout safety provision at
the intersections and the lack of separate walk and bicycle space, then the
other treatments until roundabouts are provided at intersections below a
reasonable standard.
Finally, Burlington will be the site of the first busy
public street roundabout in Chittenden and Franklin Counties when a single laner
arrives in 2017 at the junction of Shelburne St./Locust St./St. Paul St. (we
all call the location “the rotary”). The
“Rotary” Roundabout completion in 2017 mark the 27th year since the
first roundabouts were built in the U.S. and 22 years since the first
roundabout in the northeast—Keck Circle in Montpelier.
To reach the equivalent French roundabout production rates
1993-2003 (1,400 a year) we would build about four roundabouts yearly in the
county and 1-2 in Burlington, hardly a daunting task when you start from
zero. Vermont does have two-miles of
cycle track on Dorset Street, South Burlington and using relative Dutch
proportions we would have in place today: 45 miles in Burlington, 170 miles in
the County and 670 miles statewide.
We can and must do better to create the safest world class
streets in our urban areas and this means miles and miles of cycle track and
roundabouts at key intersections.
Suggested websites:
1.
School Release Nov 1, 2013. Keck Circle
Montpelier—walkable node. Shows
bicycles, emergency vehicle going and returning, charter and school buses,
walking
school
bus—5:43 minute video by R. J. Lalumiere, Burlington
http://goo.gl/DdajOC
2.
NHDOT—photos of
10 NH roundabouts, list of 28 NH roundabouts and 21 planned/under
consideration, links, background, etc.
3. . Cycling safety what Copenhagen can teach
global cities
4. Pathed
roundabouts NL [Netherlands] Bicyclist, graphic, historic photos of Amsterdam
location where pathed roundabout was built 2007—videos and text.
5. Paper on cycle
track by Dr. Anne Lusk et al (Lusk created Stowe Bikepath and led effort to
create and manage the Vermont bikepath program in the early years) “Bicycle
guidelines and crash rates on cycle track in the United States” American Journal
of Public Health July 2013
6.
Glens Falls, NY five-leg roundabout—neighborhood views
before and after construction
7.
Dozens of photos of cycle track (with examples of unprotected bike
lanes, a google grouping (?)
8.
NY State DOT
roundabout website—photos, animations, videos, policies, etc.
9. .
Swedish national highway research agency, VTI paper on roundabout safety
Thank you for opportunity to submit these comments.
