September 1, 2021 Rev. 3 February 28, 2022
Convert Most Unsafe Vermont Communuty Street to Safest with Roundabouts
Historic Old North End North Street: Low Cost Conversion of the Most Unsafe and DangerouS Vermont Community Street to Vermont’s Most Safe, Low Speed, Pedestrian Friendly Street!
Summary
One thing parents well know, there is no safe route to Sustainability Academy/Barnes Elementary School along North Street in Burlington.
This policy analysis recommends mini roundabouts along Vermont’s most unsafe and dangerous street right here in Burlington—North Street from North Avenue to the west to North Union to the east with five of six cross intersections on the state’s high crash list of 111 statewide. The roundabout is the only intersection type on the Federal Highway short list of pedestrian safety “proven countermeasures.” A mini roundabout, is the most likely application in most of the North Street intersections meaning about one injury crash per intersection every few years versus 0.6 injuries per year per intersection now in the most recent tabulation. North Street roundabouts might approach the record of the other five downtown roundabouts of one injury per 50 years (half century) per intersection. And injuries at a roundabout are less severe than at signals. Right now the five high crash intersections total expanded to a decade of an estimated 32 injuries compares to one injury per decade tabulated at the five downtown roundabouts!
The five Vermont downtown roundabouts with the 52 years of data in Manchester Center {3}, Middlebury and Montpelier averaged just one injury per decade—0.8 car occupant injury, 0.2 pedestrian injury, 0.0 bike injury—none serious. Roundabouts can be expensive as costly utility work often is involved in a project unrelated to the roundabout itself. However, with mini roundabouts used where there are right-of-way constraints, a factor present on North Street, the mini can often be installed with the same safety performance of the bigger sibling for as little as $50,000. The mini roundabout cost is in the neighborhood of traffic calming. It is not far from the cost of three sets of one concrete cylinder flower pot and two white plastic stakes ($17,000) installed at several Burlington intersections. Besides you do not have to tend to the flowers at a mini roundabout!
For the historic Old North End (ONE) dating from the early 19th century, North Street remains the most active community centered street featuring numerous retail, business and institutional land uses. Sustainable Academy (Barnes) Elementary School is just a block from the now Old North End Community Center, formerly Saint Joseph’s Elementary School. A variety of restaurants, convenience stores, residential buildings, ethnic retail markets,Vantage Press, Dion Locksmith and Bissonette Properties, as well as the locked Elmwood Cemetery are all found between along North Street between North Avenue and North Union Street. As well, there are four high crash intersections—all four cross intersections located between North Avenue (west terminus of North Street) and North Union Street to the east. Of the six intersections North Avenue, Park Avenue, North Champlain Street, Elmwood, North Winooski and North Union Street are on the VTrans latest high crash intersection list—the only cross intersection along the stretch not on the State list? Elmwood/Intervale and Park Avenue both considered a problem intersection in the neighborhood.
North Street Important Demographics A key to understanding the dilemma of North Street lies in great part to the unusual demographics of Burlington. In a state with 71% of households owning their home and 29% renters, Burlington is almost the opposite 36% owning their home, 64% renter households. VT Speaker of the House Jill Krowinski and Rep. Curt McCormack who has headed the House Natural Resources and Transportation Committees represent the poorest in the City including practically all the ONE and some of King Maple neighborhoods which contain the only census tracts with excess of 80% with low and moderate incomes, King Maple with the highest concentration of persons with brown and black skins in the state—and the 30% representative district households have no car access and therefore are pedestrian and transit dependent for their transportation. The safety on streets like North Street is absolutely essential. In fact Burlington overall has 26% of its households with poverty level incomes with King Maple and ONE along with Winooski (29% of households with poverty level incomes) together representing the historic economic engine of Vermont, now a corridor of poverty. (A poor family of four means a weekly income at most of about $500.) North Street—Site of Many Injury and Non-injury Vehicle Crashes The four high crash intersections in a five year period averaged 3.8 injuries a year all four intersections in five years (19 injuries all four intersections over five years) plus 3.2 reportable fender bender crashes (“Property Damage Only” or PDO) (64 all four intersections PDO crashes in five years). See table 1. North Street clearly is a victim of the growth of the New North End (NNE) which sent increasing numbers of vehicles destined for downtown, mostly via North Ave, Park Avenue and North Champlain Street. North Winooski and North Union intersections carry the historic traffic continuing today between downtown Burlington and Winooski, a route dating from the days of Ethan and Ira Allen.
The North Winooski Avenue-Riverside Avenue was not only the Allen’s era route, it was the route of the first trolley line built in the 1880s and continued in operation until 1929. With North Street featuring four of just 111 high crash intersections in the Vermont list, clearly it is a prime candidate for being the most unsafe and dangerous community street in Vermont! ONE leaders have been concerned about safety along North Street. It was a discussion item act the Arts and Business Network ( https://www.oneabn.org/ ) several years ago but it had to wait in line for the Winooski Corridor study now completed. In 2020 a Department of Public Works draft plan included a demonstration of a mini roundabout at the high crash North St/No. Winooski Ave intersection along with a second at Decatur/No. Union/No. Winooski. That demonstration was cancelled for the current construction year from lack of funds, reportedly, and a Public Works representative said there is no consideration of a North Street corridor study.
Why Traffic Signals which Generate Crashes, Congestion and Delay? All five cross intersections along the west end of North Street (North Ave, Park Ave, North Champlain and Elmwood/Intervale, and North Winooski) are signalized while North Union is a three-way, all-way stop (North Union is one way northbound). Historically as vehicle traffic surged post World War II urban streets quickly became locations of congestion and the only choice to relieve the congestion which handled more traffic than simple signs: the now ubiquitous traffic signal. Traffic engineers had little choice as traffic increased, the traffic signal or limitless congestion and endless queues. But there was a price to shifting from signs to signals—injury crashes increase, particularly for the vulnerable—those who walk and bike—would increase as would car occupant injuries.
Prime factors in increased injuries and crashes—signals versus all way stop intersections, for example—include higher speeds of vehicles traveling through on green and vehicle which fail to stop which cause, for example, the deadly T-bone crash. For pedestrians the high speeds at signals contribute to the 20% higher pedestrian casualty rate at signals versus all-way stop control and equally safe roundabouts (source, FHWA). So, careful protocols were established to minimize the tradeoff of safety and mobility, called signal “warrants.” This was the status of traffic management until the advent of the modern roundabout which began to make its appearance in the United States (and Vermont) in the 1990s, getting its start in 1966 in the U.K. While slow to become the standard it is today, NY State Department of Transportation and two Canadian Provincial Ministries of Transport (British Columbia and Alberta), for examples adopted regulatory “roundabouts first” policies between 2005 (NY) and 2010. A U.S. Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) definitive study in 2001 determined American roundabouts cut serious and fatal injuries by “about 90%.”
A half century of Vermont downtown roundabouts found a single pedestrian injury (not serious), four non-serious car occupant injuries and 0 bicyclist injuries. Consider the five injuries in a half century of service for downtown Vermont roundabouts versus four North Street intersections generating 3.8 injuries a year! As important the stunning tabulation this year of record of now 9,000 roundabouts in US and Canada has yet to experience a single pedestrian death on a marked roundabout crosswalk! This compares to Burlington during just the the 1998-2020 period at just 75 signalized intersections, 2 pedestrian hit in crosswalks were killed (Barrett St crossing at Dominos and Shelburne Street crosswalk at Home Ave).
As important, Burlington, Vermont and the nation have been falling behind in road safety to a terrible degree. When the first roundabout in the US was built in 1990, the US and UK were safest in road fatalities per mile of travel in the world—UK still remains at the top—while the US has dropped to 18th with 21,000 pandemic level of excess road deaths yearly. Even in covid 2020 when travel miles dropped 12%, fatalities per mile of travel increased 8%! As concerning is the trend since 2010 in pedestrian deaths—up 50% with Hispanics 50% more likely to die per population than white, Black people almost twice that of white-non-Hispanic.
The two Burlington pedestrian deaths during 2010-2021 (and continuing in 2021) contributed to the upturn in national pedestrian deaths—up 46% in the latest reports. The US Congress, states’ transportation departments and metropolitan planning organizations like Vermont single one, Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission (CCRPC) are well aware of the dismal road death pandemic and in 2013 U.S. laws required all federally funded highway projects to reduce fatal and serious injuries, mandating state and CCRPC to adopt five year objectives for reductions, revised during subsequent five year intervals. Unfortunately for Federal Highway Administration as well as most states and metros (including VTrans and CCRPC) with about two years of the first five year reduction targets in face of the surge of deaths and serious injuries in 2020 while vehicle miles declined 13%, most all will likely fail their first five year targets!
Note that all neutral and advocate groups for safety—American Automobile Association (AAA), American Association of Retired Persons (AARP), Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) and GEICO—have as first on their list or near the top of actions for safety, the installation of roundabouts and conversion of existing traffic signals to roundabouts. The new Vermont road death factor: an estimated 22 deaths per year from long term exposure to allowed tailpipe admissions. While road fatalities in recent years about 60 per year, we have learned recently in University of North Carolina research that there is another set of road deaths directly related to long term exposure to tailpipe emissions. ( https://ie.unc.edu/2021/06/08/new-study-identifies-leading-source-of-health-damages-from-vehicle-pollution-in-12-states-and-washington-d-c ). As a summary of the report states: “states experienced substantial health impacts from vehicle emissions and can gain health benefits from local action.” The recent study involving a number of northeastern US state identified the numbers by state and the annual loss of life in Vermont, 22 deaths, expands the annual Vermont road death number by about a third to about 80 deaths yearly.
While electric cars, hopefully, will be the dominant vehicle type years from now, certainly for a generation the long term deaths from internal combustion cars will continue to exact a toll on Vermonters. It is very likely that built up urban areas—like Burlington’s ONE and King Maple neighborhoods—with congestion and vehicle delay causes a higher level of long term exposure fatalities than living and/or working in a country setting in Charlotte. Since roundabouts cut intersection emissions from vehicles up to one third, the roundabout aids in reducing the pollution load to residents and workers in our admittedly congested city streets.
An Affordable Investment Quickly Makes North Street a Model of a Safe Community Street —Applying the lessons learned from the AARP Vermont Pine Street Workshop (2014) and Environmental Justice Process in the Champlain Parkway (2019 to date)
First and foremost the North Street intersections in question are best served by roundabouts, likely a mini roundabout like Vermont’s first and only one in Manchester Center. The mini roundabout has the same, or even better, safety record for all modes. Second, any consideration of roundabouts along North Street needs to have all six intersections evaluated in a reasonably short corridor study—the study is not to make signals better, it is to establish roundabout feasibility and utilize experienced (read national practitioners) as part of the consultant team. Actual design of roundabouts for the corridor could be done in a matter of weeks, certainly within a 12-month period.
An analysis of 5-year and 1-year injury and "Property Damage Only" (PDO) crashes at the five North Street intersections is instructive. This can be calculated easily from the 5-year recent VTrans High Crash Location Report series, 2012-2016. The cost of a fatality used is $1.5 million, $88,500 for an injury and $11,300 for a PDO. Since mini roundabouts are cheap, crash cuts and injury cuts (72% injury cuts alone) with an overall well over $1 million for all five intersections in a year more than covers the five intersections made walkable and safe! This ignores the real benefits of tens of thousands of hours of reduced vehicle and pedestrian delay (real dollars for business trip delay), stress on all users, and increased economic activity enabled for nearby businesses. Add to this the traffic signal caused excessive climate heating emissions and the now known 25 yearly estimated Vermont deaths from a lifetime of vehicle exhaust pollutants.
Table 1: Vermont Agency of Transportation High Crash Location Report 2012-2016 Data on the Five North Street Burlington State High Crash Intersections
#23 [Place on list of 111 Vermont high crash intersection list—1 worst, 111 least worst] North St/North Champlain St 0.220 [intersection name and milepost] 5 years/21 crashes/5 injuries/17 PDO [years of data recorded, total crashes, total injuries, property only crashes {PDO}] ($30,219–estimated cost per crash); Total Crashes (per year): 21(4.25); Total estimated crash cost for 5 years: $635,000 ($126,900 per year)
#40 Park St/North St 0.280 5 years/19 crashes/4 injuries/16 PDO ($28,147\–estimated cost per crash); Total Crashes (per year): 19 (3.8); Total estimated crash cost for 5 years: $535,000 ($107,000 per year)
#46 North Winooski (Alternate 7)/North St 1.620 5 years/19 crashes/3 injuries/16 PDO ($23,489–estimated cost per crash); Total Crashes (per year): 19 (3.8); Total estimated crash cost for 5 years: $446,000_($89,200 per year)
#87 North Union St/North St 0.300 5 years/15 crashes/0 injuries/15 PDO (3-way-stop) ($11,300–estimated cost per crash) Total Crashes (per year): 15 (3.0); Total estimated crash cost for 5 years: $170,000_($34,000 per year)
#110 North Ave/North St 0.180 5 years/20 crashes/4 injuries/17 PDO ($27,305 estimated cost per crash) Total Crashes (per year): 20 (4.0); Total estimated crash cost for 5 years: $546,100 ($109,220 per year)
Cost really is not a significant factor as roundabouts at the five high crash intersections would certainly reduce crash/injury costs by about half in a five year period, a $2,177,000 value based on half the total cost estimates, above. A set of roundabouts would likely cost as little as $50,000 each, certainly far less than $2,177,000 million. As analyzed elsewhere a roundabout replacing a high crash intersection on the 20 Burlington intersections in the VTrans list would conservatively result in one less injury per year, a saving of $88,500 and two less PDO crashes, a saving of $22,600—or $111,100 per converted intersection per year. An installation of a mini roundabout on a high crash North Street intersection would easily be paid for in savings in about a year, assuming about $50,000 base cost for a roundabout. Some of those savings are to police department costs of incident management, reports, etc., and other City savings include the trips by emergency equipment and personnel to crashes and then to UVMMC.
Table 2: Summary Data on All Five North Street High Crash intersections (2012-2016)
Total Crashes 90 total all five intersections:
18.0 crashes per year all five intersections
3.6 crashes per intersection per year —16 injuries in five years, 3.2 injuries per year all five intersections, 0.64 injuries per year per intersection
84 property damage only (PDO) crashes, 16.8 PDO crashes per year all five intersection, 3.4 per PDO crash per intersection per year
Total estimated crash cost for 5 years all four intersections: $2,177,000 ($435,000 per year), $87,000 per intersection per year
Note: There are many crashes involving no injury which never “reportable,” i.e., never enter the crash counts by police departments and the state. If estimated total crash is $3,000 or below, no reports are necessary.
Tony Redington February 28, 2022 TonyRVT99@gmail.com
