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.  

               

Windham County Economic Development--A Perspective

Windham County Economic Development--A Perspective

VT Digger today reported the Windham County Economic Development Program is up and running with funds available through a competitive application process.  The program is part of the efforts at adjusting from the severe economic loss due to the closing of Vermont Yankee.

Windham County deserves an across the board economic development investments and initiatives--infrastructure, social services, education and training, urban development, etc.   There are transportation investments which would make significant contributions.  Perhaps first on the list is the reconstruction of Putney Road's commercial section on the drawing boards now for about a decade--replacing signals with roundabouts and providing separate walk and bike mode protected bike lanes/walkways throughout.  This project, part of the Agency of Transportation supported potential projects, arose from a home grown process led by business interests in turn adopted by the Town as their own approach to strengthening retail competitiveness the nearest urban center, Keene, NH.  Add the entire downtown circulation from the State's new "malfunction junction" at the base of Main Street as well as other key intersections which can be converted to mini- and regular roundabouts (Main Street's "malfunction junction" already was determined feasible and went away because of mostly political issues).  Bellows Falls also deserves a serious look for renewal of its traffic circulation for upgrades.  One only has to look thirty miles away in Manchester Center to see how half the 1995 plan for pedestrian circulation--in this case all of Main Street's commercial section--now is totally walkable with the State's first roundabout corridor including one which once was "malfunction junction" now proudly praised as "function junction."  Yes, how one designs and improves existing commercial and retail streets can lead to an improved economy and vast improvement in the mobility of all modes!   Perhaps Brattleboro and Bellows Falls could be the focus of initiating inter-city rail service extending from those two communities to Windsor/White River Jct. to the north and Ludlow/Rutland to the west utilizing self-propelled rail diesel equipment--and update the old RDC sitting in the Bellows Falls rail yard.

This is the kind of creative--not out of the box thinking--to take advantage of changing times and placing Windham County at the forefront of the new era of a sustainable and non-car-centric communities quickly emerging as the car age begins to fade from view.

Burikngton VT "going for the gold corridor"

BURLINGTON’S (VT) NORTH AVENUE PLAN-- “GOING FOR THE GOLD CORRIDOR”

When the question of funding for Burlington’s (VT) North Avenue came up last year during the early months of the study of the four-mile corridor, local and regional planners sort of rolled their eyes and expressed with knowing glances the dearth of federal funding.  The Advisory Committee pursued a quality approach focusing on a world class, livable street featuring cycle track (protected bike lanes) and the superior all-modes single-lane roundabout at key intersections.  Community participants insisted on a “going for the gold corridor.”

North Avenue now nears the goal line as the first Chittenden County urban corridor to get in line for livable street funding behind Brattleboro and Manchester Center.  Putney Road in Brattleboro, the Town’s busiest commercial corridor, thanks to business leadership first received town and then Vermont Agency of Transportation support for a full corridor with walk and bike mode facilities and all-roundabouts (four, including the first built in 1999, Keene Turn).

In 2012 Manchester Center completed half its long time plan with the State’s first “roundabout corridor,” three roundabouts along its commercial stretch along Main Street—the first walkable State’s first truly walkable all-mode street.  The second half of the Manchester Center plan, converting its only remaining signals to roundabouts along Depot Street with a likely plan revision to include cycle track.  Manchester Center and Brattleboro now compete to see who gets to the finish line with the State’s first both walkable and bikable urban street.  

Meanwhile in Burlington retains a bright possibility of its own for North Avenue as it is the only urban street in Chittenden County with a neighborhood driven draft plan—soon to be accepted by the City Council—containing walkable and bikable infrastructure.  

The opportunity for Burlington lies in the fact that the Chittenden County as a metropolitan area receives a separate stream of federal funding and does not compete directly against Brattleboro and Manchester.  Having the first walkable/bikable street plan in the County puts the City in the driver seat for funding.  Being the first in the State for a walkable/bikable corridor still remains in the cards a real possibility.

Burlington long led the region and the State with its unique contribution to transportation and recreation path development—the Marketplace car free four block plaza completed in 1981 and five years later in 1986 the completing of the amazing shoreline 7.5 mile Burlington Bikepath. 

Stay tuned as it may well be Burlington and its North Avenue “going for the gold corridor” on the quest for completing a State leading trifecta for transportation and recreation innovation.