Two Year Environmental Justice Rules Application to Parkway Design Results in No a Whisker of Change

Frustration and consternation remains that after 2 years of applying new Environmental Justice regulations to the obvious current Parkway design injustice to low income (26 of Burlington residents have poverty incomes, a population mostly in King Maple and Old North End neighborhoods); and blatant injustice to the community of color (King Maple largest such community in Vermont).   

Frustration and consternation the result of two years was nothing of outreach and hearings, etc., and not one design change!  No recognition even of known degrading of safety, air quality, and livability, particularly along Pine Street part of the Parkway which cuts King Maple in two!  Not even an admission that in King Maple there will be more traffic, higher speeds, and degraded walking conditions and increased pollution are not a bad thing!

Tweets on 2 year Environmental Justice rules application to the Champlain Parkway with unanimous opposition at the one hybrid 2021 hearing and not a whisker changed in the hurtful, obstolete and global heating design!! Here are some recent tweets in this regard.

     "US Transport Boss Pete/VT Fed Highway chief Hake/VTrans Secretary Flynn last Friday after 2-year look leaves untouched Champlain Parkway blatant racial/low-income injustice in King Maple community of color. South Ender Carolyn Bates montage reflects reactions of many. Add Mayor Weinberger to this group! #btv #vtpoli"

      "Champlain Parkway 2-year Environmental (In)Justice work completed a design trifecta of planet heating and upped road injuries. Add Mayor Weinberger to the non-perform list!. #btv #vtpoli"

     "Robust[ed] System of Transportation" says Burlington Public Works director on WCAX. $100 million spent on 2.3 miles Parkway through the South End and not one inch of sidewalk, not one inch of safe bikeway/protected bike lane. That "Robusted!" #btv #vtpoli Go RIGHTway! ]

Red Light for Traffic Signals

The current Champlain Parkway design calls for 6-7 new traffic signal systems, a technology considered pause and dangerous in every way.  Here is a tweet announcing Freakonomics feature on roundabouts replacing signals:

“Traffic signals in most cases belong in recycling bins (highly toxic for pedestrians!). "Should Traffic Signals be Abolished?" on Freakonomics. City of almost no signals left (about 140 roundabouts, a dozen signals) Carmel, IN Mayor Brainard https://freakonomics.com/podcast/roundabouts/ #btv #vtpoli"

Burington—A Pedestrian or Bicycle Injury Weekly

Pedestrian and bicycle injuries are a weekly occurrence in Burlington.  The Champlain RIGHTway reduces bike/ped injuries versus the increase inherent in the current design. 

My recent tweet:  “Numbers in BTV are clear, about one pedestrian or cyclist injury weekly and two car occupants (from recent 5 year data set). BTV has 20 high crash intersections on state list, each 1.5 injuries/year average. City has not addressed any of these. #btv #vtpoli"

 

Pine Street/VT Racial Justice Call for Railyard First, then RIGHTWAY to cut King Maple up to 59%!!

Pine Street Fights for Environmental Justice, Safe Walk and Bike Accommodation, and Economic Growth in a Champlain “RIGHTway Street and Street Design Pine Street Wins Key Change in Parkway: Still Miles to Go! …first build Railyard connection to Battery Street slicing current traffic in King Maple by 59%, then build a redesigned the Parkway to a complete “RIGHTway” by safe accommodation of pedestrians and bicyclists, employing “best practices” for minimizing injuries for all, preserving Englesby Brook and slashing 1.5 lane- miles of excess roadway. “Stop it! Stop it Now!…We’ll be back!” Mark Hughes, Vermont Racial Justice Alliance Parkway Hearing, July 29, 2020 Two years ago—June 6, 2019—the grassroots Pine Street Coalition stopped the 1950s South End still gargantuan highway proposal in its tracks by filing a lawsuit in federal court. That lawsuit caused the feds to apply new Environmental Justice regulations to the 2009 Parkway route which today cuts in half the King Maple community of color and 26% residents with poverty incomes! Lower upscale Pine Street traffic drops 76% while stressed King Maple gets flooded with 37% more cars and trucks! Suddenly after lawsuit federal officials who in 2006 dismissed the City fight against the King Maple routing retreated saying OK, you can bypass King Maple as originally advocated by our Mayor and Council with a connection between Battery Street and Pine Street adjacent to Curtis Lumber. The “Railyard” project now in planning cuts King Maple traffic by upwards of 59% while still cutting the majority of traffic along Pine below Flynn Avenue. Still, federal and Vermont officials want to build the current design first with its full bore devastation on King Maple only to come back at some as yet unknown future year “cure” the Parkway harms. Bypass King Maple now! Kill the Parkway through King Maple! A “RIGHTway” design saves millions in cost in a project now topping $100 million! Our all volunteer Pine Street Coalition, now about six years old, is composed of about 200 citizens.  Pine Street is an outgrowth of Burlington Walk Bike Council analysis and concerns 2014-2016 over lack of safe, separate walk and bike accommodations  anywhere along the Parkway base route, and a larger community opposition which caused a complete rewrite of the planBTV South End to include a future vision of the South End with and without the Parkway as then designed.  Add the numerous laws, policies and plans now in place since the 2009 now rescinded environmental document--plus the one the ground changes like the South End City Market Coop Store, Blodgett Oven moving out being replaced by a generator space type development, etc.  Those laws, policies and plans include, among others: Vermont Complete Streets Law (2011), new Environmental Justice regulations, federal requirements that highway funds decrease serious and fatal injuries, and our own City plans and policies which include our the Climate Change Emergency (2019), Transportation Plan (2011), Racism as a Public Health Emergency (2020), and our landmark and regularly revised Climate Action Plan which dates back to the 1990s. Vermont Racial Justice Alliance and Fortieth Burlington (Innovation Center) Pine Street expanded last fall by joining with the Vermont Racial Justice Alliance (VRJA) which together with a long standing association with Fortieth Burlington, LLC (Fortieth) creates a larger group in a common cause. Fortieth owns the former 1800s manufacturing complex now reborn as a modern office complex, Innovation Center on Lakeside Avenue. Without the appeal of the Act 250 permit to the Vermont Supreme Court by Fortieth, the current atrocious and harmful Parkway design would be in place today with devastating impacts on the King Maple community of color and a harmful bubble covering the entire South End! So, our Pine Street Coalition formed a joint effort with VRJA and Fortieth last fall and individually and jointly continue initiatives along a common set of accepted re-design guidelines originally developed in a community process years ago which continues today with little change--see the new "one-pager" which describes our common design elements we seek in a re-designed, Railyard first built modern transportation facility.  It is this "Railyard first" which means an immediate and permanent reduction in traffic, stress and pollution in King Maple which has come to the fore in our thinking and advocacy over the past three months!  Our common cause separate, parallel and joint actions. Both VRJA and ourselves are proud of the Vermont Sierra Club inaugural Transit Equity day award early this year, a joint award which recognizes our common cause efforts to address racial equity in the King Maple neighborhood as well as a quality, safe, “equality” streets Parkway design.    We here at Pine Street mark with sadness the recent passing of a founding member of our "presentation team", Charles Simpson, also a long time member of Neighborhood Planning Assembly 6 Steering Committee, and retired SUNNY Plattsburgh professor, expert in community land use and urban development!  

Pine Street and Vermont Racial Justice Call for Champlain RIGHTway cutting King Maple Traffic 59%!

Pine Street Fights for Environmental Justice, Safe Walk and Bike Accommodation, and Economic Growth in a Champlain “RIGHTway Street and Street Design Pine Street Wins Key Change in Parkway: Still Miles to Go! …first build Railyard connection to Battery Street slicing current traffic in King Maple by 59%, then build a redesigned the Parkway to a complete “RIGHTway” by safe accommodation of pedestrians and bicyclists, employing “best practices” for minimizing injuries for all, preserving Englesby Brook and slashing 1.5 lane- miles of excess roadway. “Stop it! Stop it Now!…We’ll be back!” Mark Hughes, Vermont Racial Justice Alliance Parkway Hearing, July 29, 2020 Two years ago—June 6, 2019—the grassroots Pine Street Coalition stopped the 1950s South End still gargantuan highway proposal in its tracks by filing a lawsuit in federal court. That lawsuit caused the feds to apply new Environmental Justice regulations to the 2009 Parkway route which today cuts in half the King Maple community of color and 26% residents with poverty incomes! Lower upscale Pine Street traffic drops 76% while stressed King Maple gets flooded with 37% more cars and trucks! Suddenly after lawsuit federal officials who in 2006 dismissed the City fight against the King Maple routing retreated saying OK, you can bypass King Maple as originally advocated by our Mayor and Council with a connection between Battery Street and Pine Street adjacent to Curtis Lumber. The “Railyard” project now in planning cuts King Maple traffic by upwards of 59% while still cutting the majority of traffic along Pine below Flynn Avenue. Still, federal and Vermont officials want to build the current design first with its full bore devastation on King Maple only to come back at some as yet unknown future year “cure” the Parkway harms. Bypass King Maple now! Kill the Parkway through King Maple! A “RIGHTway” design saves millions in cost in a project now topping $100 million! Our all volunteer Pine Street Coalition, now about six years old, is composed of about 200 citizens.  Pine Street is an outgrowth of Burlington Walk Bike Council analysis and concerns 2014-2016 over lack of safe, separate walk and bike accommodations  anywhere along the Parkway base route, and a larger community opposition which caused a complete rewrite of the planBTV South End to include a future vision of the South End with and without the Parkway as then designed.  Add the numerous laws, policies and plans now in place since the 2009 now rescinded environmental document--plus the one the ground changes like the South End City Market Coop Store, Blodgett Oven moving out being replaced by a generator space type development, etc.  Those laws, policies and plans include, among others: Vermont Complete Streets Law (2011), new Environmental Justice regulations, federal requirements that highway funds decrease serious and fatal injuries, and our own City plans and policies which include our the Climate Change Emergency (2019), Transportation Plan (2011), Racism as a Public Health Emergency (2020), and our landmark and regularly revised Climate Action Plan which dates back to the 1990s. Vermont Racial Justice Alliance and Fortieth Burlington (Innovation Center) Pine Street expanded last fall by joining with the Vermont Racial Justice Alliance (VRJA) which together with a long standing association with Fortieth Burlington, LLC (Fortieth) creates a larger group in a common cause. Fortieth owns the former 1800s manufacturing complex now reborn as a modern office complex, Innovation Center on Lakeside Avenue. Without the appeal of the Act 250 permit to the Vermont Supreme Court by Fortieth, the current atrocious and harmful Parkway design would be in place today with devastating impacts on the King Maple community of color and a harmful bubble covering the entire South End! So, our Pine Street Coalition formed a joint effort with VRJA and Fortieth last fall and individually and jointly continue initiatives along a common set of accepted re-design guidelines originally developed in a community process years ago which continues today with little change--see the new "one-pager" which describes our common design elements we seek in a re-designed, Railyard first built modern transportation facility.  It is this "Railyard first" which means an immediate and permanent reduction in traffic, stress and pollution in King Maple which has come to the fore in our thinking and advocacy over the past three months!  Our common cause separate, parallel and joint actions. Both VRJA and ourselves are proud of the Vermont Sierra Club inaugural Transit Equity day award early this year, a joint award which recognizes our common cause efforts to address racial equity in the King Maple neighborhood as well as a quality, safe, “equality” streets Parkway design.    We here at Pine Street mark with sadness the recent passing of a founding member of our "presentation team", Charles Simpson, also a long time member of Neighborhood Planning Assembly 6 Steering Committee, and retired SUNNY Plattsburgh professor, expert in community land use and urban development!