Champlain Parkway and Pine Street Corridor Redesign Guidelines

These Guidelines were just released by Safe Streets Burlington and the Pine Street Coalition, a basic approach to changes sought to the current Champlain Parkway design...

CHAMPLAIN PARKWAY AND PINE STREET CORRIDOR RE-DESIGN GUIDELINES 

 “Shape a safe and complete streets project for a livable community as well as enabling a thriving business and arts center” 

 Cities evolve and so must their transportation systems. The South End highway project—once part of a long abandoned freeway encircling Burlington and subsequently up-dated--still fails to serve the City’s residents. First called the “Southern Connector” and more recently the “Champlain Parkway,” the project requires a reconceptualization to incorporate safety, street connectivity, a reduction in intersection delay, and to support pleasant walk and bike-ability. With these improvements, the corridor can enhance our burgeoning South End Arts District and associated businesses. Over the last year, City residents in the Save Streets Burlington Coalition (SSB) have met among themselves and with City officials, eventually formulating the following “Champlain Parkway and Pine Street Corridor Redesign Guidelines” (Guidelines). 

While specific details will require the work of experts, these principles reflect our collective vision of streets supporting livable communities. When the initial thoroughfare was planned in the 1960s, it incorporated a “speed-the-car” logic. The current Parkway design remains committed to that outdated concept. Worse, the $43 million current Parkway design moves away from both safe street and complete street principles. These better principles are reflected in recent public discussions, Plan BTV Downtown and Plan BTV South End, the North Avenue Corridor Plan, the recent preliminary Railyard studies. the 2014 recommendations of the city's Walk Bike Council, and the City Walk Bike Master Plan now nearing conclusion. The current Parkway plan contravenes each of these studies. In January 2016, SSB issued a White Paper which identified South End road needs as beginning with separate walk and bike facilities, environmental sensitivity along this sensitive lake-front area, and overall livability. It prioritized safety—minimizing highway injuries and fatalities—and called for roundabouts rather than signaled intersections. These briefer “Champlain Parkway and Pine Street Corridor Redesign Guidelines” do not attempt a detailed prescription but set a starting point and identify essential planning principles to guide any final design. Robust public discussion must be a component as the design phase continues to address integration of mass transit along the Pine Street corridor, traffic facilitation on the Pine/King and Pine/Maple intersections, and preservation of existing businesses and rail activity. 

Design Guideline: Bottom of Pine Street to Flynn Avenue The present Parkway design reduces the roadway to one lane in each direction with a median on the section west of Shelburne Road. While this works, there’s a flaw. What’s needed at Pine Street is an intersection that avoids barricading off this important north/south corridor from points south so access to Queen City Park Road and the Kmart lot and other area businesses is

Pine Street Coalition Forms to Re-Design Champlain Parkway

Pine Street Coalition forms to Re-design Champlain Parkway Following a February public event a new group, the Pine Streets Coalition (PSC), aiming at re-designing the Champlain Parkway to meet the needs of the South End and the City. The Pine Street Coalition naturally grew out of Safe Streets Burlington (SSB) which undertook the first tasks to identify the defects in the current Parkway design, looked into alternatives, and organized a major February event, “Let's Do It Right,” where for the first time since 2006 a full exploration the issues with the Parkway and open ended public discussion took place. Both PSC and SSB developed Parkway re-design guidelines and PSC has prepared maps outlining the changes in design which makes the Parkway and Pine Street $43 million investment responsive to roadway and neighborhood practice today, distinct from the dominant freeway thinking of the 1950s encapsulated in the current Parkway design. That freeway thinking remained completing a freeway ring road around the City which practically erased the the waterfront area an divided the Old North End in two. First and foremost design approaches today stress safety for those who walk, bike, and travel by car. Both PSC and SSB stress the current Parkway design results in higher injury rates. Instead of creating the barricades to access contained in the current Parkway design, the PSC calls for maintaining and expanding connectivity throughout the Parkway and Pine Streets corridors. The PSC takes savings from the Parkway re-design and invests in upgrading the lower part of Pine Street south of Lakeside Avenue into a complete street. The Pine Street Coalition will continue their educational and community contact efforts going forward and seek new resident members and partners from businesses and others throughout the South End and the City with concerns and connections to the effects of bringing new thinking and design to the Parkway project. Presenters at that February event and members of the newly formed PSC include long time Burlington Public Works Department director Steve Goodkind, Diane Gayer of the Vermont Design Institute, retired professor and Neighborhood Planning Assembly Steering Committee member Charles Simpson, and safe streets and roundabout advocate Tony Redington. For information about the Pine Street Coalition see the website: https://www.facebook.com/SSBPineStreetNOW/ Safe Streets Coalition website: SafeStreetsBurlington.com

Answer to Complaint of Too Many Roundabouts

In a Charlotte Observer blog, the writer complained about having to deal with several roundabouts on the way to work. To this, the following comments were made today: Drivers only think the roads and intersections are for them--and the young do not necessarily consider seniors are particularly vulnerable at signs or signals intersection because of reduced depth perception which comes with age. I agree--and a Japanese study shows--drivers quickly figure out they like being protected making left turns at a roundabout but have traded off a little extra time to make a through movements or a right hand turn. Half of all senior driver fatals occur at intersections and roundabouts cut total serious and fatals by about 90%. AARP supports conversion of signals to roundabouts as a result. Those on foot? Well, over 4,000 North American roundabouts and since the first roundabout in 1990 not a single pedestrian fatal to date! Since 1990 when the U.S. and the U.K. were tied fro first in highway safety, the U.S. has slid to 19th with the U.K. and Sweden tied for first--compared to those two nations we have 13,000 excess highway deaths out of 30,000 plus per year. You can say, "thank you" to each roundabout you circle for giving you and yours the gift of intersection safety!

19 Year Olds with Driver License Dropped by One Third 1983-2014

U.S. driving mania clearly ended with the last century--here is a summary of a university study on driver licensing from a National Association of Railroad Passengers (NARP) newsletter this week: "According to by University of Michigan's Transportation Research Institute, more Americans are relying on public transportation for its ease, low fares and efficiency, as compared to owning and driving a car. Only 69 percent of 19-year-olds have a driver's license in 2014, compared with almost 90 percent in 1983. The percentage of 20-somethings with driver's licenses has also fallen by 13 percent over the past three decades, and fewer Americans in their 30s and 40s now have driver's licenses."

Lakeside--Sears Lane Pedestrian Rail Crossing Not Friendly

The pedestrian rail crossing between Lakeside neighborhood and Sears Lane is the main route to school and the lower are of Pine Street. Clearly unfriendly, compare to the quality crossing at the waterfront, below. Am sure there are plenty of folks who like myself can tell of the difficult, often abandoned, effort to cross the Lakeside crossing on a bicycle. Consider the difficulty faced by a person with a walker, wheelchair, or scooter traveling to and from an event at the school or to a nearby business--or friends coming to visit in the Lakeside neighborhood. The cost for a quality crossing structure like that on the waterfront is not cheap—probably in the range of $40,000 to $60,000 versus a simple what is called railseal—narrow strips of rubber tight with the rail with asphalt filler. I believe that the location, volume of users and the unusual restrictiion of access to the neighborhood calls for a high quality crossing. There exists a standard approach to dealing with evaluating and making an informed decision regarding rail crossing safety investments. It is called the “diagnostic team” procedure. Anyone can ask the VAOT rail section to convene a “diagnostic team” which includes at a minimum a City representative, VAOT official, a representative of the railroad, and other key stakeholders including a rail safety representative from the Federal Rail Administration. Funding can be found from the $1 million allocated to the State for rail crossing safety each year.

Poor Sidewalk/Crosswalk Surfaces Cost in Terms of Pedestrian Injuries

At an AARP training session last week we learned of a second downtown pedestrian injury in less than six months (incapacitating in this most recent situation) within our small Livable Communities Group from a fall on a downtown sidewalk caused by a surface defect and in an earlier case the condition of a crosswalk to a bus stop nearest a major senior housing facility. This all came into a discussion at the Walk Bike Council Thursday in regard locating infrastructure investments in an “equitable” manner among Burlington neighborhoods. The discussion suggested since seriously defective sidewalk surfaces exist at various points throughout the City in every neighborhood, all suffer in an equitable manner from the current low quality of the network. Poor walking surfaces represent more than an eye sore or bumpy conditions for strollers, shopping carts, bicyclists and scooters—they represent an real injury threat to all users, particularly the most vulnerable.. Burlington has already received a designation as a walk-friendly City. But all admit the condition of our sidewalks remains far from satisfactory, much less friendly to resident and visitor alike. The quality of our sidewalks and walking surfaces of both public and private areas do impact our health and safety—and not having the resources to maintain quality sidewalks remains a burden which many of our residents and visitors are made to pay a heavy and painful price.

Safe Streets Burlington -- "Champlain Parkway White Paper One: Evaluation"

Champlain Parkway White Paper One: Evaluation

       

                      “Champlain Parkway: Get it Right the First Time”

                       Panel and Discussion Wednesday 

                       February 3, 6:30 p.m. at Arts Riot, 400 Pine St.

Champlain Parkway White Paper One: Evaluation

Let's shape it to become a street the public can love!

January 16, 2016

Our Parkway View—Do it right the first time by shaping a highest all-modes safety and quality transportation street to:

1. Play a central part in achieving a livable South End community
2. Remove trucks off residential streets
3. Assure safety, especially for those who walk and bike, while reducing global warming gases and other pollutants, cutting gasoline use, and intersection delay.
4. Ignite and sustain a vibrant South End industrial-commercial-arts economy

The current Parkway now promoted by the City, Vermont Agency of Transportation (VAOT) and the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) gets very little right. Most importantly the current Parkway completely fails the following critical tests. The City’s Parkway design results in a net drop in safety for each mode. Added to poor safety: the current Parkway design would increase global warming gases and other pollutants, waste gasoline, strangle economic vitality, cut off connectivity to key adjacent areas, and damage neighborhood livability. Therefore, Safe Streets Burlington (SSB) calls for stopping the project design followed by developing revisions centering on major upgrades to safety, reducing environment impacts, and increasing economic benefits.

The current Parkway now promoted by the City, Vermont Agency of Transportation (VAOT) and the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) gets very little right. Most importantly the current Parkway completely fails the following critical tests. The City’s Parkway design results in a net drop in safety for each mode. Added to poor safety: the current Parkway design would increase global warming gases and other pollutants, waste gasoline, strangle economic vitality, cut off connectivity to key adjacent areas, and damage neighborhood livability. Therefore, Safe Streets Burlington (SSB) calls for stopping the project design followed by developing revisions centering on major upgrades to safety, reducing environment impacts, and increasing economic benefits.

Remember about 15 years ago the City itself fought against the route of Pine Street from the old Public Works facility to Main Street and lost out to FHWA and VAOT opposition. Since the last public hearing was held a decade ago 2006, a large portion of today's Burlington population never participated in formulating the current design.

Safe Streets Burlington (SSB) challenges the current Champlain Parkway's (Parkway) decades old purpose of speeding cars from I 189 to downtown. The current 2006 Parkway plan correctly moves trucks off residential streets, but new priorities of this decade demand safe streets and intersections for our families and visitors. These priorities include reducing gasoline use and all pollutants tied to climate change, and maintaining economic vitality and growth centering on the arts and business sectors. SSB condemns cutting off the connectivity of the South End to Queen City Park Road, Kmart Plaza and points beyond.

SSB calls for a Parkway to become a street the public can love, a street leading the parade to thriving, livable neighborhoods. Therefore SSB abandons the Parkway purpose of the past half century--moving cars at high speeds to downtown totally blind to what lies outside the curbs. A Parkway design with separate walk and bike facilities along with roundabout intersections cures most of the fundamental defects in the current design. This separation of walk and bike facilities along with safe intersections assures an immeasurable gain for the South End and the City. Progress in other Vermont towns on safe streets and our own North End corridor plan show the way. A project price tag of $43 million requires the City to “do it right the first time.”

Can safety be ignored with a massive 47% predicted growth in Lakeside Avenue traffic facing the Lakeside neighborhood just to get to Pine Street? Can the safety and needs of those on foot and bicycle be ignored in the face of a 39% increase of traffic along Pine Street above Lakeside Avenue through the heart of the commercial, retail, and arts section? The current design dismisses these questions. SSB calls for a Parkway revised using designs which actually improve safety for all modes along Pine Street and Lakeside Avenue.

City leaders apologize for obsolete project design for every mode, and promise later improvements to make up for admitted Parkway design defects. SSB says correct the project defects now, don't kick the can down the road! With $43 million to work with composed of 95% federal funds, a “fits and starts” Parkway approach simply makes no sense.

Burlington residents who comprise Safe Streets Burlington call for quality and safe transportation investing within our City. Like the late urbanologist Jane Jacobs, SSB places people and neighborhood livability first and catering to cars and trucks second. Both SSB and the City start from common values, but the current Parkway design does not meet today's safety and quality street features, namely, sidewalks throughout, separate safe bike pathways and vehicle travelways—all of which would be served at busy intersections by the unrivaled safety and service of the modern roundabout. By contrast all of these very features sparkle in the North Avenue 2.8 mile corridor plan embraced by the City in 2014. The North Avenue design features separate cycle track end-to-end and sidewalks end-to-end and at least three of seven signals converted to roundabouts. The American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) support conversions of signals to roundabouts for seniors safety. Three states including New York the transportation departments of two Canadian provinces follow an intersection policy of “roundabouts first.”

Why safety first? When the Parkway project began in 1965 the U.S. ranked first in highway safety and then sunk to 19^th in the world. With a fatality rate twice that of leading nations, attaining the lowest rates translates to saving 13,000 U.S. lives a year. Both walk and bike fatalities remain a pressing concern as we encourage more people to undertake these healthy modes of travel. Burlington recorded five fatalities since 1998—two pedestrians, one bicyclist, and two drivers—all of which occurred at signalized intersections. Consider that there has not been one single fatality to date at any of the 4,000 roundabouts in the U.S. built since 1990. Compare the roundabout record against two Burlington pedestrian fatalities occurring since 1998 at its 75 traffic signals.

Now for the first time we have Vermont downtown roundabout data covering over 50 years with only one recorded pedestrian injury at the five busy downtown roundabouts in Montpelier, Middlebury and Manchester Center! Compare one pedestrian over a half century to five injuries (one critical) at two Parkway intersections in just four years (Pine at Locust and Lakeside)! Compare the Vermont downtown roundabouts to Burlington's overall “dirty 17” intersections (13 signalized) recording an average of one pedestrian injury yearly (one fatal) 2011-2014! SSB insists that the City must not make $43 million in street investments and fail to complete any modern safe facilities for those who walk, bike and travel by car! The Parkway design must turn to safety first!

The current Parkway design pales in comparison to the 2.8 mile North Avenue “model of excellence” plan adopted by the City Council in October 2014. In spite of massive expected traffic growth up to 47%, the Parkway design lacks North Avenue's basic features: end-to-end cycle track, end-to-end sidewalks, conversion of injury generating signals to roundabouts. Instead, the Parkway actually adds five new injury generating signalized intersections! Even the “new” Home Ave. to Lakeside Ave. section lacks either sidewalks or cycle track. Even FHWA, while opposing Parkway roundabouts, boasts of their benefits: “Compared to other types of intersections...Roundabouts improve safety: more than 90% reduction in fatalities, 76% reduction in injuries, 35% reduction in all crashes, slower speeds are generally safer for pedestrians.” Compared to the single lane roundabout the typical traffic signal doubles vehicle crashes, increases pollutants by about 30%, and raises rates of serious and fatal injury rates by upwards of nine times (900%). Roundabouts uniquely also lower vehicle speeds outwards one to two blocks.

SSB disagrees with the City and VAOT. The City says that VAOT blocks further safety and service changes to the Parkway. The City says in effect that the South End must accept unsafe streets and transportation infrastructure because these are forced on the City by VAOT and the Montpelier FHWA office. SSB rejects a situation wherein the City is forced to spend $43 million in transportation infrastructure, to accept the crashes and injuries (and, yes, perhaps a fatality or two over the 20 year lifetime of a transportation investment) or is faced with losing $40 million federal dollars. SSB points to the last significant busy street investment—the opening of the Church Street Marketplace 35 years ago—when SSB insists we can no longer ignore decades of no meaningful change for safety on Burlington busy streets!

Last but not least the Parkway clearly impacts surface and stormwater runoff increasingly of concern and directly affects the Barge Canal superfund site. This site continues being active today and an ongoing threat to Lake Champlain, the source of our City water supply and centerpiece of the of our waterfront tourist economy. Contaminated and toxic soils throughout the Parkway route and westward through the enterprise zone remain a continuing challenge. Re-Imagining includes adopting recent innovative practices and treatments to improve runoff performance, reducing pressure on the Barge Canal superfund site, and addressing in a straight forward fashion contaminated soils.

SSB calls for an immediate stop to project design. SSB calls for starting a discussion of new designs centering on safety and environmental and economically beneficial upgrades--upgrades without unreasonable associated costs, time delay, and permitting. The residents of the City and the South End, the City, the State and FHWA officials certainly share our SSB values—relocating truck traffic outside of neighborhoods, attaining true safety for all users, pursuing sustained economic vitality, acting on climate change by reducing pollutants and gasoline use, and achieving livable neighborhoods. Now the sole task remains of applying our common concerns to a project which is so critical to our South End neighborhoods and the City.

To join SSB and help to bring a world class street to the South End, a street our residents can love, please visit our website www.SafeStreetsBurlington.com or email SafeStreetsBurlington@gmail.com