Comments to the
Vermont Transportation Board
Tony
Redington
20 North Winooski Avenue
Burlington, VT
05401
November 24, 2014
Thank you for the opportunity
to comment in response to the Vermont Transportation Board (Board) fall series
of hearings emphasizing concerns regarding the needs for transportation of
youth in Vermont. The past twelve months
reflect a continuing and seeming acceleration of transportation transformation
in Burlington and Vermont, one characterized by private household resource
re-allocation of transportation expenditures away from an auto oriented
transport to other modes and as a direct result since the millennium substantially
increased walking, bicycling, and transit of all kinds. In parallel the public wants more walk and
bike infrastructure and transit services, particularly ones serving medium to
long distance worker commuting. My comments here stress the policy changes
needed to respond to the demand of younger workers and those of all ages to
safe walking and bicycling infrastructure, needs of middle class workers for
medium distance commuter rail, and the sudden announcement days ago of the
Towne Center multi-use expansion promising $200 million direct investments in
Burlington’s downtown Marketplace including among other elements significant
numbers of housing units, a hotel and convention center capable of handling up
to 6,000 attendees, and rejoining the north-south St. Paul Street sections
cutoff by the Towne Center with the new connection a walk/bike corridor with
separation of each mode. This commitment by the new owners of the Towne Center
truly accelerates the known trend of younger workers moving to our State’s
downtowns and village centers in order to live, work, and recreate without
dependence on the automobile or at least with one less. And absolutely critical, a $200 million
dollar development assures a new source of property tax and sales tax revenue
to Burlington likely in the range of $5-$7 million a year for the municipal
budget which can help fuel decades long neglect of transportation
infrastructure of all types (as well as additional sorely needed funds for the
Burlington School District).
Vermont
Transportation Finance
Before proceeding, as
contained in my comments to the Board last year, the finance of transportation
inevitably must move—as was already the case in Virginia and Massachusetts—away
from sole dependence on car oriented revenues to general fund revenues. Simply as outlined, vehicle miles and
gasoline remain in a practically permanent state of decline while alternative
modes grow strongly. Further, walking
and bicycling modes particularly require substantial sums of infra investment
as will be addressed below. Vermont
Agency of Transportation (VAOT) Secretary Brian Searles this summer clearly
stated this same view that Vermont must now not only raise revenues outside the
highway domain to maintain and expand not just non-auto modes but even for the
needs of the highway system itself.
Burlington Landmark Corridor Study—a
New Blueprint for Vermont Urban Streets
After a 15-month study (it
ended up citizen driven) of the 2.8 mile North Avenue corridor, the Plan
received the blessing of the Mayor and City Council last month. This first Vermont definition of a quality
“world class street,” safest for those who walk and bike or travel by car or
transit, features an unprecedented combining of roundabouts at key
intersections with cycle track end-to-end (protected bike lanes). A leap well beyond the legislated “complete
street,” the North Avenue Plan truly is a “safe” complete street design as “complete
street” designs under law and accepted practice do not require the highest
safety treatments along a multi-use urban street (most generally characterized
by the liberal use of roundabouts and cycle track).
Safe walk and bike
infrastructure must now be the first concern in our downtowns and village
centers. Except in a few roundabout
nodes in downtowns, the Burlington Marketplace and Manchester Center roundabout
corridor, there does not exist any significant walkable or bikable
infrastructure in the State, typical of built up areas nationwide. Here in Burlington walk and bike injuries
remain a historic and continuing fact of life.
Counting the September death of young Julia Cora, 20, at the US 2
crossing between Staples Plaza and the Sheraton in So. Burlington, a few feet
from the Burlington border—Burlington now averages a walk/bike fatality every
four years, one walk/bike/car occupant fatality each three years—and all these
deaths since 1998 all occurred at signalized intersections. The State of Vermont must no longer ignore
the 1993 statute calling for roundabouts at dangerous intersections—it must now
admit signalization an inherent unsafe practice and take actions to no longer
install signals at new intersections and--as AARP advocates--begin to convert
the upwards of 400 signalized intersections to roundabouts (about half of
signals now administered by AOT and half by municipalities). The State and local road officials can no
longer ignore the fact that after almost 25 years and construction of about
5,000 roundabouts nationwide (14 in Vermont) not a single walker fatality has
occurred and only one documented cyclist (and that occurred on a partially
converted traffic circle). As AAA
recently found, in metro U.S.—like the Burlington Metro—the costs of injuries
and fatalities far outstrip the costs of congestion (they advocate a national
policy of “0 fatality rates” on our highways and streets).
The North Avenue Corridor
Plan converts at least three of seven signalized intersections to roundabouts. And, the Burlington Walk Bike Council (BWBC)
in its discussion to date and the AARP workshop in September conduced by
nationally known walk mode expert Dan Burden essentially recommend roundabouts
at all Pine Street and new Champlain Parkway intersections in that overall $30
million project which will shortly undergo public discussion for re-design of
street sections and intersections to high safety cycle track, separate
walk/bike facilities and roundabouts—all lacking in the current City’s design. The BWBC discussion to date also calls for
separate bike and walk facilities throughout the Champlain Parkway with bicycle
infrastructure to be in form of separated bikeway and/or cycle track.
Certainly Vermont towns and
cities now have available the Burlington landmark blueprint of a “ safe” “complete
street” design approach in the North Avenue Corridor Plan. Note that for Chittenden County as a whole,
since the 1981 completion of the Church Street Marketplace except for some
street segments mostly in South Burlington there do not exist any safe bicycle
facilities and not a single roundabout on a busy public street. By definition, again with the exception of
the Marketplace, the lack of a single roundabout on a busy public street in
Chittenden County equates to no safe busy intersections for the walk mode in
the entire County. In sum, in just a few
decades Vermont and U.S. fell from number one in the world in highway safety to
now a national 14th with all modes fatality rates per mile of travel
at least twice the level of the leading nations located mostly in Western
Europe. Meanwhile, the VAOT needs to be
applauded for the new roundabouts in Morrisville, Cambridge, and Waterbury,
which either are in construction or opened within the past year.
We in the walk/bike
community all learned a great deal over the past year or so. We learned that walking and bicycling crash
rates are unacceptable and safe infrastructure—cycle track and roundabouts—must
be the sine qua non of walkable bikable streets. We learned thatit is absolutely critical for
safe street section cycle track to be paired with bike-accommodating separate
pathing at roundabouts to assure safety to all-age-all-skill bicyclists who
surely will avail themselves the use of cycle track in their neighborhood. (Burlington with the Dutch miles of cycle
track per population would boast 45 miles of track, Vermont 670 miles.) While cycle track arose as a new treatment in
our thinking in the last year, it is the number one in the view of the cycling
community as reported in the 2014 Illinois State Bicycle Transportation Plan,
the ”Burlington Declaration” of the Burlington Walk Bike Council issued this
summer, and the North Avenue Corridor Plan adopted by Mayor and Council last
month. Note that bicycling—even with
lanes and, yes, we have tried lanes in my urban areas—do not meet the needs of
the bulk of the Vermont urban population as bicycling still remains the
province of mostly young, adult, white males.
Cycle track must be installed in order to enable those of all ages and
skills the opportunity to bike on their neighborhood busy streets for the
routine transportation each day to shop, go to school, and socialize.
Light
Rail, Commuter Rail and Intercity Rail
The shock of an announcement
of $200 million investment in housing, shopping facilities, a convention center
and hotel should be sufficient to at the very least initiate at once both
commuter rail and light rail feasibility studies, investing in no-regrets
improvements to Vermont rail infrastructure to accommodate passenger rail
services, and complete both the extension of Amtrak service from Rutland to
Burlington (a task that will have taken at least a decade and a half to upgrade
60 miles of trackage) and install Ambus service between Montreal and St. Albans
to draw about 15,000 more Amtrak riders on Vermont trains as well as reduce the
needed State tax dollar support allocated to Amtrak yearly.
Burlington itself must take
the initiative in cooperation with the State to begin light rail feasibility
building on the 1990s plan for a first phase from UVMMC/UVM/Chaplain College to
the Marketplace and the waterfront. As
car travel wanes light rail becomes an increasingly needed service to assure
the movement of people efficiently within the downtown area, to assure the
economic viability and growth of both the waterfront and Towne Center
developments. Light rail will likely
have a longer time line for development than commuter rail so planning needs to
start at once. There are several
commuter rail studies already dating back to 1989, the short-lived Champlain
Flyer service at the turn of the century between Charlotte and Burlington, and
now 11 years of data showing, for example, a continuing double digit increase
in workers each year giving forsaking car commuting for Link bus service between
Burlington and Montpelier.
Burlington-Montpelier Link service now nears regular use by almost 300
commuters. In the same travel time commuter
rail service can serve seven downtowns and town centers plus Technology Park
while Link service connects only the two downtowns of Burlington and
Montpelier.
Also, Burlington light rail
planning also needs to complete a feasibility study of a north-south line along
a route from Flynn School to the north to the South Burlington border area to
the south via North Avenue, the Marketplace and Pine Street. The joint study is necessary to determine
from the start how to create one or more transfer points with the east-west
route. Note that both commuter rail and light rail cars which feature low floor
easy boarding can easily be configured to hold a large number of bicycles
requiring very little effort by the cyclist.
In sum, Vermont faces an
exciting opportunity to redesign its entire system of urban and intercity
transportation with—for the first time—walkable and bikable busy street infra,
and returning to historic forms of transport, commuter rail and the modern
trolley.
Thank you for the
opportunity to comment on Vermont transportation.
