Video animation of proposed changes by Jeff Speck Design
[B]URLINGTON — A pilot program to transform one of the busiest sections of North Avenue from a four-lane road into a more cyclist-friendly two-lane route, with a center lane for turns, is expected to debut next spring.
But a signature drive organized by one North End resident could put the brakes on part of the pilot program, especially if the petition brings the question to voters in March.
“The biggest complaint is that the amount of people they’re trying to accommodate with these bike lanes is 1 percent of the population that use these roads,” said Karen Rowell, a Ward 7 resident and finance worker.
The traffic changes would limit motorists traveling along North Avenue from the Beltline (near Burlington High School) to Shore Road down to one travel lane in either direction. That stretch sees 16,400 car trips a day on average, with some stretches of it seeing 19,100 vehicles per day, documents from the Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission show.
In the extra space created by removing the four lanes, bike lanes protected by flexible posts can be added – an alteration that Rowell believes poses such an inconvenience to drivers and threat to safety that it should be abandoned.
“It is going to back up traffic like you wouldn’t believe on that street. That eight-tenths of a mile evens out the traffic,” she said.
With a new housing development in the works nearby, and winter weather taking cyclists off the street, she added, “We will have more people driving, with less traffic flow … so we’re going to be backed up in traffic for two people?” she said.
Petition gains momentum in City Council
Rowell first went door-to-door with the petition last year after she read about the City Council’s October resolution to go ahead with the pilot.
Although the pilot will add bike lanes, it also includes additional pedestrian safety measures, such as eliminating on-street parking along one side of North Avenue and adding new crosswalks with audible countdowns between traffic lights so walkers have ample time to cross. Slip ramps to get on and off of the Beltline at North Avenue will be blocked in the pilot, another measure some are concerned about.
All of the changes were recommendations of the North Avenue Corridor Task Force, a body of residents that is working to develop the pilot’s execution, each appointed by the City Council, Neighborhood Planning Assemblies and Mayor Miro Weinberger. The group evolved after the publicly conducted 14-month long North Avenue Corridor Study that ended in July 2014.
At a recent task force meeting, members of the group shared concerns that their monthly efforts to develop the pilot could be overthrown by North Enders who had signed the petition.
No members of the public showed up at the task force meeting, but staff from Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission, Public Works, Community and Economic Development Office, Burlington Police and five community members on the task force were at the Sept. 15 evening meeting held at the Robert E. Miller Community Center.
As they discussed paint colors, driver buffer zones, average speed driven on the road compared to ideal speed, width of biking lanes and keeping on-street parking in front of St. Mark’s Church at Shore Road, concerns about the opposition repeatedly arose.
“There are definitely some people who are worried that the pilot project will just make (the) commute hell, and you know, it’s going to be complete gridlock,” task force member and cyclist R.J. LaLumiere told VTDigger.
“I don’t think experience with similar projects in other areas shows that, but trying it out gives us a chance to see. Is that awful prognostication true? If so, I’m sure it’s going to get ripped out,” he said. “But I’m optimistic that it will actually operate better than it does today, for almost everyone.”
City agrees to limited trial
City Councilor Dave Hartnett, a North Avenue store owner, said he only voted for the pilot last year after the city added some contingent language that meant “at the end of the pilot program or during the pilot program, at any time if the residents of the North End decide this is not what they want, then the plan would be scrapped, or it would not happen,” he said. “Without that language we wouldn’t have supported it.”
“There are a lot of good things in the plan,” Hartnett said. “About 80 percent of this plan, everybody agrees on.”
Rowell, who said she’s a regular bicycle commuter, believes the bike-lane problem would be solved by cyclists using the sidewalk or the two recreation paths that hug the Beltline and shoreline.
“Why, if we have $2 million bike paths on either side, two sidewalks, [are we] going to give them that lane of traffic, while the rest of us are backed up?” she asked.
Weinberger said the North Avenue pilot is unlike many other transportation measures in that neighborhood sentiment will weigh heavily on the city’s final move.
“The elements of the study were controversial, but one of the ways we got to unanimous support of this resolution is by being clear that this was a pilot, and we are not going to prejudge its outcome and that public opinion would be an important variable in deciding whether or not it stayed after playing with a new arrangement,” he said.
The three-lane idea – which exists on parts of Dorset Street, on Williston Road in South Burlington and along Vermont 15 in Essex Junction – came out of a multiyear effort by the city to comply with Complete Streets, which Weinberger said was a state effort to upgrade road conditions to make them more able to accommodate all users.
“But certainly, I’ve always said if it doesn’t work, if everyone in the North End hates what we come out with once it’s there, we’ll change the decision.”
Pushing for a vote
Despite his promise, Rowell is concerned that the city’s hell-bent on adding bike lanes there permanently.
“A pilot in Burlington just means it’s an avenue for them to getting something in,” she said. Which is why she’s started looking toward a March referendum.
When asked why she or others on the petition didn’t attend or don’t participate in the monthly task force meetings, she said there isn’t any point.
“Nobody was there because – why bother?” said Rowell, adding, “They don’t listen. They just don’t listen.”
At a previous meeting of the North District’s combined Neighborhood Planning Assemblies, she said supporters “were so disgusted that [we] got up and walked out,” when they tried to argue with the assemblies’ presentation on the pilot.
Lea Terhune, a member of the Ward 4 Neighborhood Planning Assembly steering committee, said Rowell had left the meeting “screaming” at the members.
While Rowell’s opinion may be shared, Terhune she didn’t see any one of the vocal opponents trying to learn more in earnest.
“If it goes to a citywide vote, it will lose big. Because people are experiencing a Complete Streets experience all over,” she said of the upswing in roundabouts, traffic calming measures and bike lanes around the state.
“As more and more information gets out there, fewer and fewer people like the idea of Ward 4 and Ward 7 separated by four lanes of cars,” she said. (Ward 4 is on the southwest side of North Avenue, Ward 7 on the northeast.)
The pilot program is expected to roll out next spring, after the task force completes the planning, community outreach and feedback process.
The length of the pilot is “not defined yet,” said Nicole Losch, transportation planner for the city. “We don’t know how long we’re going to have it there, but it’s intended to be a little bit flexible so we can adjust it as it goes. We will allow it enough time so changes in driver behavior can settle down before anybody makes any decisions,” she said.
The next North Avenue Task Force meeting is at 6 p.m. Oct. 13 at the Robert E. Miller Center on Gosse Court.
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