Last summer the Department of Public Works converted four-lane sections of the main artery through the New North End into three lanes with a middle turn lane and protected bike lanes. The move was aimed at addressing traffic safety issues on the roadway, which the state Agency of Transportation had identified as a high crash area.
Data gathered by the Burlington Police Department show the number of crashes, as well as the number and severity of resulting injuries, were reduced during a one-year test of the new configuration.
“It’s important to emphasize that making the avenue safer was the No. 1 goal of this process when we began it,” said City Councilor Max Tracy, P-Ward 2, who sponsored the resolution making the changes permanent.
Tracy said the data show that aim was accomplished.
During several hours of public comment, a handful of residents expressed frustration with how the trial run was conducted and questioned the city’s data as well as a third-party opinion survey that showed narrow support for the roadway changes.
The two no votes came from Dave Hartnett, R/D-North District, and Kurt Wright, R-Ward 4, both of whom expressed frustration with the process for gathering input.
Both councilors took aim at Local Motion, a bicycle and pedestrian nonprofit, which they said is dominating transportation planning in the city.
Hartnett harshly criticized the process because public opinion survey results on the new lane configuration weren’t shared first with New North End city councilors — something he said he believed the city was committed to doing — and were instead provided to the Public Works Department.
Hartnett said he’s lost trust in Public Works Director Chapin Spencer, who was executive director of Local Motion before taking his job with the city.
Councilor Ali Dieng, D/P-Ward 7, who was sworn in Monday after winning a June special election, voted in favor of making the changes permanent — something he pledged to do during the campaign.
Dieng’s ward is bounded on one side by North Avenue. He said he recognized that many of his constituents had lost trust in the city as a result of how public input was gathered, but that didn’t outweigh his support for the changes.
