Editor’s note: This commentary is by Michael Long, who served more than a decade on the Burlington Development Review Board and has lived in Burlington since 1975. He now teaches English and was a high school teacher in Colchester from 1975 until 2015.
[W]hat Burlington city officials have dubbed the “base concept” for Bank and Cherry streets is in utter opposition to at least three of the four stated “primary goals” for these streets: that they be walkable, bikeable, functional and sustainable. To be honest and faithful to these goals the base concept must be significantly modified to provide safety and equity for all. It is no small irony that the TIF funds (tax incremental financing) paying to refurbish these streets were touted by Mayor Miro Weinberger and others as a pure public benefit, not a handout to the developer of what is now called CityPlace. And yet the developer seems to be calling the shots on these streets.
The central error of the “base concept” is to allow parking on both sides of Bank and Cherry.
Two sides of parking is unsafe and toxic both for pedestrians and cyclists, if not for motorists too. Additionally, this plan imposes the unappealing, cluttered, congested, and dysfunctional feel of a parking lot, a place where people drown in a sea of cars. This is not the feel of a vibrant street.
Furthermore, motor vehicle storage is far from the highest and best use of a transportation corridor. The “base concept” irrationally and inexplicably squanders 50 percent of streets meant to be fluid and dynamic on a use that is static and obstructive instead.
I live off North Willard which had parking on both sides for many years. It was hazardous and dismal. That street was revived and liberated simply by allowing parking on just one side. Driving, walking, biking, skate boarding — the experience of every sort of use and user improved a hundred fold.
Two-sided parking, even for small or electric vehicles, but especially for diesel trucks, concentrates noise and exhaust and compromises sight lines. It strangles streets and street life. Parking on both sides degrades a street. This is no way to upgrade or “activate” Bank and Cherry.
If CityPlace were a retrofit it would not be surprising were it to demand excessive on-street parking, but CityPlace is a new development with internal parking and loading capacity that should adequately serve its residential, office and retail uses — including those associated with routine deliveries and moving in or out.
A new development — properly designed — should not negatively impact our streets or compromise the tens of millions in tax dollars we are investing in them. How architects and planners could miss this is hard to fathom.
And we know, as city officials have insisted and a recent UVM study attests, that we have plenty of structured parking downtown, so we really shouldn’t need any on-street parking at all.
For Bank and Cherry to be bikeable — a safe, dedicated bike lane is an absolute necessity.
Few cyclists and even fewer drivers are open to and comfortable with cyclists riding amidst motor vehicle traffic. And there is no imaginable justification to prioritize and privilege motor vehicles on these streets, making other transportation modes second class and putting users of other modes at risk of life and limb. Streets intended to serve pedestrians, cyclists and motorists must be designed to serve them all safely and equitably.
Let’s face it, almost all of our streets give short shrift to pedestrians and cyclists. Motor vehicles have been and continue to be prioritized, privileged, and subsidized in our culture and city. Pedestrians and cyclists are left to fend for themselves.
I don’t demonize cars. I’ve driven one, more days than not, since I was 16. But neither do I hold that it’s the responsibility of pedestrians and cyclists to stay out of my way. Frankly, cars are not especially suited for or good for a city. Just as airplanes are designed more to fly than to taxi, cars are designed more for the highway or the open road or, I suppose, for the strip mall, than for dense urban centers or challenging parking environments. Walking and cycling are the most suitable modes of transport in our downtown; motor vehicles can be competently managed and accommodated, but they don’t really fit in.
And cyclists — in terms of their vulnerability, their speed, and their exposure to the weather and to the open environment of the street — are much more like pedestrians than motorists. Just as pedestrians require sidewalks, cyclists require dedicated corridors safe for cycling. Painting bicycle silhouettes along the gutter or posting signs asserting that bicycles may ride in the center of the lane clearly do not make the cut. Such ruses are mere lip service — merely pretending to act — when full service and results are called for.
Taking credit instead of action for values like these when lives hang in the balance is far less than commendable. When public policy compromises safety, decision makers are accountable.
The bottom line is that if we’re honest and serious about Bank and Cherry being walkable, bikeable, functional, and sustainable, we must at a minimum either remove parking and loading from one side of each or from both sides of one. Anything less is a betrayal of the stated and laudable “primary goals” for these streets.
