[B]ENNINGTON — Area residents will have a chance to weigh in on local transportation needs and voice their concerns during a meeting next week at Bennington College.
Sen. Brian Campion, D-Bennington, said Monday that top Agency of Transportation officials will attend an informational meeting on Thursday, Aug. 23, at the Center for the Advancement of Public Action at the college.
The 6 p.m. session will be open to the public, and residents can express their concerns about such issues as rail cars that were parked during the winter along an inactive spur line in North Bennington, or ask about the possibility of adding another roundabout along the Northside Drive-Route 67A corridor.
According to Jo Maguire, executive assistant with VTrans, Vermont Secretary of Transportation Joe Flynn; Michele Boomhower, the director of Policy, Planning and Intermodal Development; Wayne Symonds, chief engineer and director of the VTrans Highway Division, and Dan Delabruere, Rail and Aviation Division program manager, are expected to attend the meeting.
Campion said the idea for the meeting evolved from discussions involving VTrans officials, Sen. Dick Sears, Rep. Timothy Corcoran and others, after concern was expressed late last year about parked Vermont Railway System tanker cars holding propane.
Vermont Railway had parked rail cars carrying other materials for years along the inactive rail spur between North Bennington and Bennington, but lawmakers, local officials and residents protested during the winter when about 80 tanker cars carrying propane were parked there for several weeks, some edging into residential areas.
Residents and lawmakers said they were concerned about possible fires, vandalism, explosions or leaks of the hazardous material.
Railroad officials said the idea was to avoid the kind of propane shortages that occurred three years before during a severe winter, when frigid weather resulted in snarled train traffic through the region’s rail yards. They said the cars would be moved out as needed by the railroad’s commercial propane customers, that local fire and emergency personnel were notified and that all federal regulations for storing the material had been followed.
Another rail line issue, Campion said, concerns incidents in the spring of trains being parked for up to 45 minutes across Main Street and other streets in North Bennington Village, blocking traffic on those streets.
Busy intersections
Other meeting topics suggested by residents, Campion said, include a proposal to create a roundabout at the five-way intersection along Route 67A near the entrance to the Bennington College campus.
“I think that is a good idea,” said Campion. “They [roundabouts] tend to be safer and better for the environment.”
He said a roundabout at the entrance to the shopping center off Northside Drive containing Walmart and PriceChopper has been successful in smoothing out traffic flow and promoting safety, as has a roundabout at the intersection of Route 7A and Routes 11 and 30 in Manchester, once was called “Malfunction Junction.”
“These are all issues that could be discussed,” Campion said.
In the past, the town also has considered roundabouts at Northside Drive and Route 7A at the bottom of Harwood Hill and at the intersections of Willow Road and Northside Drive and Northside Drive with BenMont Avenue and Kocher Drive.
