Thank you to 7 Days and Lauren Ober for delving into on-street biking issues in Burlington in the "How We Roll" cover story. Local Motion does want to clarify our position regarding city leadership.
Readers may have gotten the impression from the article that Local Motion is unappreciative of the steps the City has taken to improve cycling. We would like to state clearly that the City does deserve credit for moving a number of pieces forward.
The City continues to do a significant amount on the off-road network. The bike path's task force, the Route 127 path gateway project, and the Penny for Parks funding source in 2008 are clear demonstrations that the City is working to improve the off-road network.
The on-road network is more challenging. While the 7 Days article quoted us regarding the lack of progress on the more ambitious on-street plans, the City has been trying to move ahead pieces of the on-road vision. The South Winooski Avenue contra-flow lanes in the South End, the bike lockers in the Cherry Street garages, and the complete street demonstration on Colchester Avenue are demonstrations of city support for on-road cycling.
The fact is that the on-road improvements are critical to the future of a sustainable transportation network in Burlington. The City (especially DPW staff) has tried to move forward with key projects like Colchester Avenue, and for this Local Motion is appreciative. However, Burlington is hamstrung by its diffuse power structure and lack of strong leadership for improvements that will admittedly be controversial.
When the article quoted us as saying "there's no leadership", it implied a blanket across-the-board dismissal of all Burlington officials for all types of cycling improvements. This would be an unfair characterization of our perspective. We want to clarify that we were specifically discussing the challenging on-road improvements. The City has done, and continues to do, significant work on the off-road and easy (politically-pallatable) on-road work. However, to make on-road cycling a viable form of transportation for more than the athletic white male, we must make the challenging changes to our on-road network.
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