Charlotte News
by Rowan Beck
May 16, 2012

http://www.thecharlottenews.org/pages/303voteagainstsidewalkandaustralianballotispostponed2715.html

There was an exceptionally large turnout at Special Town Meeting tonight. The line stretched out the door as community members waited to check in. Each member received a pink and yellow ballot. At 7:06 p.m. when the meeting was called to order not a seat could be found. The moderator Jerry Schwartz announced that the first action of the evening would be to vote on whether or not to reconsider the sidewalks, 94 votes, or 2/3rds of the original yes votes was necessary for reconsideration. There was no debate but there was a division of the house. The motion to reconsider ultimately passed 254 -161.

Then the debate turned to the actual re-vote on the Sidewalk. Jim Donovan of the Sidewalk Committee gave a presentation on what led them to consider sidewalks and their recommendations. He laid out where the sidewalks would be and the crosswalks. He said that over time that the character of the village had changed, there was more traffic as people sought out specific destinations. He applauded Charlie Lotz’s cartoon of the futuristic sidewalks, which appeared in the news last March, but smiled as he said he realized we weren’t ready for that. Donovan also spoke about the possibility of sidewalks in East Charlotte. Finally, he reminded voters that they were voting on a concept and a dollar amount. After the presentation quite a debate ensued and some got a little heated. Robin Simpson, of Lake Road, spoke for an informal group of Charlotte residents, to look for a different way for the sidewalks to be constructed. People should think of them as walkways; sidewalks call to mind concrete and curves. Barry Finnette, a father of seven and a pediatrician, spoke out against the sidewalks stating from medical publications that no evidence had been found to support sidewalks improving the safety of children. Tom Nolan really fired up the meeting with his words against the sidewalks. Finally, Marion Paris called the question and the debate ceased. A paper ballot was requested and the Sidewalk was voted down: 172 for sidewalk, 303 against sidewalk.

Written by Phyl Newbeck, Free Press correspondent

Dorothy Pellett, Free Press Correspondent

http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2012120511033

An initiative that started as a one-day Curb Your Car Day in the 1990s has spun a web of interconnected participating groups, individuals, activities, sponsors and planning teams.

Way To Go! Commuter Challenge, which starts Monday and ends Friday, encourages the public to use a transportation alternative to driving alone. People might share a ride, walk, bicycle or take a bus to work. Chittenden County started the project in 2004; when it became a statewide initiative in 2009, Vermont Energy Investment Corp. took on the task of acting as its host.

Tom Horn, this year’s statewide coordinator under a contract with the hosting group, said a steering committee has met monthly from January to May. It’s an informally organized committee of transportation planners and interested people who reach out from the committee to other groups that promote energy conservation.

“Without that web, we wouldn’t be able to secure the level of engagement and geographic diversity that we have,“ Horn said this week.

Among the partnering organizations in the network are Chittenden County Transportation Authority, Local Motion, Community Climate Action/10%Challenge, Campus Area Transportation Management Association, the city of Burlington, Addison County Transit Resources and regional planning commissions.

Debra Sachs of Community Climate Action/10% Challenge said the Way To Go! event has set a goal of saving 500,000 pounds of carbon emissions.

“This is a great opportunity for folks to explore a new way to commute to work, school or anywhere else they might usually drive,” she said.

The event’s website, www.waytogovt.org, provides a place for employers and individuals to register their participation in the Commuter Challenge online, by clicking the “Sign Up Now” bar. Participants are asked what type of vehicle they normally use, the number of miles they commute, how they plan to travel to work during Way To Go! Week, and how many days they will use the alternative means of transportation. Organizers say personal information will not be shared with any third party.

Three Carbon Cup trophies will be awarded: one to an employer with 20-100 employees, one to a business with more than 100 employees, and one to a community for the greatest tally of registered participants.

Horn said the number of commuters who took part tripled from 2006 to 2011, to 3,590 people. More than 400,000 miles were saved last year, as well as 400,000 pounds of carbon dioxide kept out of the atmosphere.

Burlington High School and Middlebury Union High School are engaged in a friendly competition during Way To Go! Week to see which will get the greatest percentage of students and staff signed up for the challenge, said Pam Mathews of Local Motion. Mathews also is working with the two schools to promote a pilot program for carpooling in the fall, and the May challenge will help lead into the program.

In and around Burlington, the Campus Area Transportation Management Association has ongoing sustainable commuter programs for its member institutions. Sandy Thibault, associate director, said employees of Fletcher Allen Health Care, the University of Vermont, the American Red Cross, Champlain College and the Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission are eligible for carpool matching, bus-pass discounts and other bonuses.

“It is our goal to encourage our employees to sign up for Way To Go! but more importantly for them to continue using that alternate mode to reduce single-occupant vehicles traveling in and around our region,” Thibault said. The group conducts an annual spring outreach campaign about alternative transportation in conjunction with Way To Go! Week.

More than a dozen people found their new way to go as they began April 23 to ride the new 16-passenger commuter bus between Middlebury and Burlington. The route is run cooperatively by Chittenden County Transportation Authority and Addison County Transit Resources.

The bus began operating in April with stops in Bristol, Starksboro and Hinesburg, with an official launch Monday to kick off Way To Go! Week.

The bus is one of Addison County’s many energy-saving plans, including two recently installed charging stations for electric vehicles adjacent to the Addison County Regional Planning Commission’s building.

Horn, the Way To Go! coordinator, said 75 percent of Vermont towns are taking part in Way To Go! Week this year.

Molly Smith

WCAX Morning Anchor/Reporter

WCAX.com

Chapin Spencer talks about National Bike Challenge

http://www.wcax.com/video?clipId=7104240&autostart=true

Written by Dorothy Pellett, Free Press correspondent

http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2012120429017

 The seed of an idea that was planted about 25 years ago is set to grow into reality this year, with the awarding of a contract for construction of a 1.57-mile recreation path between the post office and the Hinesburg library.

 Selectboard members signed a contract Friday, in the amount of $1,636,648, with SD Ireland Brothers Corp. of Burlington. The firm expects to start work in early June and complete the project by Dec. 1.

Hinesburg’s town plan reflects many residents’ wishes for safe pedestrian and bicycle routes within the village. The plan names as one of its goals, “To create a truly ‘walkable’ community by working toward safe and convenient pedestrian access to all portions of the village.”

Director of buildings and facilities Rocky Martin said the idea for a path originated in about 1986 as a way to connect the village core with Shelburne Falls Road, and the first suggested route would have headed north from behind Town Hall.

That path would have crossed private property.

“The Selectboard at that time refused to condemn any property for the project, and property owners refused to donate rights-of-way, so that plan failed,” board Chairman Jonathan Trefry said.

The current project will follow a route approved for funding in 1993 by the Vermont Agency of Transportation. It will follow Mechanicsville Road from Commerce Street to CVU Road, then will go along the north side of CVU Road and cross Vermont 116 to the Carpenter-Carse Library.

A 5-foot-wide concrete sidewalk will begin at Commerce Street and end at Mechanicsville Road, where the route will become a 10-foot-wide multi-use asphalt paved pedestrian and bicycle path. Agency of Transportation standards require a 10-foot width for shared-use paths.

“Stormwater and wetland rules changed during the time period when plans were developed. Plans had to be changed, and securing the necessary funding took way longer than anyone imagined,” Martin said. The agency approved several modifications to the plan and changes in the required amount of money during the process.

The project will receive most of its funding from the state grant, and the town will pay 10 percent. As townspeople looked forward to the path over many years, they gradually approved adding to a recreation path reserve account, now containing $138,738. The town would plan to pay the additional amount using the town’s capital fund at a rate of $10,000 a year, Trefry said.

Three companies submitted bids for the recreation path and its associated work, and SD Ireland’s was the lowest. The town chose Staff Sterling Management of Morrisville to carry out state-mandated inspection during construction.

The design and engineering firm Vanasse Hangen Brustlin Inc. of North Ferrisburgh developed plans and specifications for the project, which includes addition of trees and shrubs along Mechanicsville Road, a chain link fence installed next to a steep slope by the multi-use path, and a guardrail for safety where the sidewalk crosses Patrick Brook. 

Seven Days

By Kevin Kelley, Photo by Matthew Thorsen

http://www.7dvt.com/2012burlington-area-bike-paths-are-all-theyre-cracked-be

April 25, 2012

A year after springtime floods destroyed chunks of the Burlington Bike Path, some sections are still crumbling and roped off from cyclists, runners, walkers and bladers.

Most of those gouged-out areas are finally being repaired, however, in order to make the 7.5-mile path safe for participants in the May 27 Vermont City Marathon. Mayor Miro Weinberger says that, shortly after taking office earlier this month, he directed city officials to initiate work immediately on trouble spots that had gone unrepaired for 12 months.

The imminent city-funded $30,000 fix-up of badly damaged — and dangerous — segments of the bike path is only a temporary patch job, however. There’s a plan for a more thorough, $2.1 million set of repairs of flood-eroded segments that is to be financed mainly by the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Weinberger is also dissatisfied with the pace of that initiative, which, according to Burlington Parks and Recreation Department head Mari Steinbach, may not get under way for another year.

“There’s been too long a delay in starting this work, especially compared to the repairs of highways in the aftermath of [Tropical Storm] Irene,” Weinberger declares. He says he will push FEMA and other parties to move more quickly on the repair project.

FEMA is also expected to be the main bankroller for extensive repairs of the bike-and-pedestrian causeway in Colchester that juts into Lake Champlain. Much of that scenic, packed-gravel spit was reclaimed last spring by the swollen, raging lake. It will cost an estimated $900,000 to restore the stretch of the causeway leading from the Colchester mainland to the 200-foot-wide cut where Local Motion, a Burlington-based advocacy group, had been operating a summer bike ferry. An additional $200,000 — also mostly from FEMA — is needed to repair the northern half-mile leg of the causeway that connects to South Hero.

This entire 12.5-mile route for nonmotorized transport — running from Oakledge Park to South Hero — is known as the Island Line. It’s a major economic asset that should be restored and properly maintained, says Local Motion leader Chapin Spencer. Users of just the Burlington portion of the Island Line generate at least $6 million a year in economic activity for the city, Spencer says, citing a 2010 University of Vermont survey and estimates of the impact of events such as the marathon and USA Triathlon.

Potentially greater economic benefits can be achieved once the bike ferry service at the causeway cut is restored, Spencer says. Then, Québec tourists will be able to “pedal straight into Burlington and spend their money here,” he points out. Local Motion is thus undertaking a $1.3 million fundraising effort to construct a more secure, handicap accessible bike-ferry facility at the cut. The service will remain inoperable again this summer, due to causeway flood damage, but is projected to resume on a daily basis in 2013.

Stretches of the Burlington Bike Path, especially in the New North End beyond Leddy Park, appear to be in relatively good shape. But the most heavily used segment — between Oakledge Park and North Beach — presents major structural problems unrelated to last year’s flood.

The 26-year-old Burlington Bike Path was in generally “disastrous shape, even before the flood,” says John Bossange, head of a city council-appointed citizens task force charged with devising a long-term plan for this popular asset. Having been built along a former rail bed, the bike path “is sinking into the lake,” Bossange says. “Trees that were saplings when it was built now have roots underneath it. Plus, there’s been no consistent maintenance.”

The task force, which has been deliberating for the past 18 months, will soon formally present three options for what would essentially be a structural makeover of the entire Burlington Bike Path. According to a feasibility study released in March, the most basic plan would cost $11.6 million. The priciest option — involving more lighting, fencing and directional signs, as well as drinking fountains and kiosks — would run to nearly $17 million. All the proposals call for widening the right-of-way from its current eight feet to the federal standard of 11 feet, which had not been stipulated when construction of the bike path began in 1986.

If the city had to pay the full cost of these plans — which it almost certainly will not, Bossange notes — property taxes would rise $50 a year on a $250,000 home to cover the cheaper option; the same homeowner would pay $75 more than at present to finance the big-ticket option.

Will the mayor commit to supporting a bond — and attendant tax increase — to finance a rebuild of the bike path?

Bossange says Weinberger has been “all ears” in his meetings with task-force members. “He seems to get it,” Bossange says of the new mayor.

Weinberger himself cautions that it’s too soon to decide how best to fund the envisioned rehab that could take as long as five years to complete. “I want to look at all available funding sources,” he says. “It may well be that there are other substantial ways of doing this besides going with a huge bond for the city.”

The new administration does take alternate forms of transportation seriously and will be activist in its approach to them, Weinberger adds. If that proves true, it will mark a departure from how the bike path in particular has been viewed by the city in recent years.

As Bossange notes, its upkeep has been largely neglected. The unrepaired damage from the 2011 flooding serves as a dramatic indication of municipal priorities.

“Should repairs have been put on an emergency, top-drawer basis before someone got hurt?” Bossange asks. “That’s a great question I don’t have an answer for.”

Spencer does offer an explanation.

“The speed with which repairs are being made is, I think, a reflection of the unfortunate perception that it’s a recreation corridor,” he says. “It’s valued less than a transportation corridor.” Spencer notes that surveys show 25 percent of the estimated 150,000 yearly trips along the Burlington Bike Path are made for practical purposes, not purely for recreation.

Evidence of the secondary status that some officials assign to cycling and walking, in comparison to motoring, can be seen in the $143,000 that Local Motion is attempting to raise to help finance repairs to the Island Line in both Burlington and Colchester. LoMo aims to cover what the localities say is a shortfall in the amount of funding needed to match the FEMA outlays. There’s no corresponding example of a nongovernmental organization asking for charitable contributions to repair a road used by drivers.

Burlington needs to come up with about $350,000 — its share of the $2.1 million in repairs for the lakefront bike path that may not be completed until 2014. Likely sources? Steinbach identifies the Penny for Parks tax revenue set-aside and the city’s capital-improvements budget.

The city is getting a free ride, however, in regard to another bike path that is scheduled to undergo major repair this summer. The Federal Highway Administration is picking up the full $442,000 tab for restoring a flood-wrecked segment of the bike path that runs alongside the Burlington Beltline. Full federal funding is available because of the beltline path’s proximity to what is designated as a state highway, Steinbach explains.

Despite what critics describe as the previous city administration’s slacker attitude regarding the lakefront bike path, Spencer suggests that Vermont politicians are actually becoming more responsive to advocates of nonpolluting forms of transportation. He gives the Shumlin administration a B+ grade for its commitment to making federal and state funds available for a range of bicycling and pedestrian projects that previously had fewer options for funding.

Changes in the public’s attitudes toward cycling and walking could help advance efforts to transform the Burlington Bike Path into what Bossange envisions as a “world-class” model. One example of that new outlook can be seen in Colchester’s Biscayne Heights neighborhood, which is on the bike path.

Fearing that their suburban enclave would be disturbed by bikers from Burlington, a few of those residents fought construction of the bike bridge, completed in 2004, and the routing through Delta Park and past their front yards. But according to a 2009 study by the Chittenden County Metropolitan Planning Organization, there have been no reports of accidents involving cyclists or pedestrians in Biscayne Heights.

Glen Cuttitta, head of the Colchester Parks and Recreation Department, adds that he has heard no complaints about cyclists in that neighborhood.

“In general,” Cuttitta says, “people there have gotten used to bikers, and some may have started using the recreation corridor themselves. It does run right outside their door, and it’s a wonderful way to exercise as well as to see some beautiful landscapes.”