East Spring Street
Spring Street in Winooski is a critical east-west corridor and a popular route for people walking and biking. However, it lacks essential pedestrian and bike infrastructure, making it dangerous for residents.
Recognizing these long standing community concerns, the City identified E. Spring Street as a high-priority corridor in its 2016 Transportation Master Plan, and the 2023 Walk Bike Master Plan named it as the third top priority for infrastructure improvements.
The 2023 study also recognized the need for a scoping study for this corridor to address safety, multimodal access, and transportation equity. However, no steps have been taken to improve safety and infrastructure on East Spring Street.
To address this long-standing issue, WAAT—with technical support from Local Motion—proposed a quick-build demonstration project.
The proposed project would have repurposed underutilized parking—identified in a 2022 study as low-demand—and narrow travel lanes to calm traffic. This project also would have been fully grant funded at zero-cost to taxpayers.
For nearly two years, WAAT engaged in extensive community outreach and planning for a demonstration project on Spring Street, including data collection, door-to-door engagement, a neighborhood meeting, and a widely supported community survey.
See key results here.
See one pager here.
See full survey results here.
Despite strong resident support and minimal to no support needed by the City, the Winooski City Manager denied the project, citing concerns over short-term parking loss, City staff workload, and wanting to manage long-term expectations from Winooski residents. They later reaffirmed this decision after WAAT proposed solutions and counters to these concerns, including that on-street parking is extremely underutilized.