Ward 5 Neighborhood Planning Assembly
September 25, 2007 6:30pm
Champlain Elementary Gymnasium, Pine Street
The Ward 5 NIN started off with a delicious free dinner for all attendees. Donations were made by Kountry Kart Deli, Rhino Foods, Sirloin Saloon, Price Chopper, Green Mountain Coffee, and Peter von Doepp.
Corporal Tom Radford and Sergeant Bruce Bovat gave an update on the safety of South Enders and other police-related matters. City Councilors Joan Shannon and Bill Keogh provided us with quick updates on what’s going on in the City Council. The City’s Transportation Plan was presented. Three door prizes were given away to lucky attendees!
The Transportation Plan portion of the meetings opened with a presentation by a representative from the lead consultant, Smart Mobility, and is directed at promoting three general themes:
A) Strong and Healthy City:
a. Economic Health;
b. Physical health, including choices for an aging population, safety and environmental health.
B) Transportation Choices:
a. Cars;
b: Transit;
c. Transportation Systems Management;
d. Transportation Demand management;
e. Walking;
f. Biking;
g. Accessibility.
C) Great Streets - Street Design Guidelines:
a. Complete Street;
b. Transit and Bicycle Street;
c. Slow Street;
d. Neighborhood Streets;
e. Truck routes.
The Transportation Plan will be implemented through:
A) Transportation Services - explaining how work will get done and who is responsible.
B) Progress indicators - establishing measurable goals that will be reviewed annually.
C) Initial five year plan - including Maintenance, Funded Capital Projects, Capital projects in need of funding, Transit, Parking pricing programs, and remote parking.
D) Policy Initiatives that include supporting the creation of a downtown Transportation Management Association (TMA), changing speed limits to 20 mph in the downtown Slow Streets zone and to 25 mph on neighborhood streets without posted speed limits, supporting improvements to the western corridor rail infrastructure and expansion of passenger rail services to Burlington, and supporting a car sharing service.
Residents can continue to comment on the draft by sending thoughts to Dan Bradley at the City of Burlington Department of Public Works, 645 Pine Street, Suite A, Burlington, VT 05402-0849. He can be called at (802) 865-5832 or e-mailed at dbradley@ci.burlington.vt.us. For more information about the Transportation Plan, including the appendices, visit www.dpw.ci.burlington.vt.us/transportation/.
Following the presentation by Norm Marshall, of Smart Mobility, residents had 30 minutes of Q & A time with Dan Bradley, Project Manager of the Transportation Plan. Any technical questions, unable to be answered by the City, were answered by consultants on hand.
Here is a list of questions, comments and some answers generated at the meeting. These will be posted on the internet along with the Transportation plan, along with a more complete listing of responses and answers:
• Explain 1/4 mile radius of Neighborhood Activity Centers.
A: Planning designation to encourage development of neighborhood services that you can walk to.
• Speed on Birchcliff Pkwy is very high, especially at east end. Could we get traffic calming? A: Can start with collecting data on east end, and then engage neighborhood in creating traffic calming plan.
• Bike lane on Pine Street is not safe for kids going to school - bring complete street on Pine farther south
• Does the City have incentives to encourage TMA?
A: Using CATMA data to help downtown employers create a TMA planning underway.
• Bike path maintenance - rocky, loose surface. What can be done?
• Goals in plan should have numerical benchmarks.
• Develop a pedestrian plan for the city.
• How does Development Review process integrate transportation?
• Timetable, pathway to address funding inadequacies.
• Use of shuttles & Park and Ride lots close to City Center.
A: Working regionally and within City now and want to expand.
• Why no bike paths in slow streets?
A: Idea is that speeds are so slow that they can share the road safely
• Consider no Right on Red where you have bikes and pedestrians.
A: Will look at No Right on Red
• Economic health should be subsidiary to physical health
• Shelburne Rd Rotary is a bad situation - unclear and unsafe.
A: DPW & Vtrans will work on this over next year.
• Lakeside and Pine intersection - Northbound on Pine, turning onto Lakeside, have exclusive phase.
A: Working on a technical analysis now.
• Signage - over road, in large print, especially in downtown. List 100-# blocks on signs.
A: Plan stresses wayfinding.
• Like complete street as cyclist, but Shelburne Rd is a concern in practice
• Linking and working with neighboring communities on transportation should be articulated in plan
• Pollution generated by cars at rush hour is harmful for pedestrians and transit riders at stops. What can be done to address this?
• Bikes and pedestrians on sidewalks can be an unsafe situation
• Bikes and cars in road traveling in opposing directions on a care one way
• Carpooling - incentivize and enhance and encourage
• Exclusive pedestrian phase on slow street, also No Right on Red.
• Enforcement and Education of Bike traffic regulations
• bike path must be redone.
• Quicker headways and express service for transit
• Be careful about raising parking cost too high on waterfront
• More benches at transit stops.
• Seen some improvements in downtown pedestrian phases.