The group boarded two buses to scope out the route of the Champlain Parkway, the long-planned, 2.3-mile strip of highway that would connect Interstate 189 to downtown Burlington. The journey was part of a necessity hearing, where property owners whose land would be purchased to make way for the project could voice their objections.
The council’s “yes” vote later Monday evening took the city one step closer to completing the four-decade-old project. Construction is scheduled to start in spring 2019.
But it wasn’t all business for the councilors, Mayor Miro Weinberger, city and state workers, and a couple dozen members of the public who came along for the ride. From one of the two University of Vermont buses, councilors waved cheerily to a family at a barbecue outside a home on Batchelder Street and convened a brief council meeting on the pavement in front of the Department of Public Works.
To build the $43 million roadway, project funders, including the feds, the state and the city, had to purchase 50 properties in the way of, or aligning, the proposed roadway. The state is still negotiating on 12 properties — about half of which the state would own permanently. The remainder require only temporary construction easements.
Laminated signs on stakes marked each property. At the Howard Center, 1138 Pine Street, project managers would purchase about 1,900 square feet — 789 square feet of which would be permanent — for the road, a fence and surrounding construction area. At 21 Morse Place, owned by Rieley Properties, Vermont Agency of Transportation workers were negotiating a price on temporary use of nine square feet.
The plots range from a few hundred dollars for the smallest, to $20,000 or $30,000 for some of the largest — about 12,500 square feet along Pine Street — according to VTrans’ Bruce Melvin.
The city councilors returned to City Hall for the necessity hearing, but didn’t hear much opposition. Only one property owner whose land would be affected objected. Frank Kochman, a lawyer for Howard Center, argued for increased safety along a bike path that will be built in front of the facility.
On Monday, Judith Dillon, an attorney representing the owners of the Innovation Center of Vermont, argued that abutting landowners were inaccurately notified of the hearing and the site visit. The Innovation Center, on Lakeside Avenue, abuts the proposed Parkway, but because the building is not in the path of construction, its owners did not have a formal say at the hearing. Dillon warned that any resulting decision Monday night “would be null and void.” But after an executive session, the council decided to proceed with the hearing as planned.
A solution to provide an alternative route from I-189 into downtown Burlington has been a long time coming. The city conceived of the Parkway plan in the late 1960s. Since then, a series of funding and technical challenges, and public opposition, have spurred delay after delay.
It still has its detractors. “My only comment is I feel the whole thing is unnecessary,” Burlington resident Barbara Wynroth told councilors at the hearing.
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Unnecessary? Drive on Pine St. anytime with or without the construction and it is a mess. Another way to get into and out of Burlington is a plus.
And please don’t tell me people should take the bus or ride a bike. Am I in favor of alternative transportation, yes but that doesn’t mean that there won’t be a boatload of cars on the road. Time to build the road!
Don Sinex approves this message.
The neighborhood streets Home Ave, Flynn Ave and Pine St are used as de facto highways with huge 18-wheeler trucks bounding down them at all hours of the day and night. Home and Flynn are neighborhood streets never designed or built for their current overuse.
It is immoral and possibly criminal to continue to subject city residents to the assault of commuter and truck traffic on these streets that were never intended or built to be used this way. They are all bike and pedestrian routes to Champlain Elementary school and the dangerous situation of little kids scrambling back at intersections to avoid being run over by the huge tractor trailers trying to turn onto Pine off of Home and Flynn is a scandal.
I cannot believe the situation has been allowed to continue for this long and that there are actually people who think that the current situation is acceptable. This is the major route for bringing commuters and goods and services into the largest city in Vermont. The current “highway” used for this are cut throughs on small neighborhood streets!
Build a road adequate for this kind of use or outlaw commuting into the city and delivering goods and services by truck. The city, state and feds have admitted that these roads were never built to be used in this way.
“Don Sinex approves this message.”
Please get therapy for your obsession with Don Sinex. It’s getting scary.
I own a house on Pine Street. I can tell you categorically that the traffic to and from work and the large truck traffic driving literally feet from my front window is terrible. Pine Street is used as a bypass for Route 7 and to get onto 189. Cars back up all the way down the Queen City Parkway and Pine Street after work. This happens every single work day. It’s terrible. The traffic is so bad that after our daughter was born we decided to move. We felt the volume and characteristics were simply unsafe for us.
The city needs the bypass to direct traffic away from residential street. Make some accommodations in the project for bikes and pedestrians to have access to Pine St. and be done with it.
My only question is, where do the cars go once into Burlington, will there be a parking garage, some way to get downtown like a free bus or trolley, I am not against this but I just wonder where all the cars go once they travel this route.
@Pixelvt
It is not just cars. It is also trucks, and buses. There are hundreds of trucks on Flynn and Pine Street every day.
As far as parking goes there are plenty of places to park in the downtown area. Most people are too lazy to figure out where they are.
Very glad to see more progress on this vital project. Decades’ worth of development has taken place down Austin Drive, all under the pretense that residents at places like Red Rocks and Ledgewood would have a way in-and-out of the city via the Parkway. As it is, Home Avenue remains their only outlet. Meanwhile, the city has continued to approve more recent developments, including the new South End City Market, with the clear understanding that these developments will be accessible by the Parkway. Without the Parkway, all too many commuters are using Pine Street, Flynn Avenue, and Home Avenue, among other streets, as their way out of Burlington. These streets and our residential neighborhoods are not designed to accommodate the associated traffic.
I so hope this project gets underway soon. We moved to Home Avenue three years ago with young children (our neighborhood is full of young families and young kids) and I never imagined the endless traffic pouring past our house, where there is no median strip between the sidewalk and a road where cars routinely go 30 mph (take one step off a curb and you’re done). There are huge tractor trailers trying to navigate these streets, can’t make the turns, running over curbs, chewing up lawns, getting stuck, etc. Someone is going to get killed with this combination of commercial and residential traffic and bikers, walkers, kids, families, etc. Please build this soon!!!
I wish this article more adequately described the actual route for the Champlain Parkway. You can’t take a bus through it or even a bike if my directions are clear. You head into the woods by Select Design and your walk through the somewhat wild Englesby Brook watershed area. This is an important water access to the lake and there is going to be a highway built over it. This is not good for plants and wildlife, not to mention the health of the lake. What kind of runoff happens with this kind of construction project. And for what… so we all end up at the Lakeside and Pine intersection?