Burlington’s long-stalled Champlain Parkway project took a big step toward reality today.
In a 63-page ruling issued this morning, the District #4 Environmental Commission of the Vermont Agency of Natural Resources has found that the South End highway project “will not cause or result in a detriment to public health, safety or general welfare” under Act 250.
However, the commission stopped short of issuing an Act 250 permit because it is waiting for state-issued stormwater permits.
Still, the decsion is a major milestone for a project conceived 45 years ago as a four-lane, limited access highway called the “Southern Connector.” At one time, the highway was slated to run alongside Lake Champlain and connect with the northern Beltline highway.
As approved (or nearly approved), the revamped Champlain Parkway is instead a two-lane, pedestrian-friendly urban boulevard that will have new trees, sidewalks, new turning lanes and crosswalks. It will finally connect the abandoned highway off I-189 with Pine Street through Burlington’s South End.
A small but dedicated group of property owners have fought the project, viewing it as outdated, expensive and unnecessary. While the parkway would accomplish its goal of diverting truck traffic off residential side streets, congested intersections in a low-income neighborhood — particularly along Pine Street at Maple and King streets — would barely improve under the plan.
Allan Hunt, who lives and owns property along the parkway’s route, said Friday he would reserve comment until he’d had a chance to read the Act 250 ruling. Hunt (pictured at top) has fought the project for years and hired a lawyer and traffic expert to rebut the city’s engineers during Act 250 hearings last summer. Hunt, or anyone else with “party status” in the case, has 15 days to appeal the decision to state environmental court, though Hunt declined to say whether he would do so.
“The devil is in the details,” Hunt said.
We’ll update this post later after we’ve dug into those details.
Photo credit: File photo by Jordan Silverman
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This article appears in Apr 25 – May 1, 2012.
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Ask the truck drivers, is the proposed pan ok, can they make the turns? This is a big concern.
The project doesn’t make sense anymore. It was supposed to run all the way to Battery street. Not it’s just another bastard stepchild of Silent Bob’s reign. A half-assed project with no legs that’s way over priced. Repave Pine street again; Great idea.
Unless it routes to the beltline as designed (meaning dumps out on to battery and eliminates the one way champlain st) the project is useless and pointless.
Do it right, or don’t do it at all.d
Not useless for those in the South End whose local streets carry immense commuter traffic. And not pointless if you consider the plans (hopes) to get lots of commuters to leave their cars at the old GE parking lot and hop a bus (or streetcar) into town.
The decision not to connect with Battery Street was not made by Bob Kiss or the City. Rather, the plan was nixed by the State.
Doug you have a point with the parking lot – bus. I would argue it’s a little pie in the sky hoping but nonetheless, it is a valid point. However less traffic I disagree with. Dumping more traffic down onto Pine/Maple etc instead of dispersing it through other streets isn’t “less traffic.” It maybe less traffic in a particular neighborhood, however at the expense of already congested streets and intersections.
I didn’t say less traffic. Only that existing traffic on most neighborhood streets would be vastly reduced. Unfortunately, traffic at King / Maple and Pine will not be reduced (but it already sucks). That’s why it’s so maddening that the state said no regarding a direct link to Battery.
It’s possible that can be revisited later if and when the rail yards are relocated.
Oh, that doesn’t matter. Whatever is wrong is the fault of Bob Kiss. It frees up your mind not to have to think.
With peak energy and climate change staring us in the face, why on Earth would
we want to spend a dime of public money building new infrastructure to
facilitate peoples’ use of private fossil-fuel powered vehicles? In my view,
such expenditure would fly in the face of reality and amount to fiduciary
irresponsibility. If it isn’t obvious by now, what we desperately need are
investments in areas like local organic agriculture, zero-emission public
transportation, local renewable energy generation, radical energy efficiency (in
particular, super insulating our homes and businesses) and reducing our energy
and resource usage through radical energy- and resource-conservation, and
widespread and effective public education campaigns to ensure that citizens are
able to make educated decisions about our very real and disturbing future.
I encourage everyone to move against the construction
of new roads and instead take real steps to invest in the well-being and health
of our natural and human community.
Oh, great. Take traffic from one part of the city and re-route it to another. Terrific idea.
What needs to be done is to convert the existing I-89 spur South of Shelburne Rd. to a commuter lot and keep the cars out of the city entirely. Run the shuttle/tolley/even light rail from that lot to downtown.
The City of Burlington administrators have no foresight whatsoever. Pushing through a plan that was developed 40 years ago is ludicrous. There is no truck traffic in the South End anymore other than local delivery, and car traffic throughout the city is getting worse. Try developing a plan for alleviating traffic congestion in the city, not exacerbating it.