 All right, thank you all so much for being here tonight for the Winooski have transportation study My name is Chapin Spencer director of public works and great to see so many folks on a cold night tonight to enjoy a Warm room tonight to talk about the Winooski have corridor Pleased to have everybody here. Thanks for the city counselors who are here tonight Thank you to staff and the Regional Planning Commission who has worked on this project From its inception and our consultants tonight resource systems group and third sector associates This project started about last summer and has progressed to this point tonight where we're going to talk about recommendations and I want to say that we've set this format up to have an efficient Overview of the recommendations tonight provided by the consulting team and then there will be some questions From the floor as a large group and then we're going to want to break out into small groups where there will be Opportunities to provide comments around the room So with that I'm going to invite up John Slason from resource systems group to provide an overview of the project Yes, there will be Q&A after the presentation Yes, yes, there will be an opportunity for questions after the presentation absolutely All right. Thank you Chapin So thank you everybody This heat is here disturbing my pieces of paper here, but so I'm Jonathan Slason And I'm here with a resource systems group and as Chapin mentioned We're a part of a team here with Du Bois and King They were the other consultant team that was left off with also street plans Mike line from New York City and his team They've been advising us with some some interesting ideas and helping us evaluate these these options So tonight I'm going to go through an introduction of why we're here tonight Introduction to some of the challenges that we're experiencing this corridor and why this project has come to be and then we want to Introduce I want to verbally go through the options that are shown in the boards to the left and To my right and to my left as well as we have a 3d model as well and the idea is that we have a lot of people here and to Chairman's About the public forum. I think we need to balance how much time do we have for a conversation during this this format of this meeting is Set up that we're selected that we're soliciting comments via Verbal as well as written at these stations and the project team will be manning these stations at the end of this presentation So we'll be receiving as many comments as possible But during this presentation, I'll be inviting you to ask questions throughout and if you have Clarification questions as to what what I'm communicating and what the options mean for us So we're here on the on the Winooski Avenue transportation study And this has been an 18 month project or so so far and we're hoping to wrap up in the early part of next year So what is this study? This study is a comprehensive transportation study of the entire Winooski Avenue corridor from Riverside down to Howard and Then it's aimed at developing a multimodal improvement strategy to address safety capacity and connectivity and The final deliverable will mean an actionable Implementable plan with near-term and longer-term recommendations and we know that some of the recommendations here are challenging and That is that is part of any study and we have some some recommendations for how we can move ahead later on in this presentation So why are we here? We realize that this is a heavily used corridor. It's a diverse corridor Diverse land uses diverse users. It's a comprehensive corridor study has not yet been conducted Even though we've been studying this quarter from 2000 onwards to various various ways We realize it's a gateway to the city, but sometimes it doesn't feel that way It's a multimodal facility. That's inconsistent and not intuitive for all users We realize that seven out of the 20 priority intersections in the plan BTV walk bike study are Along the Winooski Avenue corridor study 16% of bicycle crashes and 17% of pedestrian crashes in the city in the last five years have occurred along the corridor and then V Trans has identified several high crash locations along the corridor Earlier plans have identified other opportunities from the reconnections of St. Paul and Pine Street And we realize that that would have opportunities for further changes on on Winooski And then lastly we know that the one of the larger studies that has been completed by the city the plan BTV walk bike has identified that this product that this corridor be improved with some Bicycle facilities some protected bicycle facilities But we realize through the course of this evaluation and the initial phases of this study is that there's been no holistic Corridor-wide appreciation of how to integrate all of these plans and challenges that have been identified So the initial parts of the project is to identify a vision where where do we want to go as a community and I'll introduce the pack the project advisory committee in a little bit But the project advisory committee worked on identifying What are the aspects of what would be a vision for this corridor that the city would accept? And so these are the bullet points that we've identified is that traveling along and across Winooski Avenue will be safe inviting and Convenient for people of all ages and abilities using any mode Walking and bicycling will be viable and enjoyable ways and improvements will encourage active travel within the city businesses will flourish and remain Flourishing with an activated streetscape and convenient access along and near to the corridor And we realized that mobility meaning through mobility as well as local access and parking needs we balanced for both property owners residents and businesses and the greater transportation system in Burlington and We realized that the street has to adapt we realized that when we move curbs and we move Significant infrastructure We're less able to respond to the transportation systems And so we need to develop a policy and a system that would allow us to be flexible for the future So just a brief introduction to the study process and where we are to date is that we had an existing conditions meeting On September 5th of 2018 and then we went through a public meeting number two and here we are in public meeting number three And then over the course of that we've engaged with the project advisory committee and we've had six meetings to date And I think just it would be really helpful for me And I think for everybody here just to I want to appreciate the effort that the pack is put in and I think for past and current members of the pack. Would you just please raise your hand? Yeah, thank you. Thank you for Because the pack is is an important role within this project is that they're a they're a representative Group that's meant to engage with it with the local residents and the businesses and the community at large While providing their opinion and expertise and so they've they've devoted a significant amount of time to this project And so the next steps from here is that we are going to solicit all is meant to comment and feedback today This is this is a big meeting and that's what obviously from the number of people that are here today You understand that is that we want to get your feedback and that's going to be taken by the project team and the project advisory committee and Incorporate a recommendation for next steps and that's going to inform this implementation plan as well as the draft report That will be then tabled to the pack and then on to the city council So this will be the last time that I think we'll gather in this forum forum But but your comments here will be an instrumental in informing the next steps of the project and Then obviously at the city council meetings, there'll be room for additional public public comment So the schedule from here is that I think this might might Might adapt a little bit based on the amount of comments and the feedback that we get tonight But we're here in the third public meeting And then we do show the fourth public meeting occurring at the city council meeting when we would go to the draft report And and discuss the implementation plan that we've anticipated And then we would end up sometime completing in the early part of next year. So, how did we get here? I mentioned that we've studied the corridor since early 2000s a number of different ways And a lot of that has been traffic and car mobility in the early part of the years and then later It's been focused on multimodal and appreciating that there's a diverse set of needs and users that need to be accommodated within this Within this corridor now So I spoke last time we met in this forum And I don't want to go through at length of some of the challenges And I think I already just articulated some of the safety challenges that we have But this corridor has has a lot of traffic volume. It has a high degree of parking demand It has a lot of safety challenges that we have and therefore we needed to bring this this this project up So I'm not going to go through a lot of what what the existing challenges I think a lot of them are obvious and we have reports on the website And we have other previous documentation that's available that could walk you through all of the existing conditions and so where I pick up is is where we left off last time we were in this room and We had some charts over there that I think was causing some confusion and apologize for that But we came up the pack the project advisory committee and the project team came up with 13 variations of improving this corridor now When I've been involved in corridor studies for the last 15 years and It's very seldom do you see that extensive analysis of 13 variations now generally They aligned under three different headers if you will so we had alternative one alternative two and alternative three And then there were sub variations of those alternatives Just a quickly to introduce those and this is what we where we left off last time we met as a public meeting Is that we had alternative one and that to generally characterize these alternatives as alternative one basically had bicycle facilities unprotected traditional bike lanes along the corridor and then there were variations which widen the corridor to Maintain certain a number of parking spaces We have some widening here. We have some options that keeps the existing curb line here We have some existing options that keep the curb line but change the roadway paint So I don't want to go in length, but that's generally where we were we have 13 variations and different cross sections that we're analyzing Alternative two is that this option widened the road and also had protected bicycle facilities and that's generally what characterized alternative to and Lastly we had alternative three which generally can characterize as the two-way cycle facility along the east side of the road and That's what is shown in this kind of double green line here And so these were schematics they didn't go in detail in terms of the width of the corridor They identified general impacts that that could be quantified and we realized that now the details matter and That's why we're here today but first I thought I would kind of Go here quickly as to what we heard so we did go through an extensive Engagement process we've met and particularly Brian Davis from the RPC But also Nicole Lush from the from the public works they've engaged with over 20 different distinct groups and organizations along the corridor as well as then other interested parties and generally what we can summarize what we've heard is that There is there is a significant interest in continuous dedicated bicycle lanes and they're critical if we're going to change the mode shift that the city is looking to to Realize and get more people on bikes on bikes We also heard that street trees in the green strip is critical for for an inviting corridor for a streetscape let alone the environmental benefits And we realized that the main to Pearl corridor the downtown corridor what we're calling here has a particular Issue is that we do see the highest number of safety issues arise there But I think the by and large the comments are overwhelming that there are these are some of the the Adjectives that people have described the the main to Pearl as aggressive stressful dangerous and unattractive and Then lastly we do know that there's a high demand of parking and particularly in the North Manuski corridor section And so we have some specific actions that we'll discuss for that segment of the corridor So where are we're where are we going is that we have 13 variations of this project We identified evaluation criteria and last time we met we had a board up here that said what do you think about that these evaluation criteria and Overwhelmingly people identified that they that they valued those criteria that they were appropriate to use and then through that process We analyzed the 13 variations and we resulted in some near and long-term options for the corridor The final evaluation criteria that were used were these ones that I have in back of me some of them used calculated metrics some of them were used engineering judgment and What resulted was that we could come up with then they kind of went through a filter of understanding how practical Came out of that analysis process. How could they be balanced and consistent along the corridor? We didn't want to have a Two-way cycle facility on one block and then the immediate block a regular bike lane and so those Consistencies were something that we were we were looking at through this process And then we came up with the options Now this chart here, I'm happy to take questions later on after this presentation But just to walk you through this quickly is that it's a it's a it's kind of a heat chart Is that the red is typically poor or bad and the green is good? Yeah, this will be available on the on the website and I will have I will have my hand out here on A table if anybody's curious for some of the more detailed, but just to walk you through quickly is that Street trees for instance this particular option this to be had this red option this one impacted the street trees more Significantly than other options We realized that for transit the two-way bicycle facility on the east side of the road Within our narrow right-of-way. We had a very difficult time to accommodate Adequate safe unloading and loading access for transit so those options were weighted as poor for transit and then also Pedestrian and parking changes you can street the change in the green strip width and cost So some of the options that widened the road that move the curb line Those have a darker color associated with them Sure sure sorry. Yes. I apologize if you can't read that so we have bicycle level of stress And this is a font. This is a metric that we that we covered in previous meetings computers still on All right, Cory Do you want me to read those titles? Is it helpful just to read them through right now? All right That's right. They are the criteria metrics that were on the previous slide there So we have bicycle level of stress. That's a metric That's a nationally identified metric to identify how a bicycle perceives the environment bicyclist then there Is a pedestrian quality of service Then there's the number of parking spaces changed or altered in the alternative. There's the number of street trees impacted Then there is the change in the green strip width there is the cost and Then there's a neighborhood access metric which is changing of do you change two directional vehicle lanes? Or are you only in one lane vehicle lanes? And then there's a vehicle operations and safety metric which is all about whether the vehicles are slowed or or or hastened on on their operations and then lastly there's a transit Metric and that is how transit would be served in the alternative. I Did notice that the power looked to be off on the on the projector itself. It has a red mark. Can I press? Then I'm happy to go through and it'll be We can continue on. Oh, so do you think like the voltage or something? All right, let's let's see what we can do here quickly. It's blinking green now And I do have our projector in the car that's that's lamp replace. Oh boy So Cory do you want to go get my projector or we want to just continue on because all right because we do all The graphics that we have here are on these boards So thank you everybody bear with us Yeah, that'd be great. Yeah, can we do that? Hey, Cory. Can you grab an easel too? Oh, did it come on as well? Okay, great Yeah Okay. All right, we'll get into this All right So if we can't see these I'm gonna I'm gonna go through this a little quicker because we want to get into the meat of this We walked through this Then we have intersections as well. There was a separate set of criteria here I'm not gonna read all of these but generally they talked about some of the same criteria as whether it right of way of impact Safety operations how they accommodate bicycle and pedestrians how they accommodate cars how they accommodate parking and transit and We have identified how intersections would be configured in this corridor by and large We're gonna suggest keeping the intersections largely intact as they are and There's some reasons for that is that there's some significant projects on the horizon particularly for Main Street And then we also have some opportunities to put in some mini roundabouts in the northern part of the corridor And we expect to probably to pilot those or test those out to see how they perform in the downtown area We found that the traffic signals I think are the most reasonable for the limited right of way that we have and they they checked out to be Adequate in terms of our criteria here So if we look at all the intersections, you'll see there is not a lot of changes out the on the corridor at an intersection level So here we are the the corridor options we're gonna walk through what we have identified as as a shorter term option and The reason why it's a shorter term option is that it's a balance is that first and foremost It improves safety and convenience for all users It reallocates road space between Main Street and Pearl Street and that's shown in all of the different options that we have and Then it shortens some of the intersection crossings and comms traffic at intersections namely at Main Street We have an opportunity to remove some of the right-hand turn lanes there It creates a connected contiguous north-south bicycle facility It retains the existing parking on the west side of the corridor and It does improve access For residents and businesses making it to a north of North Street in this shorter term option These are the intersection options that we showed Basically, we say on Main Street. We can improve the intersection a little bit We show that maybe that Union and North Street. There's an opportunity for a mini roundabout there It should be tested and piloted, but generally everything that we've suggested Aligns with what's there today with some enhancements for safety So this is a graphic that is shown on these charts here on the left in the right of the room So Riverside to North Street The short-term proposal is that we do remove the east side parking to accommodate the multimodal facilities of improved bicycle facility along the whole corridor and That we would retain the west side parking and the reason for that is that there's fewer parking spaces on the east side There's more curb cuts on the east side More driveways. There are opportunities for stormwater improvements pedestrian improvements at intersections And then we do improve the connectivity by making it two-way vehicle from North Street North Now we realize that the impacts are significant on the parking and the people who utilize the parking in that section of the Of the road and we know that it's highly utilized This is a balanced option that has come through an evaluation process not a very evaluation process You balance cost parking street trees right of way everything gets balanced and this is the outcome We realize and so our proposal is that a parking management plan will be conducted prior to any changes Along this section of the corridor and that is our recommendation from the project team And I believe the city has it has agreed that that is a critical action that would be undertaken Now this is the opportunity if we want to do some comments We have an option is that I think there's a lot more fruit in some comments that we can make Afterwards, but if you have a comment that you want to make or a question that you want to make now Please raise your hand and I'm gonna try to control a little bit on time We want to get through these slides So to give everybody a summary of what we were what we found and I want to respect everyone's time So I want to if we get too far off a line. I'm gonna respectfully ask that that I get back the floor So still you're free Number two, it really comes down to here, honestly Down to honestly respectfully say don't waste our time it comes down to biking and parking That's it Most people in this room. That's what they care about and I would like this conversation to be focused on that My name is Jason van Draysch When I started with local motion in 2009 The new ski av was the number one thing that anybody who biked or who wanted to bike It was too afraid to do so brought up as their top priority when I left local motion in 2018 nine years later same thing This alternative that's put forth here is practical. It's fair. It's implementable. It should have been done years ago It's clear that there's many complications that meant that we're dealing with it now But this is the right plan and it's the time and it needs to happen And I'm so excited to be here tonight So I Can you repeat the question? Yeah, so the question was that the what was the why did the two-way? Shake out in terms of this option and you'll see in the longer-term option is that the actual widening or the two-way facility was shown to be the Widening, I don't want to say widening the option for two-way vehicle traffic was actually shown to be a high Ranking option north of Pearl Street period so from Pearl all the way to Riverside would be two-way And then that would means from Main Street to Riverside would be two-way But what to what that means is that we would have to widen the curve in the area north between Pearl and North Street and that means that it's no longer in the shorter-term option And so by having the widening from North Street to Union in this case That is achievable within the existing curb width that we have and it was identified as one of the metrics And it was and it was it came out as the higher higher ranked option So if that answers a question You're talking about taking off half the parking that's going to hit on a lot of people I work seven in the morning. That's part of my street on the street. I have to walk I live past the meters, so I had to walk, you know However many blocks like a compartment space to get home At the end of the night like like this. I just want to make sure that I get to look that So So to address kind of two of those questions or comments is that the parking management plan For those not familiar and I want to get these inputs because the parking management plan is not yet established It's not a scope of work But the general idea of a parking management plan is that you do first a supply count How much physical space is? appropriate for a vehicle to be stored there for a length of time and then you'd be identified who are the users of that of that space Who's able to use it? What distance do they have to walk? between a house and that parking space and so you'd be connecting that supply and that demand side and The opportunities would be that can some parking spaces be Shared between various users and so it's a it's a complicated study and that needs to be done because I think it's by and large we're hearing it again tonight that there's a lot of demand and and Removing the parking is cannot be done without a more thorough investigation. So Chapin. Should we move on or? Sure, and I can repeat Yes, so the parking management plan would be done before Parking spaces would be removed in this section of the corridor the North Avenue to North Street I think the plan I Don't want to miss I don't want to misspeak I am the consultant hired for the project team and my advice would be that the plan would have a high degree of buy-in from the local the local stakeholders Is that a political answer? In the white shirt there Explain to us what the connectivity problem is now that's trying to be solved by two-way traffic because So The connectivity is that for local residents and businesses you might know how to navigate the street network So the comment was what is the connectivity issue that we're trying to solve? And so it was identified early in the project that if you looked at the Winooski Avenue corridor as a whole Depending on which mode you travel on you have various degrees of difficulty to get where you're going Depending on where you came from along the corridor, and so there's segments here that are one way southbound only There's some segments that have two way for cars. There's some segments that are southbound only for bicycles There's some segments that have no bicycles. We are very fortunate to have two-way pedestrian Facilities along the whole section of the length of the corridor So the idea is that depending on as the vision has said we want to be a multimodal connectivity Connected corridor, and so that's where that metric came from So I want to maybe take two more questions, and then we'll kind of continue on Laura first and then I mean I know from my perspective I know a lot of people in this neighborhood don't own a car So the bike lanes are important to them, but I think there are other reasons right it might be helpful to remind us all That's that's a tough question Laura is that so what is the benefit of a multimodal corridor if I could Yeah, well, I mean I don't know if the city wants to answer that is that I would have my own Conjecture, but there is a whole walk bike plan that articulates a number of benefits of a multimodal corridor And I don't want to go at length there, but First and foremost the the vision here goes back to safety and accessibility for all users And so there are there are benefits of connecting people where they're at and giving them the flexibility to travel Because not everybody has the same means or or ability to travel by by every mode So I was going to go the last comment here Just a couple things one Blocks the way we offer private parking residential only for some some people But a person that lives a block away you can't go park on their street because it's residential only I just have a really Big problem with that and I think the other thing I think that I'd like to say It's nice to have these events and it's great to have everybody show up We want to hear their input, but how much does it really matter? I think the city and the mayor administration has the answer that question. We heard from director Baldwin that street designs sidewalk designs are Changing and the people going to bar get used to it when they like or not because this is the way it's going to be So does our voice really matter and do our opinions really matter or their minds made up and they're going to do it Anyways, and I don't I do have an opinion on this project. My opinion really doesn't matter Right, but as a whole all of us together if we come out to the vet like this Are we wasting our time really because that's the message from the city of the administration Right, they've already got an agenda. They have a plan. They're going to do it Whether we like it or not that came right from public works themselves So I would like to move on and we can have comments after this presentation to solicit more more feedback and To the project team and and and for the purposes of any study Comments do matter and it is important to to bring them up because we track all of them It's in a it's in a documented reported Fashion and so any of these comments that are being Spoken tonight as well as written down We have all of them from the previous public meetings available on the internet So that everybody can look at them and they will all be part of the appendices of this of this large report So I very much appreciate your input because already input has changed I think the trajectory of this study There was no foregone conclusion that that we walked into this with so I would encourage please maintain Your enthusiasm for the project for or against and tell us the challenges, but please submit your comments so They can go to the tables and there will I think there should be the project website available Diane has What do you have Diane? Yeah, there's so there's meeting evaluation there's sheets at the at the front There's these handouts that we have there's the post-it notes Everything will be collected photographed and documented after this meeting. Yeah, so scumming further south quick question process question All right, so Like Well, the process will go into a report and to the city council, so I'm gonna I'm gonna keep going please please let Is this a process question? I Never got another notice And I work hard so I haven't been real involved I do have one question has any you talked about bicycle accidents Pedestrian accidents Which pretty much seems to put the blame on drivers is what I'm hearing how many studies has anybody done Because I do drive places because I have a business and I have to lead funerals and do that sort of thing How many people have ever studied how many bicyclists actually follow? Any of the rules I thought from my childhood that bicycles were to follow the same rules of the road I don't even think you'd have this problem if people on bicycles Went south on my street and north on Union Street It's one extra block to go and if they happen to stop at North Wenuski before turning left Or before blowing the intersection of when you see in Grant I get your message and I don't know the answer They need to be trained and to follow rules All right. Hey Jason Jason. Hey. Hey, all right, you know, I'm gonna I'm gonna I'm gonna just say thanks everybody I really like the enthusiasm. We still have some good things to get through so so bear with me. All right Thanks, John to President Wright's question after this presentation There will be additional opportunity for Q&A at the end of the presentation, and then we will break up into small groups Absolutely So Q&A or public statements will be made in a large group and then we will transition to the small groups. Thank you So we'll get through the content here first So so going further south here is that we can see a similar cross-section is the North Street to Pearl Street segment and this is what I mentioned to to Ryan here in the front is that I'll show a longer-term option there in the future but this also Proposes that on the east side the parking be removed to accommodate improved facilities for other modes and That we would retain just the southbound vehicle lane in this segment and again The parking management plan would have to include areas of this as well and we realize that the land use is different So that's why these segments are broken up Now going into the downtown section this is the Pearl Street to Main Street section now I think we've seen this roadway configuration in elsewhere in the city It's a two-way left turn lane in the middle of the road So we would have one travel lane in each direction with the ability for people to sit in that center lane and turn left Or to access the the roadway from the driveway And so it'd be a reallocation of the existing curb space and this by and large addresses a Significant number of the challenges that have been identified in this corridor this studied There was a previous phase of this work That identified that the traffic analysis would work here This also works with some of the work that's happening on Bank Street Which shows down in this little graphic down here And then we've also been working with City Market and other affected stakeholders that have a lot of a lot of traffic in This in this corridor that this option would work for them in terms of access for trucking and other another facilities So this option has proposed in all of the the variations that was shown earlier the 13 variations All have this option and then this is carried into the short-term option now further south We have a more limited width to work with the right-of-way Shortens or shrinks down to 58 feet or so and the short-term option is that we maintain the two-way vehicle traffic south of Main Street today and We would remove the east side parking spaces again There's 12-metered spaces there today, and we would retain the 13 on the west side and This way we can continue the bicycle facilities and do some sidewalk enhancements and Intersection improvements at both the Main Street and the King Street intersection Now what we propose south of King Street is that we would alter the vehicle lanes from today's It's two-way vehicle traffic on that one block North of Maple Street that would be turned to one direction southbound So in essence the southbound direction would would start now sooner or start further to the north and What we would do there is keep the west side parking This is the most utilized parking in in the corridor is that that west side parking is currently highly utilized And it will remain to be so I expect and so that west side parking will remain And then we propose adding the bicycle facilities along that segment and Then that this is the cross-section that exists today south of Maple Street So that cross-section remains the same as today It's shown that it's been highly successful people have been happy with the outcome I think the residents as well as local commuters have seen that the traffic Flow hasn't been affected and safety has been improved along those that section And so we propose that that the section south of Maple Street today just gets further extended north to King Street Now as I mentioned and alluded to there's opportunities for some longer-term options and generally this falls into the bucket of when we can widen curb and when money becomes more available for us to make some additional improvements and then Lastly we need to be responsive to these other more significant projects such as the Great Street projects And so those are continuing on their own trajectories, and so we didn't want to interfere with those projects So we're looking at what options would we recommend and as I've mentioned Previously is that the north street to Pearl Street section which in the short term remains just southbound is that that would be widened the curb to facilitate two-way vehicle traffic and so in essence from Main Street all the way up to Riverside We would have two-way vehicle traffic in this proposal And we would maintain the west side parking and This is a long-term option clearly. There's the challenges of the parking that remain today There's the idea that maybe we do additional widening to to increase the number of parking spaces There there there could be a myriad of other improvements here as well But it was something that was identified out of the out of the 13 variations that were identified earlier This was an option that rose to the top, but we identified it in a long-term trajectory and Then the other long-term option is this lower Main Street to King Street option Where we would now reduce the vehicle lanes to one direction And what that would do is improve some of the efficiency at the Main Street intersection It would then enable us to put protected bicycle facilities along this section of road Without widening the curb And so we put this in the long term because we would have to We would have to change the vehicle the vehicle movements more significantly So here we are we're going to take some more comments But I want to introduce quickly some of the next steps of this project as part of any study You start with a vision you go through needs and challenges You start to identify in the options and the suite of alternatives and that's where we came up with the 13 options We came up with the evaluation criteria that we vetted and came up and everybody agreed these are the measures that we think are important and Today we're showing you the results of that process The typical process that out that follows is the implementation plan and the implementation plan Identifies the challenges to get where we want to go and we already realized that there are some significant hurdles I think the parking is a significant one let alone There's some others and more nuanced challenges of how to accommodate some other users along the corridor So that Implementation step the first thing that we're identifying today is that potentially these three segments can be pursued Independently and they can have different time horizons and different actions that the city can then take So the idea is that we can separate the south which would be Main Street south And then the downtown which we Main Street to Pearl Street and then we would have the north segment north of Pearl Street And these three areas are what the boards have been identified as here and lying down here And this is where we want to get your comments not only on the concepts But also the feasibility of separating it out like this and The idea is roughly that the south segment can be pursued the soonest or on an earlier trajectory the impacts are fewer and They're more they're more limited to a few parking spaces as well as some of the vehicle The vehicle lanes the vehicle traffic is less significant in that corridor and it would improve the safety for all users So we see that the south could initiate preliminary design and engineering Which is the the term the technical terminology for the next step of planning And then we would engage around there are some parking spaces being proposed to be lost We would engage with the local community about potentially closing the northbound traffic lane between King and Maple Street Looking at what that would have what that would do And so that could be something undertaken or at least initiated in the next calendar year by by the DPW Then the next segment is the downtown segment The next segment is that there could we could initiate the preliminary design and engineering there needs to be some significant work on the traffic signals as well as some of the turning lanes and identify how the Corridor actually needs to look and then we would be doing some more focused engagement with particularly high generators We'd be looking at the parking garage along the corridor and making sure that all those all those movements would work within that within that idea of what we proposed and Then so that's in the more of the medium time frame It could be a few years out before we actually see anything because it takes some time and then lastly is that in that later category is in that north and So the first steps is that we have to conduct that mark parking management plan so much to the point that that that we that we heard is that the parking management plan has to Be carried out with a high degree of confidence that people realize that there might be some impacts But today that proposal of impact might be too dramatic And how can we find some middle-of-the-road alternatives? What options exist? Can we is it management? Do we need to find some more parking supply? Whatever it might be and so that will be the first part that needs to be progressed and then through that process It will be engaging with the community on the array of impacts And then we also propose that might be some mini roundabouts proposed at North Street potentially or at the Union Decatur intersection And so we could do some pilot pilot testing of some of those proposals So that is what we are tabling today as a potential next steps of this project and in terms of the implementation plan Now I believe that Director Spencer has identified that we want to open up the floor for additional comments These were some questions that I had proposed in terms of when we opened up the tables and when you're adding post-it notes But I think you know it's 6.04. We have technically until 7 o'clock Do we want to do something for 20 minutes 25 minutes until 6 30 is that is that too long is that? All right, so we had a microphone That was out in the audience here Do we know where that red there's gonna be a lot of people speaking to please keep your comments concise So everyone gets a chance great. Thank you Thanks Patrick Concise question. Is there a way to have our cake and eat it, too? I Think it's safe to say the room most people would support both increased bike usage bike lanes and also protecting people's ability to Have a car if the car is something that is required for their life and to have a place to park So is there a way to do both? Let me first say that the corridor we are constrained. This is a key gateway corridor We have 66 feet of right-of-way of public land to deal with in that northern part It goes down to 58 feet in this southern tier. I think in the near term there can be some quick wins I think in the south and even the downtown Frankly, I'm convinced that those options can go without a lot of direct impact to the adjacent adjacent community Now in the north, I think they're gonna be some short-term options How can we utilize the Union Street bike bike facilities that are there? How can we do some near-term things to enhance the current option? So I think it's gonna be suboptimal, but we can do some things to enhance what we've already done today So that's probably the closest that we can do to getting our cake and eating it, too Otherwise we're gonna have some we are gonna have some tough decisions down the road and we realize that we this study has not addressed all those challenges We already have some microphones going so I guess if you get the microphone you get to speak. Is that what we're doing? So I'll give you the floor I I just I'd like to address the why you're not using the parking for Separating the cars from the bicycles. It seems to me it'd be very easy to move the bicycles over to the inside of The curb with the cars out protecting the bike lanes I don't I see it in one or two spots there, but I don't see it in all the way through there I'm always in favor of separated bike lanes where the cars can't hit the bikes and Using parking to protect the bicyclists. So we we did definitely evaluate that and it's a high Benefit corridor for the bikes But in this corridor we have a lot of driveways and driveways Challenge that particular issue because of the safety of both the bicyclists along the curb and also just the visibility outside Don't tell me that there's too many driveways Yeah, even if you got the bike path on the other side you still have to cross the bike path But you still got to cross the driveway But it's worse because you got cars part point point taken we can agree to to disagree on that point just slightly But I we evaluated it and it's definitely it's a great facility where it where it where appropriate You with the red microphone And I don't I don't want to defend or you know There was a process that we carried out and everything has merit But also there are cons and and I'm happy to go into that in depth where appropriate so we can have a conversation offline Is this on okay? There we go. Thank you. Thank you so much for all the work you're putting into this Presentation I had a really really specific comment about the southernmost section where there's two bike lanes I guess that's King to Howard which means that one bike lane is going against traffic Is there an intention to put some kind of bollards or protection there? And I'm speaking specifically as a mom who bikes with her daughter that way to the public library and to school Many days of the year and I've literally had her in front of me and seen trucks coming 40 miles an hour with people texting on their phones as they approach us in that lane And you know, I I'm so grateful that there's those lanes But when you watch a vehicle approaching your child at 40 miles an hour and the driver's head is down and they're clearly texting The fact that there's a bike lane painted on the ground is not enough So so the truth is is that the width and what we're showing here does not show a Buffered a or a ballard protected facility It might have to require moving the curb a little bit I know the city's always been interested in trying to get that there So the green microphone there you go Hello, okay great. Yeah, I was just wondering to see if you guys looked at using diagonal bikes spaces or parking spaces and how much or how many more parking spaces that creates versus parallel parking spaces So I'm sorry repeat the first part of that So how many more like parking spaces are created by implementing diagonal parking spaces like we see on Main Street from Nectar's Versus parallel parking spaces. We didn't evaluate this simply because the width that's required then and so I think early on we kind of Maybe prematurely, but I think we discounted that just because we're already struggling for width So it may not work and it typically you get about 10 15% maybe more spaces So I'm from local motion. I just want to make I guess not a comment more than anything just for context I've watched this city grow since I was in college and and you're right that there are you know There are some bikers that bike badly in town. I see that too However, what's happening here is that there are a lot more people trying to get in the road And it's not just a couple of people it is families. It is new Americans It was young families that want to have one carts people who can't afford to have a car at all and wait until e-bikes start showing up There's going to be more that it's happening everywhere in the country And so I think it's a really good time to be thinking about how do we use our quarters to the best effect? And I think it feels like now or never I think that we are a city that aspires to attract young families here and young workers and businesses and to do that We need to have an infrastructure that works for everybody and I commend you all all of you that have been working on this for For trying to do something that's pretty challenging, but I think there's a solution here I think that you know from our perspective. You're pretty close to it. We have 80 people in the last week have signed on to a survey petition that then endorses the Continuous bike lanes in both from the whole corridor because it's time as Jason mentioned earlier It's been sitting around for a long time. They also kind of agree with us that supporting The the priority should be the dangerous areas which are between Main Street and Pearl Street That's an area that if any of you walk there or bike there or drive there It doesn't work for any of those modes of transportation So so stay at it But I think it's important that all of us who who are here living and working We think about the fact that it's that everybody has to survive in the city at the same time And we need to find ways to have parking and have bikes and have cars And we don't have that now in that quarter So open your minds a little bit to create ways of doing this and if to your point about the bad behavior Those those green things that they're showing the bike lanes in places where those exist when you're in a city that has those People that are on bikes behave much better because they know where they're supposed to be and when I'm on Winooski I'm never quite sure because it changes and it changes and I can't see so I I understand I Understand and so am I and so But I think that's a point I think there's more we can be more on the same page if we're focusing on something that works for everybody Thank you both. I think we got it. Is does the green microphone? Is that around? Yeah, go for it So as somebody that's been living and working in Burlington for about 20 years And had lived in the North Winooski corridor and worked downtown for a very long time You know, I've thought about these these issues a lot over the years I think you know the comment that Jason from Local motion made earlier about Winooski Avenue being the scariest place to bike as a biker The scary part of North Winooski is downtown. It's not the old north end It's it's not north of Pearl north of Pearl's fine You can manage on a bike north of Pearl no problem just the way it is today Sure, there are things that could be better absolutely But where it gets scary is when you get to Pearl Street and then from Pearl to Maine where there are no bike lanes Where there's four lanes of vehicles going in both directions where you have to fend for your life And it's scary as hell You know, I am all in favor of the improvements that are proposed for that section of Winooski Avenue from Pearl domain Giving us a road diet a turn lane down the middle. Frankly, that's gonna work better for vehicle circulation Than what we have today. What scares me is is what's being proposed for North Winooski Avenue You said in the beginning multimodal is a key term your vision statement captures it all all modes all abilities Viable businesses. That's what I saw and what I heard. I see in North Winooski I see a scenario that's really about bikes over everything else and and that's what I have a problem with I've also seen a Sketch of a scenario that what Brian Pine talked about is everybody wins There's a scenario where we maintain all the parking We have bike lanes in both directions and and we have cars moving in both directions It's just frankly excuse my French fucking expensive and the city can't afford it right now But let's be honest about that and let's not pretend like there isn't an everybody wins solution There is you also talked about we need near and long-term options, right? So the near-term option is making it better than it is today But not losing half of the parking and the long-term option is the one we can't afford right now But let's make that our long-term goal. Let's make our near-term goal making things better Making things safer making things work for all modes, but not sacrificing half of the parking We have a business on North Winooski Avenue. Our business doesn't live and die by a local Constituency alone we we we live and die in every business on North Winooski Avenue Every organization on North Winooski Avenue lives and dies by a regional customer base And a lot of those regional customers are coming by car and there isn't off-street parking for those folks They have to park on the street. We've also developed at a density along the North Winooski Avenue corridor North Winooski Avenue corridor is one of the densest parts of the city and we've developed at a density Historically and in recent times. We've encouraged very low off-street parking ratios We've been able to do that because we have adequate on-street parking to support those tenants and neighbors Let's not make a mistake. Let's not be short-sighted. Let's implement the long-term vision But let's do some short-term improvements that don't sacrifice parking over bikes. Thank you The other We have the green one again. Is the red one still around? Yeah, right there red one. Yeah, there you go The red one next So you went through when the power went out there on the on the projector You went through the evaluation criteria. You came to some conclusions There was a whole bunch of things that were considered leading up to that and it seemed like a pretty good evaluation I'm curious what benefit are we gonna get on top of that that will help us make decisions When you speak of the parking management plan And then on top of that like where does that normally come in is is the parking management plan? Something that is usually done in this sort of scenario, or is it I'm just curious if you talked about having consultants from New York City about You work in other places. Is this a normal piece of the process By and large if if I understand the question correctly the parking management plan is Traditionally not part of a corridor study and this follows a traditional Planning approach we have the Regional Planning Commission here and and there's a there's a federal process that happens under corridor studies and You typically go through this process as I articulated just a bit ago where we are at this now the point of developing Alternatives and we went we went through an evaluation criteria and parking loss was one of the criteria but only one out of several and This is the result out of that process if if there were fewer criteria or if parking was elevated in Magnitude maybe something else which would come out So this is the where we are today and we've already identified that the parking management plan is the first step toward a Maybe developing in between an interim today or today's condition Which doesn't work for a lot of people toward maybe an interim condition that is somewhere between here in the near term The parking management plan is part of that solution So I think we've already identified and the information that's coming from other studies and an external experiences Burlington is difficult. We're a small urban area and particularly to to Eric's point there is that we've developed more densely without some supply of parking and frankly where where some cities Have the latter luxury of wide roads and a lot of excess parking. We don't have that here We're an old city So we have to think a little bit now about the next steps and so the parking plan is that next step So hopefully I've answered you effectively there. So, where's the next microphone? Yeah, well Jason we have ten eleven more minutes How many people would like to see bike lanes on the downtown part of this key app next year? Downtown next year So that's that's a quick that's a quick one so the green the green microphone So we have a process here and I want to respect the process Yeah, I In my 15 years, I've seen a few things, but this is fine. So I the process is valuable So let's follow that We have 11 or 10 minutes left and we'll continue to have this dialogue So those with the microphone get the ability to speak so My is more of a comment I'm going to suggest anybody who has a car in the city get themselves a dash camera because judging by the atmosphere I Had somebody I was up here on North Street at the stoplight the light turned green for me Some bike went right in front of me if I had not been quick on the brakes I would have hit them and if I had without my dash cam good chance. I would have been held liable for that so I Suggest everybody in this city with a car get yourself a dash cam to protect yourself Because I guarantee you somebody bike on a bike is gonna cut you off and You're gonna be held responsible All right way the red microphone anywhere Up in front. Okay, so That section of South Manuski between was it King and Maine in the long-term plan you show having the the parking between the The bike lane and the travel lane and also cutting it down to one way in the future I think that's really interesting and pointing on with some other comments about having that in further places or Montreal doing this really well There is that concern about curb cuts where Montreal does this a lot, but they have row homes and not a lot of curb cuts But Montreal is a proper city with blocks that are often one way Was it taken into consideration to have the downtown part of when is he have be one way? Proper with Union heading north south when is he going south all the way up to where they merge up at the top and making a circulation system Natural for that entire corridor so that it would be a homogenous all the way through and provide lots of room for More bike infrastructure and probably better spacing and trees and things like that So I will go back if I can but I'll just verbally go through while I'm flicking through There were a number of studies that by and large Overwhelmingly said that when you ski Avenue should be complete street with Travel lanes in both directions and then there was a study that was done in 2017 That was really traffic-based car-based analysis that said if we put one way on Union to Or to if we made when you ski all what just one directional particularly that downtown section Union Street would have to be widened and there'd be significant parking impacts on Union And so that impact was pretty substantial enough to then recommend that the complete street again the two way particularly in the downtown area that the pearl domain Was really important and then afterwards there's been even greater I think International awareness and a lot of cities that have one-way traffic. They're trying to go back to two-way Where they need particularly businesses benefit from two-way traffic you get that more visibility You get some more action you get the streetscape back at stuff when it's just residential You don't see as so much benefit of the one way versus two way So And there's so those studies are all available on the internet and particularly on this project website is the 2017 study I think has a link to that one, which is the traffic study Yep green microphone. Hi there. It's nice to see city counselors here Landlords tenets business owners and everything and this is a pretty simple question. What is this sit? This I haven't heard anything about the cost of this project the director of public works is here right now So what is this costing for the study and what is the north downtown and south ones are going to cost? We haven't seen anything about any money here. I mean we're spending money on this for sure And you know, we've got a 90 million or 120 million dollar renovation at BHS right now You know, so who's gonna pay for this? Are we getting federal funds tax taxpayers? Are we getting state funds? What's going on with that? So I mean I should get an answer on what this is costing Unfortunately, I don't have that answer right now because and this this option does not move the curb at all and therefore it's So the study itself is around a hundred and sixty thousand dollars. It's an 80 20 match the Federal funds are 80 percent and we're paying 20 percent So that is for the study itself the cost of the recommendations here They they are in the near term recommendations are lower because we do not need to move curb We do need to do additional work to develop conceptual estimates on on the near term Thank you, and then let alone parking management plan and some other costs So that's where the next phase will go into that next depth Where's the red one Hi well Given the city's climate emergency declaration this fall I appreciate the support given in this plan to less greenhouse gas intensive modes of transport That said I was looking at some of the renderings and it seemed like there were some parts that had more trees and some parts I had less and I'm wondering what the sort of thinking was around the amount of trees that will be planted in the different sections Thanks, so that's my fault on the rendering side is that we do have an exact count of the number of trees In this corridor the rendering does not add accurately reflect the street tree number So that's the caveat, but in terms of the Metrics we know exactly how much curb and green strip might be affected by each of those options that we evaluated So sorry about that Hi, I own two buildings on Northlandersky Avenue and a business one of them to my business We need parking obviously for people to shop But there I just noticed by the way I love bicycles too, and I really encourage bike lanes and no poo-pooing bicyclists and the bicyclists You know we're all working together on the streets, right? And we need lots of bike lanes, but I sit out there at five and six o'clock There's traffic a little bit of traffic on the street seven eight o'clock go into not a peep on that street Sometimes after nine o'clock I can stand out in front of my rep of my yard in front of foe And there won't be a car that come until you know maybe ten cars until you know three o'clock four o'clock in the morning When they start to flow again, there's not a lot of flow. I don't know I'm sure you're doing the studies on this, but it seems like we need bikes sweet But but cars more more cars unless you build it. They will come with the philosophy There's only moments when when that's when there needs to be that many that much flow for cars on that street I'm a business and I do you think I'd want it as well But on the other side of the street near Pearl Street And I wanted to speak for Lee who owns the radio bean and and folks that own shallower and stuff They Essential parking for their business down there that people need to stop and go in there And then if you start taking away their sidewalk, you know dining at facilities and and Areas on the sidewalk that they are that's the most vital part of their business You're going to kill those businesses right there in the corner from the shallower down radio bean all the way down To the corner and so those are things that definitely need to be thought about keep the bike lanes going though for sure Don't worry about the cars. The cars are fine Hi, I'm just curious again about the move to go two-way because it seems like If we didn't go two-way on those portions We could have bike lanes and the parking and I it seems like you know There's a With the idea that Councillor Pines said of having your cake and eating it too. I You know, I just haven't heard about the connectivity problem Like I it I've never heard anyone raise it. I'm a pretty involved community member I work on North Winooski Avenue. I've worked there for 25 years. I walk sometimes I drive sometimes I bike sometimes Parking matters and biking matters, but I don't know if anyone cares about connectivity So I will say that the transit benefits helped that option improve because GMT have specifically avoided much of Winooski Avenue for years because of its limited connectivity in two directions and if we talk about accessibility and mobility for people who have Different criteria or different ways of which they're traveling the improvements for transit was part of that process That I think elevated that two-way vehicle option If the comments are coming back and saying look we don't want that I think there's no foregone conclusion that these options are what's going to happen This is a planning study and if the comments from everybody is saying in that section Let's retreat from what's being proposed there. I Think that's that's why we're here tonight Hello. Hi. I Am scared. I am scared of biking on Winooski Ave because Cyclists have largely been ignored by urban planners for years For years have only cared about cars and are now finally starting to care about bikes And I'm scared biking on Winooski Ave I cannot safely bike there and I'm scared of climate change. This is a serious issue the city acknowledges it I'm sure all the people in this room acknowledge that this is a chief problem and that we need to do something about that We cannot sit idly by and not do anything about it That will not change anything these bike lanes are a huge part of creating a safe cycling Infrastructure and getting people out of cars which is important for climate change and to stop the climate epidemic happening. Thank you So it it's 6 30 by my watch and the clock behind me Do we want to we we agreed until this time? I'm president. Do you think we've done our due diligence? I right so I would welcome all of you to Please stick around the project team will be manning the tables here We have the 3d visual on the iPad that I'll boot up again Please your comments matter and I really appreciate all the all the spoken comments today It's been really helpful for me to understand where people are on this corridor And we have stole some food to eat and we're around for another half an hour in this space So thank you all for it coming