 We're good to go. I'd say I can hand it to Chapin to kick it off. Thank you, Olivia. I really appreciate everybody being here. My name is Chapin Spencer. I'm Director of Public Works and very much appreciate the folks in the room and those online for taking time on this quintessentially beautiful late summer evening here to talk about the Rail Yard Enterprise project. And we're entering in a pretty exciting phase of the project and tonight we'll be going over the various alignments that we have been working on and our consulting team has been working on and we are seeking to get your input so that we can in the coming month or two select a preferred alternative or proposed preferred alternative at the City Council in September or October and we're really looking forward to your input tonight. And with no further ado, I'm going to pass it on to Senior Public Works Engineer Corey Mems. Appreciate it. I'm Corey Mems, Project Manager from City Burlington on this project. As Chapin said, just kind of helping to facilitate this next phase of this project that has been going on for a number of years. We are going to start off with just a couple of technical things for those of you who are online. So since we were using Zoom and this is a webinar feature, we just want to make people aware that there are some icons along the bottom of your screen. If your screen is full-sized and which you can interact with for this particular webinar, the chat function is not enabled. You can't put anything on there. We are asking that if you have questions throughout this presentation, there is the Q&A function in order to submit those questions. We will plan to address all questions and comments at the end of the presentation. And we will be going both through those who are here in person as well as those who online have either raised their hand or put forward a question through the Q&A. We don't anticipate stopping during the presentation to address raised hands online. We just ask that you hold those comments, questions till the end. I would be happy to address any of those as we go through the presentation. I'm sorry, Corey, just one thing to add to that slide. If we could have participants rename themselves on Zoom, if you're able, if you can't figure it out, don't worry about it. But when we do get around to questions, it would be great if we had some full names on there that we can use to address participants. It's part of this process. We'd like to take any public comments and have names associated with those comments for our records. So on this, we are looking to go through this presentation and it's going to talk about the introductions to the project where we've been, talk about the project background, the history, the timeline that this project has been underway previously as well as what we're looking to in the future with it, the purpose and need of this project as it has been presented, the project area that we are looking to identify, the alternatives that are being reviewed, as well as we'll get into further conversation on those, the preferred alternative that is currently being identified based upon the data collected, as well as the next steps that this project would take following public feedback as and along the NEPA process, which is what we are currently underway with. And we'll get into that a little bit more. At the end, we'll follow up with questions and comments from anybody, as that's why we're here. Just a quick introduction, the private team, obviously, Chief of Spencer, the Director of Public Works has just spoken. Myself, I'm Corey Mims, I'm a Public Works engineer in the City of Burlington, I'm a project manager on this. I'm sitting here with Mims Norm Baldwin, the City of Burlington, online assisting me in this project is Public Works engineer, Olivia DeRise. Our consultant for this project is Stantec. They are also being assisted through CHA and RSG with Stantec, and with me, Greg Guida, as well as Israel, sorry, make sure I say that right, sorry. So yeah, so we're the project team that's working to evaluate these alternatives that have previously been brought forward and looking to proceed with this project to evaluate it further in this NEPA process. And I just wanted to mention that the project partners are also the trans and the federal highway administration who are helping. They can do that self-assaulted team CHA and RSG leave. Yeah, we have Dale Godlikowski and Jonathan Slason, Dale from CHA and Jonathan from RSG. CHA has helped with the rail design, and CHA has helped with the traffic analysis piece. So I'll just go through some project background for everybody in attendance to get people caught up. This project has been under way for some time now, and you may or may not have been engaged with it in the past, so it would be helpful to have this history as we go through the presentation. So what is the Rallyard Enterprise project? The idea behind the Rallyard Enterprise project is a proposed new roadway connecting High Street, Tire Street. It's a little bit more than that. One of the goals of the project is to make a multi-mobile transportation connection between the two streets. And there have been two studies that have been done up to this point to help get to this process. One was called the Scoping Planning and Environmental Linkages study that was completed in 2016, and then a supplemental scoping study was completed in 2020. And I'll give more into what those two studies accomplished here in the next slide. So the timeline for the project, this project was actively initiated as the Rallyard Enterprise project back in 2012. That first study was completed in 2016. It was initiated in 2013. And then the supplemental scoping study was completed from 2017 to 2020. And what those two studies did, they established a purpose to be for the project. They identified several possible alternatives for making that new transportation connection between Battery and Pine Street, and analyzed a bunch of those alternatives. And at the end of that process of those two studies, the City's Council resolved to support the advancement of three of those alternatives into further evaluation and actually directed the Department of Public Works to pursue federal and state funding for the project. So fast forward to 2021. And the City has secured that funding to advance this project. And that brings us to today. So in 2022, the City and in collaboration with PTRANS at HWA, consult team began evaluating those three alternatives that City Council directed them to evaluate. Those were alternatives 1B, 2 and 5B. And you'll understand the significance of that as we get further into the presentation. But those were three different alternatives to make that transportation connection. So that's led to tonight's discussion. There's been a lot of work done to evaluate those three alternatives. We've met several times with property owners, private stakeholders, several times with a team to talk through some of the issues. And we've refined those alternatives and come to a point where we're going to present what those three alternatives are and then what the anticipated burn alternative is going to be. So I'll turn it now over to Cory and discuss how this project also fits into broader City initiatives, especially in the South End of Burlington, because that's an important piece of this puzzle. So previously in coordination with the other projects that have been going on in the South End of the community, such as Shantland Parkway Project, the Shelter Street Roundabout, and the PTRANS Class 1 Baving, there's a lot of infrastructure work that has been happening in the South End. And as a City, we're trying to manage the amount of impacts at any point in time that the community has been encountering. So through that, the South End Construction Coordination Plan was developed. This was a plan that looked at what projects are upcoming, how we can stagger those to the best of our ability to make sure we still maintain traffic flow through the South End communities, as well as minimizing the significant impacts to individual businesses and locations at any point in time. So that being said, a part of this South End Construction Coordination Plan had been the development. A large part of it was the phasing of the Shantland Parkway Project, which many of you are aware of. So as you can see in this, this has been previously presented to the Council, to DPW Commission, to this document has been around for a good little while now. And what we're looking at is, at this point in time, as I kind of just go through this, right now, PTRANS Class 1 Paving is under way. They have completed a portion of it, but they're still going to be working from 22 into 23 to complete that. That's Class 1 Highways. Vermont Rail and Amtrak have completed the Amtrak Project, which is now under way and operational here at Burlington. That was also another South End work that was being coordinated. You have the Sheldron Street Roundabout Project, which is currently under construction, anticipated to be a functioning roundabout at the end of the season of the winter, with the completion of the project next season in 2023. Then we get down to the next is the Initial Construction Contract, which is currently underway for the Shantland Parkway Project, which is the Shantland Parkway Project from Home Avenue up to Lakeside Avenue, the Lakeside Avenue portion of a development of Lakeside from the Shantland Parkway to Pine Street and the development of Pine Street from Lakeside Avenue up to Kilburn. So that is the Initial Construction Contract that is underway currently. That has a completion date of 2024, October 2024 to be completed. We have underway the Main Street Great Streets Project, the Main Street. That is in the design phase. That is looking to try to enter the construction in 2023. We have this project, the Raleigh Art Enterprise Project, which we're working on, which is currently in the NEPA phase. We are sitting here talking to you all as part of this process of evaluating these alternatives that we can then submit in order to have a preferred alternative that we then could go further into design phase. So that right now is underway. We're working at a best of our abilities to make sure that everything is being done appropriately and proper input is received and the selection is made that would then proceed into design and ultimately looking for construction sometime in the 2025 timeframe. Then you would have also at that time in a project 2025, if you'd be looking at the final construction contract for the Champlain Parkway Project, which would consist of the 189 connection up from 189 to Home Avenue and the Pine Street from Kilburn to Mann. That would look to sometime in the 2025-2027 timeframe for construction. The project area for the Raleigh Art Enterprise Project is what is identified here. You can see that this is going from the Southern Edge to the Barge Canal down there at about Marble Street. The Northern Limits of it is approximately the King Street or the Main Street area as you're on the waterfront side and the Eastern Edge is predominantly Pine Street. This is the area in which the Raleigh Art Enterprise is looking to be implemented and provide additional positive improvements to the infrastructure in that area. So in this, we have the project's purpose and need. So through the Pell Study, it was identified that additional infrastructure improvements could be done and really the purpose and the need of this was pretty much listed down to four points. So on this, we have this multimodal transportation infrastructure is really to support the economic development in the area. It would be to improve the livability of the surrounding neighborhoods. It would be to enhance the multimodal travel connectivity between the Pine Street corridor and Battery Street as well as to improve the intermodal connections from that same corridor, the Burlington Rail Yard and the National Highway System. So that's the nine area. So this is what the project's looking to complete. We have alternatives that were through the initial Pell and supplemental Pell narrowed down to three alternatives for the roadway alignment. These three are being evaluated on a number of categories in that it is also being compared against a no-build option. So we are preparing four options for alternatives for this roadway in this process currently. You have the 1B, which is the more direct connection of Battery Street to Pine Street with a South Champlain connection. You have the alternative 2, which is more of a grid street network, which has a very similar Battery Street to Pine Street connection, which would make a grid street with Kilburn near where the current current slumber is. And then it would have two additional connections to Pine Street further south in front of the 339 Pine Street property as well as closer to that marble in order to continue that grid street creation with the alternative 2. Alternative 5B is another connection. Similarly, although it does not have the grid street portion at the top, it's two connections between one between Kilburn and Pine Place and another down at Marble. So these are the three alternatives that are being evaluated and prepared with a no-build option as part of this need process. Yeah, so like Corey said, those three alternatives were evaluated for several criteria in accordance with the federal process, including impacts to traffic, impacts to noise, air quality, environmental resources, including flood plains. We had to consider what the soils are underneath these properties. You know, many of these properties have contaminated soils. A couple of those alternatives come very close and close proximity to the Barge Canal Superfund site. And, you know, taking all those factors into account is leading us towards the selection of alternative 1B as the preferred concept, with the primary factors being the amount of additional infrastructure that would be built with 2 and 5B has marginal benefit compared to what the impacts would be, especially in relation to the contaminated soils in the area, as well as the potential issues that excavating near the Barge Canal Superfund site would propose. So that's leading us down the road towards 1B as being a preferred alternative. And what I'm going to do now is walk you all through alternative 1B and then we'll talk through the next steps for the project and then open an update. So I'll try to be brief going through this so we can get to your questions and comments. One thing to say in part of the process is the selection of alternatives in the phase that we are currently. What this would mean is we would look at these four ultimately options come up with based upon the gathered information, preferred alternatives that would then be submitted to the process for Federal Highway Approval. Once we get that approval, then the next stage would be looking at the detailed design of the selected alternative to look at where exactly is that road going to be aligned, what widths exactly are the curve to curve going to be, is the shared use path going to be, and those further details would be then determined in the next phase. At this phase, we're just looking at which are the connection types that we generally looking at. And those further details of intersection connectivity and specific dimensioning won't be determined until later on in the process. Just to be clear. Yeah, with that said, we have engaged with several project stakeholders and attempt to refine this alignment, the typical section for the roadway, the location of a shared use path to attempt to minimize impacts. There's still going to be impacts, and we'll talk through those, and those are things that we need to continue to engage the stakeholders on as we advance this project. So, Rick, could you expand through the group, the barge canal on the Supertun site and the consequences that and the kind of limits of that, altered to these other alternatives that were staff or just dismissed? Yeah, yeah. Some people may not know what, well, it's like the details of that, the institution calls to go with some of these parcels. Yeah, so, you know, here's alternative one, B, and you can see it's proximity to the barge canal site. Alternative two, again, you can see how this new roadway infrastructure would get extremely close to the barge canal Supertun site, as well as alternative five feet. So, you know, regarding the concerns with building new roadway infrastructure there, are the institutional controls on the parcels adjacent to the barge canal, as well as concern for the barge canal itself, and, you know, construction of the new roadway, what cannot occur is that it cannot, I guess, let me say, yeah, it cannot mobilize contamination underground to there and cause it to spread further, and it can't compromise the ability to further mitigate that site in the future. So, that's one of the bigger concerns with alternative two and five feet, which is leading us towards alternative one. Thank you. So, with alternative one, B, I'm just going to briefly walk you through the roadway alignment, starting down here at Pine Street. So, this is Pine Street, here's the rail yard, here's Babel Street over here, South Shield and Plain Street. Plain Street's off the page, and the barge canal site is off the page, as well. So, starting at Pine Street, the new roadway connection would come through the northeast corner of the 339 Pine Street site, or we call this the former street department site, that is currently being leased by CSWD resource and Burlington City Arts members. This is a city-owned parcel, and then the new roadway would come through the Curtis Lumber site, and right now through the Curtis Lumber storage shed, that's on site, and then continue on to the north into the rail yard parcel that's currently owned by the state of Vermont and operated by Vermont Rail System, and then through what is called the independent property and through the southern portion of that building, and continuing on through that site, and then back into the rail yard where it enters into the current right-of-way for Battery Street, and passes to the west of what is the Rambler Building and the Waterfront Dive Shop, and makes that connection to Battery Street. One thing to be noted and reason to say is that as far as we're looking at with the alternatives, the final design of the intersection connections is still being determined, and that won't be to finalize until further. More or less the alignment is what is being referred for the alternative. The specific intersection connections at Pine Street are still being determined as there's multiple options that are going to be reviewed as part of the design as we progress, so this shows a Y connection, which on the right-hand side you'll see that this is the 1B1 identifying that as being a signalized Y intersection, and there are two other intersection connections that are also being, are going to be reviewed further as we progress, and just to kind of for reference of those, what you're seeing on this on the top of the page in blue is a proposed realignment of Rail Yard Facility, the Horn Track, which actually in its current alignment would run directly along the proposed roadway alignment, and really it's a situation that has to be relocated in order to facilitate a roadway being installed in this area, so those discussions with the Rail Yard, with the RS, and with the State are still underway as the progress, project progresses, so. You also see in there some historic resources that are of interest that relate to selecting this for an alternative route in the direction of travel, so you can see in the Rail Yard there's a shadow of an unusual shape, yes that's it, that's the historic roundhouse that's a historic resource that needs to be protected, and part of the consultant's work was to obviously identify the limits of that, but also understand like vibration and impact to that resource, so there's a lot of technical work that's being done, and a lot of those details kind of drive the position of this roadway in its place, so details that we are deeply involved with, you may not understand well why did you pick that route, well it's we're trying to protect the historic resource, we're trying to limit the amount of impacts to individual properties, we're trying to accommodate the operation that the VRS has in the Rail Yard, you know all these properties that are impacted have some ongoing need that we're trying to avoid impacts too, so this is kind of our best alternative in this best permutation of this alternative within those impacts and considerations, so I don't know if all this is shown around in your terms, let's just start resourcing, but those are important for you to understand what drove these kind of positions at all. Yeah, so I'll just briefly describe kind of what the roadway section is looking like now as it's designed, and so the new roadway itself will have what are called shared lane markings, so that experienced bicyclists can share the road with motorists through this area, and in addition it would have a 10 foot wide shared use path on the east side of the road that's shown here on the east side for the entire length, and that shared use path would accommodate pedestrians as well as less experienced bicyclists that prefer a low stress environment, so and then in addition the curb to curb width is 26 feet through here designed to minimize impacts to the properties, again that's the shared lane with motorist bicyclists through there the more experienced bicyclists, and that width is necessary through here with this alignment to accommodate a truck traffic that needs to access the rally yard and the adjacent businesses that need access off of this roadway without approaching upon the center line of the road, which is an important safety aspect of the roadway design, so it accommodates not only the truck traffic that needs to move through the new roadway but also use that roadway for access to those businesses and operations, and right now South Champlain Street would be teed into the new roadway a stop control of intersection, and that design of that street would have pedestrian connections to this new shared use path continuing, so there's a constant pedestrian connection for the entire length of South Champlain Street with right now on the west side of the roadway the sidewalk terminates right about where the city right away so like Corey said the team is still about getting a three intersection options with Pine Street which include what you see is the signalized Y intersection here where Pine Street would tee into the new roadway the other option and these are concepts some the design details would still need to be refined depending on which intersection option is chosen and I'd like to hear people's feedback on these intersection options tonight as well is a roundabout option and then the third option is what we call the signalized T option where the new roadway would tee into Pine Street versus Pine Street tee into the new roadway as as was mentioned we've had several meetings with project stakeholders and property owners to get a better understanding of their concerns their operations and how this roadway would impact them because there will be impacts with the construction of this new roadway and you know we we tried to come up with a design a refined this design to minimize those impacts so just talking through some of those impacts with everybody here today some of those impacts will consist of a partial demolition of the former street department building there's this annex portion of it that would need to be debauched to accommodate the new road and shared use path the lumber storage building on Curtis Slumber parcel would need to be either relocated or demolished in a new storage building have to be constructed on the remaining parcel and we've had a few conversations with Curtis Slumber to talk through those concerns with them and you know we're collaborating with them as we move board on this design to see how this new roadway would interact with the remainder of their site in addition we've spoken with the owner of this parcel here where they're close to home business is on and we understand the concerns that they have with truck access for loading unloading and parking and working through those concerns with them as well as the independent block which is one of the more heavily impacted parcels here because of the demolition of a portion of their building which also happens to be a historic resource so there's some there there are some considerations that need to be made with that resource in terms of making sure that the building that remains is restored to a condition that meets certain historic preservation standards guidelines as well as the loss of that building there needs to be some form of mitigation for the for that loss in terms of and that is going to be determined in consultation with the city and the trans and the state historic preservation officer in terms of what that mitigation means in addition a portion of their site is going to be impacted with the parking and the new roadway needs to consider what the best access point is to that parking area how that parking is either reconfigured or somehow mitigated and then also the circulation for parking and also truck delivery unloading and unloading and then the rail yard is also a heavily impacted property here as well as Cory mentioned the track would have to be relocated you see in this light blue here is where that track would be located and there are several operations in the rally yard that are impacted as part of this roadway that need to be also mitigated and we're working closely with them to understand how that can be done as we continue north you know we've met with the owners this building here who happen to own this parcel back here as well as the owners of these two buildings to understand their concerns related to access parking needs and and also the pedestrian advice to access in front of their property in order to keep those businesses functioning and viable as well as the tenants that live so we need to continue to work with them as well as this product is advanced and we get more into design details so I think I've done enough talking on the alternatives for now or this this concept for now and so I guess just lastly selection of a preferred concept here would allow us to continue that more detailed engineering to this project and also engage those property owners to work through some of those impacts so anything else to add Cory or Mark to that I just yeah go ahead Cory I know I've got one go ahead all right so one important point for to know is with the rally yard operation there is stone ballast a day transport on a consistent basis you see on the eastern edge of that rally yard stock pile that stone they're loading that in rail cars in that spur that's got the blue highlight and that area is impacted by that stone and so for safety reasons the shared use path is located proposed to be located on the eastern side of this corridor worth noting the parkway is proposed to have a shared use path on the western edge of my street so this is a continuation of that connection from the parkway to plan to uh at least the terms of batter street and then some further conversations will happen and recur related to uh another study this city is doing in terms of batter street a road diet concept of reducing three lanes that four lanes that three potentially comedy uh uh low stress facility so there's there's a lot of working pieces here that that Greg's kind of laid out we may not have hit every kind of nuance that goes with this but I think this really kind of covered it pretty well but that's one point I wanted to make sure that people understood and saw and there was reasoning there yeah and what I was going to say similarly to what Norm was was that yeah the understanding that there is not an estrange bicycle facilities on both sides of the road was identified as a requirement in order to minimize the right of way width and be able to fit something in this narrow corridor there's going to be significant impacts to all parties in this area as there isn't currently a right of way that you're existing and so a part of that was in the discussions with the rail yard and with local property owners was that the facilities with this norm indicated would be located on the eastern side um you know this corridor is common through all three alternatives and so you know just to understand that regardless of which one of the alternatives was being pursued these same considerations of these local property stakeholders would have to be addressed and so that's just a commonality between them all that you just want to make sure people do understand this and do we have the cross section here too and I actually have one more point to make and that is if anyone's familiar with the history of this area they don't understand that this area periodically um during storm events floods and so part of stay of text scope of work is to try to find solutions to that storm water problem there is some alternatives that they're considering one is to find an outfall that is directed through the radio to the south to the lake which I think is probably not a likely alternative but is one and then there could be tanking and storage and some of that runoff in those green areas that are within the limits of this right away so there's there's a there's a technical work that's being done outside of the direct line making conversations with the stakeholders in the public but it's it needs to be addressed we can't have a runway that is always commonly flooding their heavy rain event just it just doesn't make any good sense so this project is going to hopefully will solve that problem and that's been a perennial problem for people who work down there so yeah so everyone shows some of the typical cross sections and again these are the conceptual the ideas that we're working with right now and the exact dimensions outside of the roadway are still being worked on as we get further into the design but typically you're looking at a pine street this is between the new roadway section between pine street and south Champlain we consist of the 26 foot roadway curb to curb you have a five and a half foot buffer and then you have a 10 foot shared use path on the eastern north north eastern side of the roadway alignment of the additional two foot buffer from those adjacent properties and then as we get further between the south Champlain and battery street portion of it you're having the proposed railroad road track alignment and you have a 10 foot rail access area that is required to be adjacent to the rail tracks there's likely going to be some sort of fencing or security fencing that would separate the roadway from the rail yard and so an 18 foot minimum offset in the center of that track to the edge of the rail of the roadway is a requirement and that is a large portion of why there is nothing able to be proposed for pedestrian usage west of the roadway for safety and for just logistical restrictions that is why we do not have facilities on both sides of the road in this section you are looking again at the same 26 foot cross section curb to curb again at this point with a narrowing cross section the width of the green belt between the road shoulder and the shared use path might vary here depending upon what is available as it has to navigate around some physical structure or limitation such as the edge of the independent block building that is not being proposed to be removed as well as rambler building as it's making curves at the more northern portion of this roadway alignment again looking to maintain a 10 foot shared use path for this whole corridor and again additional two foot buffer on the property side so this is kind of typical cross sections that we're looking at for this roadway alignment at this time. I have a question, when do you anticipate the travel speed being on the shared bicycle and auto portion? This roadway is a standard typical Burlington road it is a 45 mile an hour roadway through our design we anticipate that the traffic would be maintained the design itself does not promote faster speeds as you kind of have that serpentine kind of movement to it as well as you have multiple access points between different parcels along these corridors requires to be entering and exiting traffic. The shared use path on the side does cross a few more driveways due to the access that is likely to be necessary for those parcels and so coordination and further design is being worked on in those interrupt those locations. So for this project the next steps you know this follow-up is going to go to council with hopefully the desire to be able to have them on board with a preferred alternative. As we said we anticipate the preferred alternative to be the one being but we would go to council and present to them and get their feedback following public feedback today as well as additional stakeholder engagements that we plan to have prior to the next available council meeting. We would look for later in November to file the yet and formally submit the preferred alternative and then we would continue through the winter of this year to gather further utility information as well as design information to further this project design into 2023 and beyond. So how to stay engaged with this really we have the website really on enterprise.com we'll continually post information there this meeting is being recorded and will also be posted to the project website for those who may want to share this information with others. Myself Corey Memms I'm the project manager you can reach out to me my contact information is also included in this you have further questions and at that I believe we are appreciate your time and we are going to move over to the questions and comments of course. So just to share with the group here September council meeting is when September? There is a meeting in September there's meetings October which specific date there's a meeting on the 12th there's a meeting on the 19th and I believe there's October you know October to well as I think are it's September 19th is the we're we're asking to go to council on September 19th hasn't been formally approved by council yet but that's when we're seeking to go that's what we're working towards and then it could be that's a work session and followed by a subsequent decision it's up to council decide they want to select that for an alternative on the 19th or not so sorry yeah that's good um at that yeah we will start going towards the questions and comments so in here uh I got something something else we have some questions online as well but we can say is everybody signed in by the way? And then we just ask you to identify yourself for the recording and you speak up so that those uh online can hear. I have a question Carl. The pedestrians that are going south on Pine Street uh would be so closer to the water there's several options how they would get across the roadway. Yeah so if you're on the west side of Pine Street heading southbound um then there would be a couple of different alternatives you can you know cross easternly across Pine Street to get to the eastern side of Pine to continue southerly or you continue along to the northern portion and there's a crossing up uh again a little further west of Pine Street which then can take you down and you can continue on the south side. Yeah so what is the distance this is design details that we don't have determined yet the size of the roundabout is based upon speeds and travel traffic volumes there's uh the size of that it's going to be larger due to the truck trafficking uh that is anticipated to be using. Inscribes, inner subscribes, inscribes are how it's shown there is one just for 120 foot is on this one okay but yeah so it's going to be let's give you that alternative uh intersection configuration would yes be a little bit larger and would require additional walking to get around. So just to envision that. Could you could you state your name for the record please? Oh sure it's Lindsay Foster Mason just so I can envision that how big is that in comparison to the roundabout that's currently being constructed a little bit further south than Sheldon. Yeah it's a it would be a similar size to that roundabout to promote slower vehicle speeds but still allow truck traffic and through another good comparison point is what the roundabout water variant intersection with 200 is to get out to the interstate that's that's the scale that we're looking at that was designed to accommodate large trucks for green mountain coffee roasters that come through that intersection but also via the scale to be you know encourage slow speeds and and have a shared use path connection and pedestrian crosswalks as well. Okay Steve is several questions. Steve could you just state your name for our constituent. The meaning of 19 if you're not deciding the issue of the intersection you've decided the basic. Correct at this point just the 1B 2 and 5 yeah 5B are being discussed to be looked at and then that would be what the determination would be. The intersection configuration itself is still to be determined following similar gathering dimensions is this meant to be sort of a I can't do everything but it's meant to be a King Street. Correct with access point driveways whatever. Where would the railroad be accessed. So in the uh a kind of yeah market cursor there would be a larger opening uh at this this level well it was being discussed as a larger access point in order to allow the rail yard to access both further western of the rail tracks as well as their current ballast file and fuel location there more turning lane for them. It would be the turning lanes are identified here at the location of south straight plane so they can turn into that access point there and then further one up north so right now there's two locations identified to enter an exit and if it's impossible this long time ago could be rail track located further to the west and allow you to not take so much of me. We have been under we've had a lot of back and forth with the rail yard um and this is kind of where those conversations had gotten to that the rail yard at this point had felt comfortable continuing those discussions with us um so further movements uh created larger impacts that were not all um able to be uh accepted by the rail yard and so this is where we've gotten to um but discussions are still underway and that's not saying this is what the final line is going to be uh but you know at this point this is the information that we've gathered and this is what we have been uh to a point that we feel comfortable where it has continued to move forward and further develop. So I guess I would just expand on that a bit and explain to you it's a group that the consultant team has met with BRS a number of times largely to understand the each individual operation within the rail yard and the consequence of displacing certain elements of that to avoid any sort of impact to the adjacent properties and so from all those things that was in consideration there's some things that some things that could be moved without significant consequence other things are just impossible for them to operate continue to operate without having uh that that um addressed in some some fashion some form we're one of the key things here I think that the BRS is willing to accommodate here is a change in geometry and this blue alignment that is not their preferred choice but is something they're willing to consider give the consequence of impacts to adjacent properties so they're trying to be good partners in that one of the the most critical things to their operation is the centerline operations that load and unload long long line of equipment you've probably seen some of those activities with um Vermont Guard deployments where they move long long streams of uh trucks and equipment tanks all that good stuff and so that that is like central to their business and really needs that long track segment in the center they're working with us to find options to displace that so that they don't have continuing impacts in this roadway under this current design they would at some period would have to propose a closeout street they don't want that they don't want to be part of in interfering with the streets so they are been good partners in this process and we're appreciative of that and we're just continuing that conversation to find creative solutions not just creative solutions coming from the city but BRS so I know that people are concerned that BRS is just selfishly looking at things that is not the case they are they are working with us and we are very pleased with the results of some of the considerations that are offered here currently it is yes exactly yes so there's that maybe some of those operations that can be relocated with a consequence that we're all we're working with them to kind of determine the best best outcome for both BRS and the neighboring community I'm going to go to a couple of the online questions here just real quick so the first one we have apologies if I do not pronounce someone's name appropriately I'm doing my best we have Susan Grezzo has a question is if using the area near the barge canal for the project is not an option are there any other redevelopment plans being considered there or is it waiting for further remediation as part of this project we are looking at these areas however if or if it doesn't meet what we are looking for we are not looking to redevelop it as part of this project now whether the city or property owners have other intentions that can't be spoken to here but you know there there is possibility for those things to be redeveloped in the future I would say the next one I have here is Kevin Tui what changes if any are planned to be made to battery street north of maple street sorry that's that CCRPC study yeah so right now yeah they're getting the early phases of potential CCRPC collaborative study of battery street corridor in that it'd be anticipated be evaluated to see what usage or potential redevelopment options there are for the roadway alignment says you know the current four lanes would be evaluated to see whether or not you know some sort of shifting or modification bike facilities might be able to be installed so that study would evaluate potential future development or changes to the battery street corridor south brolinston planning and zoning says of the pine street intersection options which would encourage through traffic to use battery street rather than maple than pine and maple which one is the best and to that speak to that yeah I can speak to that regardless of the intersection configuration a significant portion of the traffic will is is anticipated to use the new roadway we're anticipating a 50 percent reduction approximately 50 percent reduction in traffic north of the intersection on pine street that being said there are slight nuances in terms of the anticipated volumes of traffic that each intersection would divert we anticipate this signalized why intersection to divert the the most amount of traffic toward the new roadway with the roundabout being in the middle and then this intersection diverting the least out of the three but just keep in mind it's it's still it's it's the roadway that's driving that traffic diversion mostly and it's not necessarily the intersection configuration and it's the origins and destination on the other side of the roadway you know say the north end of brolinston connecting to the southern portion of brolinston and beyond so the differences in you know the intersection configuration are not significant in relation to that traffic diversion but you know in comparison there are some slight differences the next one we have bob lighty says I really like the white connection to make it clear the car traffic goes onto this uh this new connection the shared use path between battery street and south champlain could be eliminated or replaced by biking on south champlain to main street and a walking path up maple to south champlain by eliminating the shared use path there might be room for the road alum to avoid the build part of this is the purpose of the project is looking to try to create a multimodal roadway section by eliminating features fully from any roadway section we would not be necessarily meeting those purposes needs which would then go into the evaluation of the project so appreciate the comment but the desire is to maintain the ability for multimodal biking walking you know and cars to use this corridor both now and in the future yeah and that still wouldn't be enough with the way in which the current alignments and the historic resources are located it's likely the southern portion of that building would be required uh would be impacted uh regardless uh is i'm coming back to the room um yes mary k and each of the couple questions um about the south champlain street if one of the working somewhere is involved we're going to main street coming in the parkway in the community here they'd be tempted to get off first of the south champlain next another going up further up to battery street and then going down man uh yeah i mean well you could go up again i so it wasn't an area and i want to get as most traffic as i can again yes so the trafficking that is looking to go to locations such as you know that southern portion of downtown are going to take the most direct route those cars would still continue to use pine street uh to go that route um if vehicles are trying to go further east to uvm it's likely they wouldn't be using this roadway section in the first place they'd be more over sheltering or taking main street down from the other side so it's really is the destination and you know the way the waste of traffic studying is looking is that the traffic like a lot of traffic that would be using this corridor would be looking to go around downtown and progress up to the you know further battery or to the new north end uh but again traffic studies can show good data what people do sometimes varies so you can't always account for every car but to advance the knowledge those will be reducing traffic that goes in that direction so the design of the champlain pathway i've never really seen that design how does it fit in that study so uh the champlain parkway project has a 10 foot shared use path on the west side of pine street the pine street corridor itself is maintained um fairly similar to what is currently with a five foot sidewalk on the eastern side 10 foot shared use path on the western side and singling traffic going each direction also with a bike lane in the roadway and that is going to be coming up on pine street here south of kilburn kind of into a pine place and would be tying into this design to continue that shared use path facility along the new roadway alignment hi my name is Jeremy Fleming um you touched on this a little bit before corn but i'd like to learn more about the admission of a dedicated and protected bike lane on this road i know there's the shared travel lane but even for advanced bikers sharing the road vehicles is very dangerous and uncomfortable so i'd like to know why in the plans there was no um you know no option for a dedicated and protected bike lane yeah i can i can answer that um to have a dedicated and protected bicycle lane on uh the new roadway um would actually require a wider roadway to accommodate that so it was a balance of trying to accommodate as many uh abilities as possible that we can with this new roadway um even with a protected bicycle lane um less experienced bicyclists are still reluctant to bike on the road even if it is protected so um to have a cross-section like the back with a bike lane we would still need that uh a way with to accommodate trucks plus a protection for the bike lane plus the bike lane with the cell which is going to be four or five feet so it just becomes a very wide section so the the 10 foot shared pedestrian path that is set so there's no that's that's a low stress facility that accommodates all user types within that class mode of transportation so someone who's an active cyclist can use the shared use path someone who's not comfortable riding in the road we can make use of the shared use path so the intent is the shared use path that accommodates all users that are cyclists or pedestrians okay because I know sometimes these paths pedestrians complain because bikes there's a trade-off there and that was where we had looked at potentially narrowing the shared use path at one point due to uh just right-of-way limitations but we felt it necessary to maintain that 10 foot through this entire corridor for that purpose and that was definitely feedback that we received from meeting with stakeholders and other community members so um I'd like to move to answer some questions um why we have a couple people with raised hands can we uh can we answer just one more somebody can spend waiting patiently here sure yeah sorry okay my questions are more basic I don't know if this was covered in the first 14 minutes that we missed because we were at the front door trying to figure out is this the right night and why is the door locked um I'm more I'm more basic here um I applaud connectivity I applaud infill I applaud another terminus sort of or the Champlain Parkway Road to Nowhere and helping that whole situation that vehicle street these are all good things I'm trying to figure out what what motivates this road who is motivated by this road and is this road um it's I'd assume it's developmentable as it will there be housing will there be commerce and a big concern I live on Howard Street I use Curtis lumber all the time I was very devoted to the transfer station there for the solid waste um and it's getting ridiculous that our little city we have to drive our stuff to the suburbs now to get rid of it and my fear is um I I hope there's housing the plant for this space I don't know who's behind who's motivated who's going to make all this happen now maybe I've done my homework but I I had gone to a meeting about this before I mean pre-covid when this thing was just a little egg in someone's head um Curtis lumber from what I understand down there they're going there is no good alternative for us how are you going to compensate how are you going to make sure that these businesses can carry on close to home and set themselves up a nice business they're so happy they're back in town after being um in the burrs um what are we doing to make this a livable city besides getting cars and bikes and painted bike lanes and we don't need more brewers we don't need more coffee shops we don't need more bicycles painted on the pavement what does this have that is going to help our our livability our vitality who stands to benefit from this someone's motivated to do this I'm not really understanding the basic project I want to know more about this well there's a lot of good information I would say that we do have I mean I can't cover everything uh here tonight I would recommend on our website the rallyartenterprise.com there is the but just some basic short so basically we can use some basic stuff yeah but I just want to use this as a point to let's say that there is the original Pell Study and that is posted online as well as the supplemental Pell which goes through and there's also I don't know if it's on our website or not but the the bt plan btv for the south end uh but the power is very invested in the small no yes and so there is those are a lot of things that kind of led to the development of this now this corridor would put more roadway frontage it would be looking to potentially while it does impact some current operations we look to try to do more um roadway frontage and options for further development in the future there has been some communication about potentially developing new housing in the area um so there those are not part of this project directly at this point we're disrupting all these businesses for road well it's to mitigate traffic yeah well I know that I mean it's true I know but I mean anything that I want I think the more traffic is distributed the better but you know this is a chairman partway means that high street will be trunking on queen city park road provides pedestrians and cars which makes uh you know puts traffic on other roads I mean traffic finds its way and the more ways there are to get places is good that's why this is good but I'm just wanting to have something besides the road that is between the people and the lake uh I hope there's infill I hope stuff stuff happens this would potentially no they don't take that in private development I somewhere has to make this thing happen I mean and you're also looking at the current infrastructure in the area predominantly on the western side is a rail yard which limits any sort of development on that western side the eastern side is being impacted it is also creating potentially new frontage that would hopefully further the desire would be to promote new options and new opportunities but those are communications and discussions that are being held with those that didn't stay long in the air there's really nothing solid going no solid development plan around this road until there's a road you can't have this that's part of the problem it's this project at least if we're advancing this project and we're getting gelling the project uh stage of development design then all those private property owners won't be limbo as they have been in the past and they'll come to some good as about how they can potentially redevelop their site so we believe that is a residual effect of this is we're going to improve the backside access to their building we're going to provide clearance that will happen for them these are my clarity about what they can and can't do on their site as opposed to this questionable future which is without this project kind of moving ahead everybody's stuck in this kind of this cycle of what's going to happen since 2012 yeah so i think i think the property owners just want relief from that they just want clarity about what the next steps are well we've talked to them and they are very supportive of the product they've been very cooperative with us in our conversation with them so it's been that's been good conversation with them well it probably depends on who you talk to yeah there's people who can write in the know we may have concerns and aren't really more fuzzy about it but there's i just want to make sure that that these businesses are not displaced by a rope well we are very concerned about that as well and we been deep dive conversations with everybody in this area that is impacted the Curtis is one of those key partners in those conversations they're in i'm in i just i just want more stuff to disappear i would go move sorry to shift we need to address a couple people that their hands raised online and then we'll come back into the room um i'll be it yep um so i'm gonna go first to andy simon um andy i've allowed you to talk you'll have to unmute yourself i think i'm unmuted yep okay um hi andy simon um i live on locust street and i um in answer to the other commenter i think it's really important to note that um this has a this should have a huge impact on the king and maple street neighborhood in terms of alleviating traffic through that neighborhood um and that i think is one of the main motivations we talked about about economic development and and other things but at least one of the big drivers from my point of view is is um uh alleviating stress on alleviating the impact that's that's been happening and will happen on pine street those there with the champlain parkway there should be a they're anticipating a 39 increase in traffic through that neighborhood and this at least eventually should take some of that traffic out i think that um of the alternative intersection designs that you have promoted or suggested it seems fairly obvious to me that a roundabout is the best choice i mean just in terms of traffic flow um in terms of uh um uh uh bike and and pedestrian traffic safety basic safety roundabouts are the best and um and they do take some getting used to i think but because we're not uh a very roundabout uh centric if you will um culture at this point but i think that roundabout you know just even looking at the design you know stopping traffic at a stop light especially now these days when um stop lights are not as respected red lights are not as respected as they had been as you may have noticed on the streets um i think a roundabout would be a lot safer a lot better traffic flow and better for everyone i also had do have a question one um is mostly about public transit you you've spoken of this as a multimodal um uh multimodal system and the modes you've talked about so far are cars and bikes and pedestrians what about public transit how is this going to impact public transit and how is it going to get people in what way will it get people out of cars and onto a much improved public transit system yeah i can address that question we did we did connect the remount transit to talk about this project and the alternatives and this concept alignment and um well you know they don't they don't have any plans right now for routing using this new roadway um what they did talk to us about was the potential benefit that this new way new roadway provides they have certain routes that they call i believe they're called special routes and they're routes that they contract with uh the school district to to transport children that live in king and maple street neighborhoods and by virtue of this new roadway and the reduction of traffic that would result uh in those neighborhoods uh with this new roadway uh remount transit's opinion was it would only um help make those uh stops and getting on and off the bus to more comfort so um that's that's the extent of the conversation we've had with them so far um john's jonathan's license on the line as well jonathan's part of that conversation for remount transit jonathan uh anything else to add does that sound accurately solve our conversation with them yeah i i also forget offhand the neighborhood specials or something i think the two things that are valuable is that they would suggest bifurcating future routes and that the pine street routes that currently exist in that neighborhood could be increased in frequency because of the number of school aged children that uh have have uh maybe they would increase their their use of that public transit if the overall volume of traffic were to be reduced the other side of the benefit of the new road that was discussed by jeep remount transit was that it would provide a faster route to the transit center that via battery street and so it would be less cumbersome for them to route through the current neighborhood olivia do you want to uh yep sorry i was muted um thank you very much any for your um comments um i'll move to our second um person on the phone mary twichel um will allow you to speak and you unmute yourself um you should be able to speak hello i think i just unmuted um this is diane gayer actually yep on mary's computer okay and um i appreciate what andy was saying about the roundabout i live near the roundabout on shelbin road and seeing what that's becoming i would love to see that finished before i'm really convinced um much as i appreciate and i move around about um i'm reserving judgment until this one's finished um but to my question i was trying to strategize if this shared use pass continued not all the way to battery street but then jogged over the south champagne street if that might not um both allow what your intentions are as well as help the properties in that block um because i don't really see that it takes any longer to go on child's champagne street um to get where you're going than to stay on this new um diagonal um yeah just of it is really how much that shared use path really could be contiguous in other ways and although i realize that people you know all the bicyclists all want their own lane just like car people do um there are a lot of people that walk and we can't overtake the bus but the bus is always empty these days um we need to think a little bit more holistically about where we're taking up the real estate of land thank you yeah part of that would be with the multimodal usage you're providing additional pedestrian foot traffic bike traffic in front of these parcels which could potentially be used for further redevelopment of that frontage space you're getting more traffic through there you're not just getting cars whizzing by you're getting people coming through that you know if these properties are looking to redevelop or change which side of the building is a frontage you know they can attract more business than just having cars whizzing by it that is a big portion of why this also as far as a potential future development portion is an important feature to be had in this roadway design but to explore her question and i want to confirm with the lady on the call are you suggesting that the the preferred route should not continue beyond or south shamp lane that not to continue to battery street they're just pedestrian portion just the pedestrian portion i don't know if i feel unmuted all right i was going to say that it's incredibly you know purpose and need clearly there needs to be a connection between five street battery street so it that's really not in place you're you're raising that question so thank you for clarifying yes hi chris couple um are there plans for the historic rail yard roundabout um at this point no the plans would be to not impact that uh historic roundhouse yeah the roundhouse thing right to continue to cover it a million pounds okay it do seems like it's doing a lot of public good i'm just curious why that's uh it's it seems like it has an outsized displacement on the whole design and it doesn't the gravel pile two things i don't really see as giving to public but that's i guess more common question i didn't know if you want to respond to that so okay sure please oh well i was going to say as part of the process the historic um resources um that is considered a 4f resource and as it being considered such it is required to be reviewed and treated um similarly to historic buildings and other things that are 4f resources that is not a um that is well there's there's two purposes to this yeah one is you have it active really it's making use of that space that consequently is above ground to that facility that facility is being protected by its cover so it's going to be retained there allowed to be there for as long as historic preservation people believe that's an important resource to be protected so we we support that we believe that we uh a part of our consideration as i said earlier was looking at um an rsg's done this work is uh vibration and impact to that resource means the roadway itself so we believe that the roadway is not going to have as if i had any consequence to that resource therefore this of this alternative works at least from that perspective and then as far as the business that the real yards conducting above the roundhouse yep that's nothing that they can relocate there well that's part of what i explained earlier is there's things that they can potentially relocate to other locations and there are things that need to remain for them to be able to function okay and so it's it's a give and take in terms of individual operations and Greg has this funny bash all from cha's work all the different operations women at really hard and as opposed to all bubbles all over the really hard to identify those things so we're we're clearly going to understand what's going on there in terms of activity and we're working with them to kind of find a solution that works for them but also works for them and again maybe one of the higher priority business opportunities that they have yeah i'm going to get to a couple of these questions and then come back to the room we have let's see uh Susan Grasso uh says uh what is the expected desire or desired land use development pattern along this new road uh that you know is kind of up to the uh property owners uh at this point as to how that would be developed there is uh plant xv that has some uh stated ideas as to what could be used to be developed however really the owners of those parcels are the ones who kind of have that determination um as to what potential could be uh development or redevelopment of that those parts i mean it's predicated on slowly and what what development opportunities people want to pursue over a product on their property and we want to try to find ways to encourage that support that and not have this product kind of be in the way of that but but it's a very difficult challenge for everybody involved it's far more and then the next one uh there's multiple here i will just get to the first two real quick from uh robert washerald uh says have the traffic pattern analysis have been done for each of the intersection options yes it has so yes it has um and then further development though as we proceed um it's not correct yeah and those details will be included in the um fire and assessment document that's submitted uh for you know approval uh but detailed um traffic analysis has been completed uh for each of the intersection options and and each of those intersection options uh adequately serves the the traffic that would be flowing through those intersections uh the second one we have here is our streetscape improvements planned on the east side to include more trees and greenery and we said uh yes within that we are looking at options but again that's a detail that would be further reviewed as the roadway configuration alignments and dimensions are finalized or further developed so to what extent these the greenery or plantings can be done uh will depend and will be determined at a later date but is anticipated that there will be some greenery or some artwork or something along this corridor to make it more uh inviting inclusive and enjoyable for all users. I will go to next one uh Bob Lighty says understand that you uh don't want to build a road through the barge canal due to the soil pollution uh could we build a bike path connecting the Champlain Parkway to this project and go out south Champlain Street. I apologize I am not it's following the connection I we are connecting the uh shared use path that is going to be on the Champlain Parkway project um and it would connect up the long eastern side of this new roadway alignment which would go by south Champlain Street um so I believe that that would be included as part of this. The next one is from Mark Ferguson uh is there any discussion about connecting the northern um sorry this jumps is there any discussion about connecting the northern end of the multi-use trail to the waterfront bike trail I would imagine a lot of bike traffic would want to connect uh yes that is something that intersection with Battery Street is being looked at you know there is the Battery Street um the study that is anticipated to be coming up soon on Battery Street um and as part of that how Battery Street corridor is potentially being uh reviewed we'd understand that yes we want people to be able to connect to the waterfront um and to continue to use Burlington's other bike features uh at this point within this particular project the uh any changes along Maple are not being considered but further development of our Battery Street review is done um there will be anticipate there would be some uh in the future. So I would just expand on that saying that really an enterprise project all these federal federal state funded projects there are project limits and those limits are well defined and uh kind of our breakpoint to how far this project can address other outstanding issues so that's where other products have to come in to interface with the limits of this project to kind of make those connections but this brings us that much closer to making those connections those establishing those connections through other products and I understand that there are limitations to what we can and can't deal with the project so but other other projects can make those connections. We had a couple other here. I had two questions. Chairman Fleming again um one was kind of pertaining to one of the questions that we just went over but are there plans or how to bring conversations about what's going to be on the shared pedestrian path in terms of uh you know public gardens or benches sculptures other art and do you have to have those conversations who will be having those conversations? Yeah so understanding the the project limits and the exact configuration is still being determined and once we have a selected alternative and we move into the next phase with a detailed design and start going through that those kind of conversations will start coming up as we see what space is available what space is being used for potential water storage or you know where the utilities are going to be relocated we have to determine those sort of physical infrastructure limitations and then what the space is available and what space we can make for these other additional features. We do anticipate depending on the internet enter the intersection configurations that there will be some green spaces opened up as far as project regardless of which one of the intersection options is selected so we do anticipate there will be uh locations that we can do something that is going to be inviting and also uh would be um we would take more feedback from individuals and from public as to what sort of feature people would like to see and that later phase. So when we reach design we can where that's already part of that conversation the intersection selection the details of of the cross-section in terms of amenities that potentially would be there the very finite specifics to that support is that utilities and so forth and out all kind of packaged with it so it's that's at a leader stage of the conversation. Thank you. I had one other question was just about parking on these roads do you plan to include an extra lane for parking or will it just be two lanes and a turning lane? This phase right now it is predominantly of roadway for travel there is some parallel parking being proposed at this juncture but again these are preliminary we're looking at this we'll evaluate further as far as limits access and the space available as properties still need to be maintained. We've talked with stakeholders about parking as it is currently as as parking might be with the roadway and trying to determine the best usage of space as well as access to businesses to promote lower commutes and transport goods to these businesses so this is all still being determined and discussed as this roadway line that currently shows on this particular one we do have parallel parking shown just south of maple on at the intersection battery as well as parallel parking shown along south shamp plain for that section of roadway as well. Just a very limited scope of parking as it's playing right now and that's largely to accommodate the existing usage of stakeholders we don't want to take line in the cross-section to accommodate parking unless unless there's a strong desire for the public to do that it that smoothly changes the impact of those properties so we were trying to get a very minimalist approach to this that provides accommodation along the roads but doesn't get into too deep into the line in the cross-section of the park. There's no parking there now. There's no parking there. Sorry, one in the back. Sorry, one in the back and then over again. Back first, yeah, just stop. When clarification and impetus for this project, I say this because I was there, the actual impetus for the project was to correct what the city clearly saw as problems with the current failure of the handling of the side of the semiconductor project. The idea of the connector would go up pine stream to King, Maple, King, Major. It's not something that the city wanted to fence mandated. This product is, I think it wouldn't deal with the problems, is to correct that problem. It may have other benefits. That is why you're looking at this today. A couple of years ago, the city recognized it and it's desperate to find a way to deal with this looks very much like the earlier Southern connector groups that we actually had approved back in the 90s. That's why it was here. I think the city knows it's problem. This is an attempt to invent or solve it. That's why this is here. Okay, I'm all preparing this for that. It just seems like it's misnamed enterprise. I don't understand why I was looking for the land. So the only way they looked at it was to come up with a project. It wasn't called the Southern connector. Somehow it wasn't associated with it. It's all okay. It's perfect. It really doesn't. Can you see the interplay conversation? I'm sorry, I just looked into the enterprise and said, I guess that's what I was just saying. So you're talking about, Steve, there's ongoing litigation. I don't think we're going to address that in this tonight's meeting. I'm just pointing out what happened. That's fine. But I don't think it's appropriate for us to respond in any way tonight. Okay. So I live on Upper Howard Street and I feel very fortunate to live there because I can walk downtown. I can walk all the way down to the waterfront on the bike path. I do a lot of walking in this town. I actually very rarely drive within Burlington sentiments. And I wonder about the fact that this roadway is my voice that's really coarse today. But I wonder about the fact that this is a multimodal road. And I know that for myself, I feel that walking in Burlington, it's not a safe thing to do. And as a pedestrian, I feel so often ignored at intersections. And I just am wondering how important it really is to have a multimodal somewhat. I mean, I know you said it was going to be a 25 mile per hour limit, but this is a roadway that seems to, I don't know, to promote at least a little bit speedier traffic. People will be wanting to, you know, move into this area more quickly. And I just, in relation to what you were saying earlier about bicyclists not feeling safe sharing the roadway, lift cars. And I would think especially during the winter months when the roadways aren't particularly safe for bicyclists anyway, just because of slipperiness and ice and all sorts of other issues, potholes that could be hidden. And I'm just wondering if in terms of the space allocation for the roadway, if the, what is currently you're envisioning as being used for both experienced bicyclists and for cars, if that were just used for cars and the shared space, which you currently are envisioning for both pedestrians and bicyclists, could just be used for bicyclists. Because I know for myself as a big walker in this town, I try to avoid car heavy roads. I really prefer the quieter neighborhood streets to walk downtown, however it is, wherever it is downtown and I'm going. And so I don't think I'm going to be walking on this, because to me it's unpleasant to be next to a car, no matter how fast it's moving. But and again, I envision the speed just because I see how much faster people are driving now post COVID. I kind of envision this as being at least a little bit more of a speedway than you're thinking of. So I think that one of the things that you want to focus on is that is the cross section. Remember you're pulling up a drawing of the cross section, but there is a five foot space, I put six bucks between the edge of the roadway and the sugar's path. The sugar's path is pretty dimensionally takes quite a bit of space to accommodate this question. So I think there's an opportunity here for that buffer to build a level of comfort that you need to walk within that community and that neighborhood. So I would want to walk on the two foot buff to side. Yeah, I understand that you're still going to have solutions in terms of whether it's going to be our trees or whatever, they increase that five foot, six buffer. Right. And I realize that you're trying to make it, I mean, from what you said earlier, that you are trying to make it a pleasant walkway, I mean, with artwork, benches, whatever. Yeah, I just, I don't know. It's not like you've got an insured used path that's adjacent to the curb. You've got cars, you've got a five foot, six buck, which is substantial. Yeah, it seems like it's going to be a fairly heavy traffic road. And that would be something that I and I would think most walkers would want to avoid, especially given the fact that drivers really don't pay attention to us as pedestrians. Yeah, it's a behavioral issue that we try to deal with through design, but we don't have control of how people conduct themselves, unfortunately. That's the challenge we have as engineers. We really, we wish we would get the hearts and minds of people to slow down and drive accordingly, but it doesn't always happen that way. Well, the former police chief of this city almost ran me over coming out of this driveway. So, you know, even those who were, you know, we all make mistakes, that's right. I'm going to get to a couple here online real quick, and then we'll come back. We have Jonathan for the local motion. It seems like the speeds will be below 25 miles. The speeds will be below 25 miles per hour with 13 foot lanes and 13 foot lanes are also above the maximum set in the city's transportation plan. What is the reason for that? Great. We're talking about that with first trucks. Yeah, sure. With it's primarily driven by the truck traffic that's going to use the roadway and the curvature of the roadway alignment. We need to safely accommodate the trucks through here. A rally yard is not going away. It's going to be there and they're going to continue their operations through there. So we really need to strike that balance of being able to accommodate that motor vehicle traffic, yet fit the roadway in and try to minimize impact. So we're literally trying to thread a needle here with all the different users and the impacts. So that's really what's driving the design of this curb to curb with the roadway. The next one I have here is from Peter Duvall. How would the various alternatives affect the motor vehicle travel time through the project area? Yeah. Jonathan, I am going to direct that question to you. I think you've got a good answer for that one. That's been analyzed in terms of that travel time. So Jonathan, you still online? Yep, Greg. Yeah, so in the alternative, in the build condition, the southbound direction is proposed or forecast to improve only modestly in the build options. But the northbound direction is anticipated to improve dramatically. And that's primarily because of that diversion of traffic out of the Maple Pine King Street neighborhood. And what we looked at were travel times between a southern location on Pine Street, as northbound direction would like to go either to main and battery or to main and pine. And so depending on where they were destined, we looked at the travel times between those two points, both from a southbound and northbound. So I think with confidence we can say that the travel diversion really substantially improves the northbound travel speeds through the study area. Yeah, we'll get back to them in the room. Yeah, I just like the comment that you had about walking next to roads and how it would be uncomfortable sometimes. And I was wondering if there's a possibility of planting trees on both sides of the buffer zone. It's been proven from what I've read that drivers in close proximity to trees drive slower and it's quite nice for pedestrians to walk alongside the trees in order to have a kind of blockage between the road and pedestrian path. Yeah, again, those are details that we'd be further investigated in the next phase. But we are looking at that because yeah, as you said, there's objects there on the edge of the road that it does impact traffic. So one of the things that's important to design is tree volumes. In order to have the trees successfully thrive in that space, you have to have a certain volume of space for the root ball. And so that's sometimes a very challenging thing when you have a narrow green belt, but in this case we have a 5 foot 6 green belt. So it has a stronger potential for accommodating a tree and have a full life growth in that tree. But that's early. We don't know how that really fits because we have to accommodate utilities within this corridor where those utilities go. A lot of times that utilities end up in the green spent belt space. So we're going to try to avoid that to accommodate trees because trees are one of those high priorities. That's a design. That actually goes into one of the comments that we have here from Jonathan from the local motion of will the green belt be sufficient to support trees to harm's point? It's great to look at. The next question I have here is from Bob. I said independent block owner on board with this concept. And we said we've been in conversation with them, obviously being significantly impacted. I mean to be blunt, it's not ideal, but we're going to work with them and talk with them. And we've been already there. I've been understanding and we've continued to talk with the stakeholders in that area and we will continue to talk with them as we proceed through further in the concept and the design fix. Next question is from Susan Grosso. Asking is there a report that presents the analysis of these three alternatives, including the traffic analysis and so on? That is going to be the document that is submitted to federal highway here in hopefully, uh, late November. So that document will be published once it's submitted and it will be available through the Rail Yard Enterprise Project website. So it will be taken to your terminal. So right now there is not, but it will be available once the document is finalized and that's here from Peter DeVall. So please describe the no-build alternative. How much less would it cost? What are the alternative uses of the funds? And did you consider making this a one-way facility for motor vehicles? So let's break this down. Yes, the no-build alternative has been considered and has also been weighed against these alternatives with the purpose in need. That being said is that, you know, there's impacts of whether you build it or whether you don't build it with how traffic is anticipated to function now as well as in the future through the design analysis. Um, that being said at this point, uh, the project team is looking to still consider confidence, still have conversations with stakeholders in those impacted parties, but we feel the purpose and need can be met while managing the impacts. Um, that's, you know, again, the level of detail will be further evaluated as we move on in the process. Once a preferred alternative is selected, but at this juncture, we feel that the one be alternative would be the preferred alternative. You asked how much would this cost? At this point, the project has a $20 million price tag associated with what is available for funding through our, I apologize, I put the stopper agreement. Thank you for the proper agreement that we currently have with the state. That, to be blunt, is, uh, anticipated to likely not cover the full cost of what it's going to take to design, uh, and build this project, uh, with, uh, mitigation or the, uh, property rights acquisitions and the design and damage soils and construction and also the way the economy is right now, um, is anticipated that more of the $20 million is going to be required to, uh, complete this project. Now at this juncture, uh, we are only working on the design and proceeding further. And as we end up having a conceptual design to have better understanding of what those costs are going to be, then further communication, further discussions and requests can be made for additional funding or to see if that funding could be increased. But at this juncture, the $20 million is what we are put as a cap on the project. So, just so everyone understands and knows, uh, in these proper agreements, there are partners in this process, the Federal Highway Administration, State V-Trans in the city, and the general split for this cooperative agreement is 80% Federal Highway contribution, 10% state contribution, and generally the city's 10% local match. So the numbers are not precisely 10 and 10, but within that ballpark, that's generally how the proper agreement works. So further clarify, if the price tag goes over $20 million, which it will give, if we build this, those additional resources are either going to be provided by Brownington voters, or there will be an option to go to the federal government and to the state government and say, can we have more money? This is actually a $45 million. But, you know, because we're going to build this ground about it, because we're going to do this, and because we, every grain of sand that comes out of this ground that's going to have to go is going to be contaminated and have to be taken away. There are a lot of unforeseen costs that are probably going to show up. They're not building a road on top of an existing road there. So they don't know what's, it's just a different follow-up that lets redo this stretch of road that already exists. I'm nervous about that too, but that's where it stands right now. Is that fair, Norm? Yeah, except I wouldn't, I wouldn't place any dollar value on what that potential upset would be, but understand that if it goes exceeds this $20 million, which way our pressure is, early pressure is, it's going to probably exceed the $20 million, and then we can have that conversation with our partners to see if they contribute, continue to contribute the same way, or is it really on the city? And then, then the city has to make choices about what we can and can't advance. But, trying to stay positive and get to resolution forward, all host to reasons why this is a support to the city, or many of those important reasons through this conversation. Yeah, I was just, I threw out a random figure. Yeah, yeah, I understood. I just want to make sure that people understand it. Yeah, the last part of that question was, did you consider making this a one-way facility for motor vehicles? Again, that goes back to that, you know, purpose and need of the project, and what are we, what are we building? So, generally, no, this was not being looked at as being a one-way facility for vehicles. Cory, we do have a question. Somebody has their hand raised. Yeah, I was going to say, if you want to get that next one, that'd be great. Yep, Dan Castragano, I'm sorry if I completely murdered that pronunciation. Go ahead and speak. That was perfect. Thanks. Yeah. And actually, can you go back to the map, please? Okay, awesome. Thanks, or one of the maps. Thanks. Thanks for taking all the comments. I just have a few comments here, as I kind of wrap my head around this project. Just want to ground everybody in the fact that with the climate crisis, we have to get as many cars off the road as possible. Transportation is the number one sector of emissions. It's the number one sector of emissions in Vermont. And personal vehicles is the biggest chunk of that sector. So, whatever decisions are made should prioritize walking, biking, and public transit. The other thing that, as I'm looking at these maps, is building new surface parking. If you just look at like the southern, or I guess the eastern and northern parts of this map, the bottom and the right side, of how much of the largest city in Burlington, how much of the land is spent with surface parking. And we know that that incentivizes car use. It makes the urban heat island effect worse. It makes our water quality, and like Champlain, worse, right? There's more impermeable surfaces. And so to just do other stuff with surface parking, and not to use public money on public land to build surface parking in the middle of the biggest city in Burlington. And those are my two main comments. So thanks again for listening. Appreciate it. The next question we have on here, the question and answer, from Peter DeBalt, using current and actual times navigational tools such as Google Maps, usually identifying Pine Street as the preferred route between points south of Burlington, say the Shelter Museum and points north, Sunset Drive Inn. With decreased travel times under the build alternatives, what has anticipated increase in traffic through the project area? I think we kind of addressed this earlier previously. Greg, you're saying with the, that's just a function of origin and destination, I don't think that changes people's routes. Maybe this is a shorter route. Say this versus say the Pine Street corridor, but I don't know how much of a consequence that changes people's long distance routes. Do you have anything else to add to that? Just simply saying that after the amount of traffic that's anticipated to use the new rail yard roadway would give us a lot of flexibility for how we can reframe and look at the proposed intersections at Pine and Maple and Pine and King. And so I think we can always prioritize this new rail yard route as being the preferred choice. And then we've requested for Bob to see the third version of the design on the screen. And then asking, did we discuss the timeline? Yes, we did discuss the timeline for the project. We have that on a previous slide just real briefly at this juncture. We are looking to go to council for approval for the anticipated preferred alternative that then would be with the finalized documentation submitted in the for the preferred alternative project that would then proceed with the design. And then based on the Southern Construction Coordination Plan, we'd be looking for a desire to have this design completed with the design completion end of 2024, 2025, the beginning of and look to start construction in 2025. That would be sort of the best case scenario if everything is proved and continues to go forward. And then you also asked, how does the city's portion of the budget compare with the mayor's opinion that if the school bond passes that we will not bond for additional projects before 2030? Obviously there's a challenge with the future bonding capacity of the city that relates to projects. This is one of those projects that is perceived as an ongoing financial liability from a local mesh standpoint. And much of what was needed for this project but I don't think this site all of it was captured within the 2023 bond. So this along with many other priorities the mayor has to take decisions about where that investment is. But once we when you have a project that's advancing, there should be a continued need to responsibility to fund that project. So other choices, likely other choices have to be made for these ongoing liabilities. That is what we have for questions online. Is there anything else here in the room? Anyone else have any questions or comments? Well I just want to say I appreciate everyone's time. You know, we were really glad to turn out. Oh no, we have another hand up. Yeah Peter, you are unmuted if you'd like to speak. Yes Peter, what would it take is a question that is sometimes used to expand thinking about big problems? So I'm going to ask that question. What would it take in terms of cost or traffic effects, local or global ecological imperatives or any other concerns that you can think of? What would it take for any engineer associated with this project to determine that no build would be the preferred alternative? Well that's that's a societal subjective opinion that we may not all share and ultimately counsel and may or decide whether the alternatives move ahead and the consequence of what's important, what the value judgment is on that. So you know, as was noted there is significant concerns about EJ issues related to the King Street main street neighborhood. There is significant issues with making decisions about this connection that's been discussed for many many years since that consequence to the property owners. So there's a lot of things that come into play. There's existing problems with stormwater. There is the need for multi-mode access from the rail yard to the street network. There is so many things to consider when considering these types of projects and whether they should advance or not. And I personally think that there's merit in this project going ahead with the alternative that we propose otherwise we wouldn't be here tonight. But we're not ultimately the deciders. It's the council, it's the public and we're here to listen. We're here to understand what you're, to serve your best interests and while still being good partners with the federal island administration and state of mind. So you ask a very loaded question that if you asked anyone at the panel you probably have somewhat different perspectives but probably pretty much the same thing. That's not a loaded question. You have already, well let me ask this question. Who determined that alternative 1B was preferred? I think it's collectively the team here sitting in front of you tonight is we're recommending a staff but ultimately the council will decide what alternatives they want to pursue. Based on the comments they received from you as members of the public and what we are saying is staff and the information that we're gathering to provide them. So it doesn't seem like a too difficult question to answer. Just imagine what would cause the collective decision making to move toward the no build option. If the purpose and need is not being met and the price for the project, I don't mean that financially, I mean that based on impacts to community members, stakeholders, if those things don't balance, if it's not looking like when you aggregate it all together and you look at the whole picture that what you're proposing is going to be a detriment, then we would not be pursuing that alternative and we would look at a no build at that point if none of these alternatives look to ultimately provide any greater good to the community. Yeah, it's a thing, it's a balance sheet of benefits and costs and what you value in terms of benefit is subjective. I don't like this other thing to note because we learned the hard way actually federal government's going to make that. We may have recommendations but federal government's going to write their right but yes that's true. The reason we have the alternative connector now is because they can choose. That's true but council is guiding at least they play a significant role in that decision making. They can try. Okay, I will say appreciate it again everyone who came and visited online listed this as well as everyone here in person. Again, please feel free to reach out to myself and make any calls and converse further or provide the information that's necessary as we are continuing to receive feedback and we're recording those and definitely taking that into consideration. Thank you all for making it. Thank you. Thank you.