 Good evening everybody, and thank you to CCTV for hosting another edition of the mayor's show live at 525 I'm Chapin Spencer director of public works and the mayor here is not Invisible he is coming momentarily, so I'm going to kick off today's show focusing on the Amtrak passenger rail returned to Burlington and the Champlain Parkway, so we welcome your questions and Thanks for joining us today So first topic is passenger rail to Burlington. We're excited to Bring passenger rail back to Union Station for the first time since 1955 and Joining me is the mayor of Burlington, Merrill Weinberger Hello, Chapin. Thanks. Thanks for doing this excited to talk to you about Amtrak, and I think we might get into some other issues as well. Thank you all for joining the Burlington mayor show and this is That's a year, huh? We nailed it down in 1955 was the last time those train service indeed and You know, it's been quite a momentous effort across multiple Administrations in decades to bring us to this point here, you know, it sure has you know I think you and I can speak mostly to the last decade, but it is important to note that there was some years many years of lobbying and some years of investment that You know as I've understood the majority of the issue for the last You know Period of time has been upgrading the track so that it met the standards. That's correct. They're for a comfortable and fast ride from Amtrak and We had an event back in what was it 20? It was while President Obama was still in office. So it had to be before the before 2016, right? with his His trend his transportation secretary Anthony Fox who came and announced a really intensive series of federal grants to finish the job of upgrading that line And then something you and I that all that all that was great and that the state and other municipalities worked through a variety of issues that That flowed from that decision and then we had to work through a challenging set of issues back Just before the pandemic began relating to the overnighting of Amtrak in the station and in Burlington and You know Chapin what you want you to talk a little bit about just how we sorted through that issue and What turned out to be the kind of pivotal solution to make to overcome that last hurdle? Yeah, well, I'm happy to talk about that and just for a little bit of the back story to thank senator Jim Jeffords and senator Leahy Who have been instrumental over the decades in securing funds to upgrade the track on the western corridor and Multiple state governors have really helped us along the way governor Scott governor Shumlin It's really been a team effort to bring us to where we are today. It's a really great point about the government I think it had to be it was like the top rail priority for a number of years, right? Yes service for the state it has been and to that we owe them a lot of credit for their vision To connect Middlebury and Burlington to college towns with the inner-city Transportation services of Amtrak. So the mayor you referenced the challenge of The overnighting of the train and I'm sure many people in Burlington remember The challenges in the community about where to store the Amtrak train Originally the plan was to store it in front of Union station and have it overnight there But given the proximity of some of the residences and concerned of businesses on the waterfront There was a request to really have us look Freshly at where else we could store the train and we looked at probably a dozen locations with the regional planning commission and the Railroad and the agency of transportation And thanks to us all working together relationships matter We were able to come up with a win-win solution of readjusting the tracks in the rail yard To accommodate another line that could store the train in the rail yard Which really unlocked this project and allowed it to proceed had that solution not been brokered I'm confident we would still be years away from bringing Amtrak to Burlington Didn't feel like we were on the cusp of another protracted delay fighting over how to resolve that issue So I know it's something you personally put a lot of effort and hard work into and ultimately that All the all the parties down there was a lot of moving parts with that it involved Quite a few in addition to the state in the city and multiple and and the rail railroad multiple private parties Coming to agreement and the the upshot is I think there's worth point out It's not just been better for not just got an Amtrak here right anyone who hasn't been down to that part of the waterfront recently should go check it out because On most days at least I think it's full. I mean are there any occasional interruptions they might I think it's fully open now on the it is the So the bike path now instead of doing that awkward kind of jig and a jog From the west side of the tracks to the east side of the tracks in front of the wing building between King and Where's it? We've got a picture to show it. Oh great. Let's show that. Yeah Why don't why don't we bring up the images here if our friends at CCTV could show The images here. Here's the network of Amtrak in the northeast and you will see here that Up in the top right corner above Saratoga Springs is the spur out to Rutland and that that Connection of Rutland will now go straight north to the Burlington Dot So unfortunately doesn't look like I can get my cursor on there But this is going to be an exciting connection in the Amtrak network currently the train out of New York City stops at Rutland and This train now will continue on for about seven and a half hours all the way up to Burlington We are excited that the state has announced the start date for the service of July 29th There will be a big celebration on that day. So mark your calendars. That's a Friday and They've also announced the schedule of trains departing out of Burlington at 10 10 a.m. And Also and then departing out of New York City at 2 21 and getting in that night I was pleased by that schedule when I came out. It was a little I had thought the hours were expected to be somewhat different previously a little less convenient So I thought this was a good schedule for us It is a good schedule as long as Amtrak can keep the schedule I think the important timeline is that you know people who go down On the trip they want to make sure they can catch a Broadway show or other Entertainment in New York City, so it'll be important that the train not be too late But it is a good schedule. I'm interested to see how it interfaces with the Vermonter That that's I've always thought it was sort of an interesting so the Amtrak, of course has the reputation of being late a lot and They've been doing better lately and have they gotten I actually sort of lost the thread on this part of it has been this like federal rule and the way in which Amtrak service intersects with freight rail freight rail and Here's how I've understood the issue, but maybe you can correct. Well, we'll have on the air Talk this through that The generally speaking as is the case in Vermont the freight companies own the rail lines and Well, and I don't mean to you know, certainly you can't paint everything with a broad brush I actually think Vermont rail has had a pretty good record of Meeting and you know not interfering with the Amtrak service nationally I think in many markets, they're frequently our Amtrak delays which basically result from the freight lines not prioritizing Amtrak. Is that a issue that we've made any part those there's been any policy progress on I know there's been debate about it There's been national policy on this front and Amtrak's host rail agreements have been structured such that there's incentives For the host rails to to really give deference to passenger rail to keep the timely arrivals going so There has been progress in this area. We are very fortunate in Vermont to have two Railroad companies who are quite supportive a New England central and some of the better records, right in terms and yes in Vermont rail system So we do have a good track record if we could go back to the PowerPoint. There's a few more slides We'd like to show That touch on the service. Here's the nice Aerial shot mayor that you were talking about Previously the bike path which you can see the black ribbon on the left side of the train tracks Is now on the west side of the tracks and no longer to the path users need to cross the rail line twice on the waterfront That's an actual photo, right? That is not some artists rendering. That's how it actually looks now. We've yes, and It's pretty exciting to go down there again as we were saying before if you haven't been down there It's a much less awkward. It's it's it's the alignment. We always hoped we would have of the of the bike path It's better for bikers. It is better for the pedestrian traffic. You there's actually have sort of a separate There's thought they're still pedestrian access on the on the east side of the tracks That's something we fought for in the agency of transportation was responsive and one of the things I think mayor to note is that this project Both to bring passenger rail and to flip the bike path have been in our planning documents in the city For over two decades. Sorry. Yes, absolutely It's been in our comprehensive plans as goals of the city and we were able to do both together Thanks to the agency of transportation Thanks to Vermont rail systems and thanks to the property owners adjacent who negotiated Around ten legal agreements with us to shift property rights so that we could fit the all of this on a constrained waterfront Well said it was it was it was a complicated You had a lot of a lot of different elements that need to come together to make that possible I Didn't realize it makes sense to me but that that we had planning documents going back that far You know, that's something we've always talked a lot about and and has been a goal of this administration It's like not just to have plans out there, but to implement the plans to get things done and this is It takes persistence. It takes Sustained effort It's been exciting to see it happen here. I agree. I agree if we can go back to the image for one second We can talk a little bit about the Here we go This is precisely the area that we were just talking about where the bike path that used to be on the east side or the lower portion of the rail line here has been moved to the west side of The tracks and I think one of the important pieces out of that and here's just a little plan view here of a section Where you can really see that we had to work inch by inch with each property owner Talking about existing transformers utilities that were underground Getting easements to have access to property that wasn't ours in Order to keep the bike path going the railroad had the rights and let's be clear about this to move their rail and Extinguish the bike path there could have been no more connection on the Burlington waterfront But for the partnership here We were able to negotiate these 10 legal agreements with great property owners with the agency of transportation And another success is really to recognize that vTrans was willing to coordinate both Projects under their efforts as one seamless project. They could have said we're doing the rail We're shutting down the bike path for two years and then you have to come in city later and do a separate project That's going to shut down the bike path for another year fortunately, they Really had a community and collaborative spirit in mind and because of that we're all done today And there was a period there where they really had to wait for us to put together some of the last Agreements, I mean it really there were a few agreements that we had to get across the finish line So you know well said I think it really was an important Commitment to partnership on their part and a great example of how kind of government I think can work here in Vermont the scale the allows You know not to say this never happens in other cities, but it was a great example of it happening here with that There's a little bulge if you can get that diagram up one more time the Do you know what the the long-term plans are for that structure that is shown there on that last slide? If we get it back up that the former ice cream bobs structure my you know Bob is finally retired but the structure is going to stay and be part of One of the some of the infrastructure that the railroad has down there is my understanding that's correct the ice cream bobs structure is In the railroad right-of-way it is owned by Vermont rail system And they are evaluating what the future use is going to be it may assist with the dinner train operations which get underway in I think next week for the summer and Then they're also exploring whether or not they have another concession with some Either ice cream purveyor or some other food concession That's interesting. So at one point there was talk of the dinner train being loaded unloaded farther north by the That water that is that not is we're now focused around here. We're not gonna have to do that That's right. The the dinner train will Load and unload from the Amtrak platform the same platform in front of Union Station Believe it or not, you know, you may not notice standing on College Street And we're talking about the structure in the in the bottom center of your screen, which is the relocated ice cream structure on the other side of the bike path from Echo and If you stand on College Street and look north you're looking at New England Central Railroads tracks If you're standing College Street looking south you're looking at Vermont rail systems. So You know Vermont rail system runs the dinner train But to coordinate with New England Central to get it across College Street and to load on a competitor's rail was a high hurdle and In the end it was easier for them to load on their own tracks for Vermont rail Great so What are you doing to go to New York? What's your family looking forward to to take a trip by Amtrak down to the city? You know, we don't we haven't buying tickets yet, but I We do love taking our we have two daughters taking them to New York. I'm sure we'll take a trip this fall and It will be we've often driven to Albany and taking the train the rest away from there. It's a Real inconvenience to you know, it's challenging to take the car all the way into the city I think this is this which will take you right to the heart of downtown Manhattan is really You know if you have it isn't you know, isn't as fast of course as a flight But if you're going on the kind of trip where you can spend a few additional hours Going from downtown Burlington straight to downtown Manhattan. It's it's an exciting additional service All right, would you have a brilliant you booked anything yet? Well, you know, I've held off as well mayor I think that you know, I'd heard that you were offering complimentary tickets for all staff members Down to New York City. The chief of staff is in the in the house here Yes, that that was a joke So yes, we're really excited my daughter is a big Broadway fan. So I'm sure whether it's another Hamilton show or something that we will be going down soon I am really excited for the economic development potential of this connection the fact that there are a lot of New Yorkers who really have the Vermont mindset and they enjoy the culture and The natural landscape of Vermont and I really see that this train and the destination here in Burlington being a draw for the leisure Customers in New York and maybe even some people to to see this as An opportunity to to do some work at work travel as well You can work on the train which is you know a great opportunity without some of the hassles of air travel Something I hadn't focused on in detail is that there are is it two other new stops that will be added to the service as well? Virgins and Middlebury and Middlebury. Yeah, of course Middlebury deserves it after the transformation that had they had to do their downtown To make this a comment to accommodate this if you haven't been to Middlebury recently It is pretty dramatic the changes in their downtown to rebuild the railroad crossing and build a Park over it and that's correct. It's a nice. It's a they did a nice job with it is my sense It is and that's another kudos to the agency of transportation. That's good smart growth to reinvest in our town centers V-Trans could have come in just with a rail mindset, but they came in really with a community development mindset And as you pointed out mayor Located a new town park on top of the the rail tunnel so the rail tunnel was designed to accommodate double stacked Trains this will allow Higher capacity rail freight on the Western Corridor that tunnel had been a constraint on the Western Corridor And so that not only got addressed with the tunnel, but Middlebury got a new town park Really a remarkable story Focus that those those double high Make it cargo trains that makes a huge different difference is my understanding for the economics. Yes of Cargo freight rail, so yeah, and I did benefit of this project. That's great Should we spend a couple minutes before we wrap up? We got about nine minutes left. Let's do it. Should we let's talk about our other major? 2022 public infrastructure news which is that We any minute now expect to be underway with the With the Champlain Parkway after a 35-year hiatus And sort of being in limbo for 35 years about what would happen With this long-plan roadway we Have had a couple breakthroughs with this over the last, you know, let's call it a year and a half and And then we had some drama just last week when that we had to go back to federal court to have a discussion about a temporary restraining order that was put in place and Got at least resolution for now on that issue So do you want you want to walk through the kind of the restraining order? Well, why don't we let's let's do this? Let's go back. Let's let's try to let's break down. Let's Let's let's try to do a short Summary of the history up until 2012 and then a little bit more detail in 2012 till now sure This is not your grandfather's and grandmother's project. What was originally conceived in the 1960s as a four-lane high-speed Divided highway cutting through our city is now a two-lane Multimodal city street with robust stormwater bike and pedestrian accommodations. That's a remarkable transformation We've been let's linger on that for a second because I think you know We use the lingo and sometimes like it just might not settle in for everybody. How big of a difference that is I mean what was originally planned was one of these elevated Raised highways that would have come right along the waterfront right into the downtown had like a highway exit ramp Into like the Hilton Hotel area and then continued on full-on highway out to connect with route 127 The city was completely right to stand up to that vision, which I think would have done a lot of damage to brilliant I really truly believe had they actually built that in the 60s We'd be trying to tear it down now and stuff absolutely so that part of the history I think we got a right to say federal transportation policy was was wrong to be pushing that kind of concept right Then we're a whole new era now right across multiple administrations and give lots of Kudos to people all along the way the city took over the project from the state in 1998 so about 24 25 years ago and that enabled the city really to advance a vision that was much more Multimodal involving bikes and Peds and transit So that we really had a street that fit in with the culture and vibrancy of the south end so Through those many efforts and that included you know putting new shared-use paths in new crosswalks Narrow or streets the speed limit was lowered to 25 miles an hour Do we have some do you have slides of some we do and if we could bring up the images that would be great We now have a project that is worthy of being built and so Let's see here we go Right now is in the top Image you'll see the blue section in the middle. That's the initial construction contract for the Champlain Parkway Construction started yesterday with tree clearing and it continues this week with tree clearing and grubbing in that middle blue section Runs from home Avenue to Kilburn Street and the two red sections on either side will be part of the second phase of the project That will be built in three to five years So you'll see in the next two tiles down kind of close-ups of the initial construction contract and This will include About a mile of shared-use path So we'll include some robust stormwater elements and these stormwater elements are critical to build first Because we want to do the lake protections first before additional construction is made since you know water quality is Got to be a priority for our city that relies on the lake and the economic value it delivers so we're excited to get this project underway and Please go to Champlain Parkway comm To sign up for the construction notifications the same way that many of you have received notifications on the On the roundabout project at Shelburne Road We will be doing the same weekly updates on the Champlain Parkway so that everybody's informed as this project progresses The initial construction phase will take us through three construction seasons 2022 2023 and 2024 and Maybe it would be helpful to go back to the images and just talk a little bit about how we've coordinated This project the Champlain Parkway with so many other important Reinvestments in the south. Let's can we show that image? I think this captures some of it I don't I get the sense that most people want to hear about the Champlain Parkway don't understand that a Significant part of the investment is to is in the some of the street amenities that you can see in this image raised intersections that slow down the traffic speed new Geometry to the the intersections there that also will require cars that are making a turn into the residential neighborhoods to Navigate that turn with some additional care Looking out for pedestrians and bikers you can see that there is a dedicated bike lane on much of the Northbound Stretcher road is so there's a shared use path on the west side as you're seeing on Pine Street And the red what's being shown there though is that that's a buffer space? Yes There are bike lanes north of Kilburn Street that will connect into the downtown as part of phase 2 But phase 1 really is the shared use path along the Parkway and Pine Street. So, you know To me when you could drive down Pine Street right now in many ways, it's a really underinvested street It's a street that doesn't really feel like it's part of a vibrant urban neighborhood. It feels like You know kind of a suburban arterial street these investments I Think you're gonna go a long way towards Bringing up the public Right away to be more consistent with what Pine Street has become over the last 20 years or so I agree and if we could go back to the slides one more time. I think the important piece is to understand The significant context in which the Champlain Parkway is getting constructed there are over a hundred million dollars of Reinvestment happening in the next three to five years in the south end and they need to be coordinated and you'll see Here that we've worked hard to coordinate it so we can minimize the impact on the south end in visitors and businesses So you'll see here the Parkway's in blue on the left It'll happen in two phases and coordinated with other exciting projects like Main Street Great Streets the rail yard enterprise project and the Shelburne Street roundabout This was you know really credit to your team and our partners again that we were able to create this concept of a a coordinated plan and And get agreement from our state and federal partners that the Champlain Parkway could be phased to be consistent with that plan To really gives us an opportunity to do this right to make progress on some of these other key elements and I think minimize any perceived impacts or that from from You know from from the from the highway project, so it's That that what you just saw there may look like a simple kind of Diagram I really Conceptually was very important. I think in us getting to this milestone of being able to actually start construction this week It actually happened yesterday. Somehow. I hadn't I missed my email Like to drop some new piece of information when we're on the television Well, good work on both of these Chapin. Thank you to you and your team Thank you again to the State Department of Transportation for their partnership on both both of these as well as our federal partners and the federal Delegation that has been so committed to getting funding for for these it is really quite remarkable that these two long Standing projects are coming to key milestones here in the summer 22. We've got great things coming stay tuned for more Reinvestment in our great Queen City Have a good night everyone. We hope you'll come back and join us for the next Burlington mayor show