Upcoming Parkway-Related Meetings

The city is sponsoring a series of four "public information" meetings about the Champlain Parkway project.  Two of the meetings have already passed as of the date of this post.  Two are still upcoming.  Please attend at least one meeting if you can.  Don't worry if the topic of the meeting you can attend is different from the issues you are  concerned about.  The city will take comments on any related topic at any meeting.

One VERY IMPORTANT thing:  we have heard from the city's consultants for this project that the reason the design does not yet include the things that the Citizens' Committee is recommending -- more crosswalks, a continuous shared use path, and so on -- is because no one has pushed the city to include them.  The consultants can't put these things in themselves, but would like to see the project evolve to include them.  Therefore, public pressure is essential to getting more South End-friendly features incorporated into the design.  Please make your voice heard!

Here are the four meetings -- first two already past, third and fourth upcoming:

 Mobility Issues: Project Performance for Automobiles, Bicycles, and Pedestrians

TUESDAY, MAY 25, 6:30 PM, Champlain Elementary School, 800 Pine Street.

Neighborhood and Community Issues

WEDNESDAY, MAY 26, 6:30 PM, Contois Auditorium, City Hall.

Economic Development

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 9, 6:30 PM, Water Treatment Plant Conference Room, 234 Penny Lane (at the south end of Lake Street).

Environmental Issues

THURSDAY, JUNE 10, 6:30 PM, Burlington Electric Department, 585 Pine Street.

For more info, see the city's press release at http://www.ci.burlington.vt.us/docs/2012.pdf

Specific Things to Ask the City For

The "Top Seven" recommendations (in the previous post) are intentionally fairly general.  Their purpose is to indicate an overall direction that the committee would like to see the Champlain Parkway design process take as it moves towards possible construction.  Some of them are completely self-explanatory.  Others could use a few "talking points" in order to ensure that the message is heard.  To that end, here is some background and a few specifics related to the top three recommendations.

Committee Releases Top 7 Recommendations

The Citizens' Committee on the Champlain Parkway met three times this spring to develop recommendations for making the Parkway design work for everyone -- neighbors, businesses, and cyclists/pedestrians alike.  At each meeting, we combined and prioritized suggestions made at the two community meetings that launched the process.  At our last meeting on May 17, we came up with a list of seven top recommendations that, if incorporated into the design, will make the Parkway work better for the South End as a whole.

Maps of the Champlain Parkway

Here is a link to a 6.5 MB pdf file of a recent (but not quite current) design for the Champlain Parkway.  We're posting this version because the newer versions are engineering drawings that are pretty difficult to interpret if you aren't an engineer.  The images are a bit fuzzy, as they were created based on digital photos of the big posterboards that DPW uses at meetings.  (DPW was unable to locate the original digital files of these posterboards, so we had to take pictures of them to get them online.)  Thanks to Jon Shenton for stitching the images together and making them presentable.
Click here to see the map