A football column might seem an odd inspiration for one about Vermont arts and culture. But a great gimmick is a great gimmick. So let’s borrow a page from the fine NFL writer Peter King with a Seven Days-ified take on his classic “10 Things I Think I Think.”
I think the new “diverging diamond” interchange at Exit 16 in Colchester is pretty slick. I’ve driven it a few times in the past month, and, once you get over feeling like you’re in the figure-eight race at the Champlain Valley Fair, the first-of-its-kind-in-Vermont traffic pattern is fairly intuitive. It’s also effective.
According to Mike LaCroix, traffic design project manager at the Vermont Agency of Transportation, the unusual intersection follows a similar principle as traffic circles, where the idea is to eliminate left-hand turns and keep traffic flowing. In my trips through, it seems to do just that. Ain’t engineering cool?
Now, in the dog-eat-dog, first-is-best world of Vermont journalism, I’m obligated to note that our pals at WCAX-TV beat me to assessing the joys of the new intersection last week. But here’s what they wouldn’t — or couldn’t — tell you: I think it looks like it was designed by Georgia O’Keeffe, or at least the renderings do. Not picking up what I’m putting down? Consider the nickname coined by South Burlington resident Janet Uhal and brought to my attention by a Seven Days colleague. She calls it: the Colchester Coochie.
Speaking of new traffic patterns, for all the decades of rancor around the Champlain Parkway, I think it’s … fine? I’m not sure it’s actually any faster than white-knuckling it down Shelburne Road at rush hour. But as someone who travels between Route 7 and Burlington’s South End often, it at least feels swifter than the stop-and-go traffic radiating out from the Interstate 189 interchange as you zip past the South End City Market and the World’s Tallest Filing Cabinet. (You should hear what that same Seven Days colleague calls that…)
I think I’m glad I live in Vermont during election season. For the past couple of weeks, I’ve been inundated with political ads from New Hampshire on certain streaming services — which, presumably, like most non-New Englanders, fail to realize that Vermont and New Hampshire are, in fact, not the same state. But, man, are those campaigns ugly and dumb, red and blue alike. If I were a Granite State voter, I’m not sure I’d happily cast a ballot for anyone — though I would of course still vote, as should you. Let’s keep it classy down the home stretch, Vermont pols.
I think the losers commenting shitty things on “Stuck in Vermont” host Eva Sollberger’s recent short and very sweet Facebook video with her mom deserve every bit of karma coming their way. (As do the hundreds of fans who rallied to Sollberger’s defense.)
I think it’s lovely that Partizanfilm, the Burlington microcinema, chose the week of the Vermont International Film Festival to close and upgrade its heating and cooling systems — and directs cinephiles to check out the fest on its website and social media. What’s that saying about rising tides? Partizanfilm reopens on October 30.
I think Lily Seabird’s Lightspheres on Their Way and Greg Freeman’s All Set the Bone are two of the best Vermont records in decades.
I think writing a column again is a lot of fun. I hope you enjoy it. And thanks,
Paula Routly, for the nudge. ➆
This article appears in The Tech Issue • 2026.
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