When officials first dreamed up Burlington’s Champlain Parkway in 1965, Lyndon B. Johnson was president, no man had set foot on the moon and Bernie Sanders was living in New York City.
The 2.3-mile stretch of road through the city’s South End is finally scheduled for construction in 2019, but a group of activists wants to halt the project and redesign it.
The Pine Street Coalition argues that the environmental review of the project is too outdated to take into account the needs of bikers, walkers and a thriving business community. The review, completed in 2010, is “stale, obsolete and invalid,” said Tony Redington, a member of the coalition who said he’s opposed the project since 2000.
The group members outlined their objections at a Tuesday press conference, where they displayed a series of detailed posters of Burlington zoning districts, maps of the project’s environmental impacts and more than 60 printed pictures showing changes to the South End since the 2010 environmental study.
The coalition also sent an inch-thick stack of papers to city, state and federal officials demanding that the federal government conduct a new environmental review. If the Federal Highway Administration or the State of Vermont doesn’t respond within 90 days, the group plans to file a lawsuit in federal court.
Burlington Mayor Miro Weinberger, for his part, isn’t having any of it.
“The time for debate, amendment and appeal has long passed,” he said in a statement. The parkway, intended to connect Interstate 189 to downtown Burlington, is expected to cost about $43 million — 95 percent of which is federal, 3 percent state and 2 percent local.
Among the coalition members is Steve Goodkind, a former director of Burlington’s Department of Public Works, who said he oversaw the project plans for 15 years. He said the parkway would “restrict commercial development.” Another group member, Charles Simpson, was more blunt: The current design, if built, would send the city’s vibrant South End tech and art sectors into a “death spiral,” he said.
And if the project is held up for another few years — or decades? Redington shrugged. “We want to do it right,” he said.
Correction, April 5, 2018: A previous version of this story misattributed a quote to Steve Goodkind.
The original print version of this article was headlined “Endless Highway”
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This article appears in The Money & Retirement Issue 2018.
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The Southern end of Pine Street has far, far too much traffic. It is used as a bypass for Rt7. Traffic backs up from Rt.7, down the Queen City Parkway, all the way past Baird on Pine. I know because I lived right there. Large trucks and tractor trailers use Pine St. all day. The people whining about the proposal don’t live in the neighborhood.
To the people who think that the Champlain Parkway will somehow bring loads of new traffic to Pine Street and the south end, that traffic is already here now on neighborhood streets not built to handle it. Home Ave, Flynn Ave, and Pine St are currently de facto highways and are loud and dangerous. Huge 18-wheelers and non-stop traffic barrage Home, Flynn and Pine and severely reduce quality-of-life for neighborhood residents.
The South End will be saved when the Champlain Parkway is built, Also, it is not being built with taxpayer money. It is being built with federal funds that we already have and will loose if it is not built. The current situation cannot continue and the city and state know it.
However, the misinformation and endless self-serving litigation from the opponents is epic.
Miro-bots, Chamber of Commerce lackeys, oligarch bootlickers and Neo-liberal flacks are out in force again, flogging yet another project designed to kill the city of Burlington for their own personal profit. These are the vultures who are circling downtown. They have their man in the Mayor Mini-Trump, the local sycophant media, and plenty of outside money to push this. They all promote the Big Lie of Endless Convenience and Consumption. They yell for MORE MORE MORE of elitist dining and shopping as the cure for Burlington’s ills ( and driving the poor out of town so they can gentrify the Old North End).
Just make the Champlain Parkway a 6 lane overpass. Pave over City Hall Park, knock down Memorial Auditorium and be done with it already, as that is what you truly want. Turn Burlington into a high rise , white collar playground for the Elect and then gaze in the mirror at your own genius and try not to fall in love with the reflection.
The Burlington area is growing at a cancerous rate that is spreading. “Vermont” will just become an advertising brand for a lifestyle few residents will be able to afford. Instead of being one of America’s Most Livable Cities it will become one of its most “Laughable” cities that will look like anywhere else: another High-rise 1%er slum.
It should be mentioned that Steve Goodkind and Charles Simpson have a political interest in trying to stop the Champlain Parkway project, much the same as their political interest in stopping the Burlington Mall project. Neither of them will be directly affected by the Champlain Parkway project. We should all look at and consider the comments of people who live and work in the project area rather than outsiders with other interests.
Hi Steve, You’re right. Charles Simpson said that. The story has been corrected. Thanks for letting us know!
I think we’ve heard enough from the ANTI Everything Coalition. Its literally the same group of people. They just change their name to fit whatever project is their anti-du-jour.
The reason the the interstate does not “right turn into Pine Street”, a two-way/two-lane street, is probably because all that traffic would then immediately flow past two elementary schools, the Howard Center Baird School and Champlain Elementary. Currently, the traffic empties out into four-lane Shelburne Road. I hope this is not an example of the type of solutions that this unelected group is proposing, because it fails the straight-face test.
Traffic in that part of town isn’t nearly as bad as it’s made out to be. Getting off 189 to Burlington has never been a problem for me. Furthermore, I worry about the adverse affect this highway will have on the nearby Champlain Elementary School, not to mention the fact that the vibrant art community on Pine St along with Oakledge Park will inevitably suffer as well. Unlike traffic on 189, the traffic at the intersection of Pine and Maple is horrible and this will only make things worse. Lastly, it’s a waste of taxpayer money. There are plenty of public projects in Burlington that desperately need attention, but instead we opt for bloated, unnecessary development projects. The South End will suffer dearly if this ever becomes a reality. Burlington made a mistake by reelecting Miro.