The first phase of the long-planned Champlain Parkway in Burlington, Vt., is finally open, and construction on the remaining section of the road project is slated to begin later this fall, VTDigger reported.
On Aug. 20, officials representing the city, state and federal governments cut the ribbon on the middle segment of the Champlain Parkway, an accomplishment decades in the making and first envisioned for the area in 1965.
The two-lane, 25 mi.-per-hour street connects Home and Lakeside avenues and features shared-use pedestrian paths, thousands of feet of new water and sewer lines for the area, and a stormwater retention pond that will absorb sediment being discharged into Lake Champlain.
Prior to the ribbon-cutting — and flipping the switch for traffic lights at the Flynn Avenue and Champlain Parkway intersection — local officials touted the project as key to furthering housing and business development in Burlington's South End and along the Pine Street corridor, while alleviating truck traffic near Champlain Elementary School.
Once the parkway is completely built, according to VTDigger, the new road will direct cars from Interstate 189 in South Burlington through the larger city's South End, and help reduce traffic flows northbound on Pine Street, Shelburne Road and St. Paul Street. The route briefly joins Lakeside Avenue before connecting northbound on Pine Street toward Burlington's downtown.
Mayor Emma Mulvaney-Stanak called the Champlain Parkway a "generational" project, one that was "first envisioned before many of us were even born."
The 2.8-mi.-long road was initially envisioned 58 years ago as a four-lane highway called the "Burlington Beltline," and would have taken I-189 traffic along the city's waterfront and past downtown.
But that plan was eventually scrapped, and in recent years, the project was redesigned to be more pedestrian friendly and decrease the volume of traffic to move away from a "reliance on carbon-based, single-user car transportation," Mulvaney-Stanak told VTDigger.
Her colleague, City Council President Ben Traverse, said that the completion of the middle section — the first of two phases of construction for the full roadway — represents a "huge leap forward in finally living up to the parkway promise to former, current and future Burlingtonians."
"For many years, this project has taken up significant bandwidth from our hardworking engineering staff, and as we near its completion, we will see more capacity to pursue new and forward-looking projects for our community," said Mulvaney-Stanak, who added the city "will take the lessons learned from this project to improve community engagement and advance infrastructure projects that make Burlington a walkable, bikeable, and climate-resilient community."
While the Burlington Parkway's advancement was celebrated in August, city officials acknowledged that the project as a whole still has a long way to go before it is finished.
Roadway and pedestrian improvements are still under way north of the completed tract on Pine Street, near the intersections of Howard and Kilburn streets and Marble Avenue. That work is expected to be completed in this fall.
The second phase of the project will complete the parkway's southern portion by connecting I-189 to Home Avenue — a section of the highway that was partly built in 1981 but has since sat dormant — while also making pedestrian and roadway improvements to Pine Street between Kilburn and Main streets.
The construction contract for the second and final phase was approved by the Burlington City Council during its meeting in mid-August. That work is expected to begin in late September or early October with a projected completion by 2026, Mulvaney-Stanak said.
Future Plans Include New Railyard/Road Bypass
A separate project in Burlington, the Railyard Enterprise Project, would add a new bypass road over a railyard to connect Pine and Battery streets. City officials have said previously that the railyard work will move traffic away from the neighborhood around Maple and King streets, a racially diverse area of the city.
In speaking with VTDigger, Chapin Spencer, director of the Burlington Department of Public Works, noted that the railyard bypass is currently in its preliminary engineering phase and will be for the next six to nine months. He estimated that the effort is three years away from construction, depending on how the project's right of way phase goes.
For now, the completion of the Champlain Parkway project's first phase will open the doors to new potential business and housing development in the city's South End, officials said.
Cheray MacFarland, the director of community and marketing of City Market, said the co-op "took a big risk" in moving to its second location on Flynn Avenue "with the promise in the background from the city that they would commit to this decades-long promise of the new corridor."
"So, we're so excited to see it finally happen," she said.
Michele Boomhower, the director of policy, planning and intermodal development with the Vermont Agency of Transportation (VTrans), explained that the parkway construction builds off the recent successes of the Shelburne Street roundabout and the Amtrak rail line to Burlington.
"There are already proposed developments adjacent to the parkway, and the needs of the vibrant South End will shift over time," she said. "VTrans will work to support and adapt to these transportation system needs so the city can add more housing and businesses and increase the vitality along this corridor."
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