Board OKs Killington sidewalk extension

By Josh O’Gorman
STAFF WRITER | May 11,2013

Rurland Herald

KILLINGTON — The town is moving forward with a project to extend the sidewalk on the west side of Killington Road.

By a unanimous vote Tuesday night, the Select Board approved a plan to extend the existing sidewalk to allow pedestrian traffic between West Hill and Schoolhouse roads.

The stated goal of the project is to create better access to the shopping district on Killington Road and to provide a safe transportation alternative to driving.

Town officials considered several alternatives, including building the sidewalk on the east side of Killington Road. The Board chose the west side of the road for two reasons. First, the preliminary budgets indicate it will be less expensive to build on the west side — $385,000 — than on the east side at an estimated cost of $434,000.

The second reason was safety.

“It’s safer probably if we don’t have people crossing the road,” said Board Chairman Chris Bianchi.

A third alternative — always a bit of a nonstarter — was to reconfigure the road, taking one of the two northbound lanes and creating a wider multi-use path. This path would have included a tree-lined strip of green space that would have served as a buffer between drivers and walkers.

Lucy E. Gibson, project engineer with Dubois & King, told the Select Board that traffic studies have shown Killington Road could be reconfigured to have one lane in each direction and still handle traffic during peak winter weekends. At an estimated cost of between $283,000 and $331,000, it would also be cheaper than the sidewalk, but officials remained cool to the idea.

“To give up highway, I think is a really bad thing to do,” said Selectman Bernard Rome. “We’re trying to grow here.”

The current estimate doesn’t include possible expenses for purchasing right-of-way from property owners along Killington Road. The estimate also exceeds the project budget of $318,900, but Town Manager Seth Webb said it’s too early to say what the project cost will be.

“That’s a very preliminary budget we used when we applied for a grant for the project,” Webb said. “We could go back to the state for additional grant money.”

Town officials hope to break ground on the project in 2014.