Albert J. Marro / Staff Photo
Rutland City is considering a plan to convert
Woodstock Avenue from four vehicle lanes to two vehicle lanes, a center
turning lane and two bicycle lanes.
City officials and residents argued Tuesday night about whether fewer lanes on Woodstock Avenue would make for better traffic.
More than two dozen people attended a Public Safety Committee meeting about a plan to adjust the lanes on Woodstock Avenue during the routes 4 and 7 paving project scheduled for this year.
The plan calls for changing the road from two travel lanes in each direction to one lane in each direction with a left-turn lane in the center and bike lanes on the sides. An additional lane would run between the corners of Hillside Road and Stratton Road, giving one lane for drivers turning into McDonald’s and another for those turning onto Stratton.
The design follows a model promoted by the federal government and suggested by the Rutland Regional Planning Commission. It is not mandated, and the plan is to have a 30-day trial after the city’s Board of Highway Commissioners decides whether to continue with it.
The plan proved controversial at last week’s Board of Aldermen meeting, with a discussion ending with the board voting to have the city attorney draft a letter in opposition to the plan and then referring the issue to committee for more discussion.
Alderman Ed Larson, chairman of the committee, said the road sees 12,400 cars a day on average from North Main Street to Stratton Road and 16,600 from Stratton to Gleason Road. Larson and others expressed doubt that channeling that many cars into half the number of lanes would improve traffic.
While much of the discussion Tuesday focused on whether it was worth sacrificing the travel lanes for the bike lanes, Mayor Christopher Louras said the proposed change was motivated by the turning lane and claims of traffic-calming, and bike lanes had not figured into the decision-making process.
“I have not been looking at this from any perspective other than the safety of vehicular traffic,” he said. “We did not discuss, at any level, bike lanes when we were at the department head meetings.”
Louras said after the meeting that bike lanes were included because they were part of the model suggested by the state. He said he was skeptical about claims that the change would improve traffic, and only agreed to it with the provision that the city would have complete authority to call off the 30-day trial.
Jon Kaplan, project manager for the state Agency of Transportation, said the configuration is referred to as a “road diet” and is one of nine safety measures promoted by the Federal Highway Administration.
He said it has been found to reduce rear-end and sideswipe crashes, which together made up more than half the crashes recorded on Woodstock Avenue in the last six years.
Kaplan also said two sections of the one-mile road, each of them about three-tenths of a mile, were on the state’s list of “high crash” zones.
The existing configuration causes problems, Kaplan said, when somebody tries to make a left turn during high traffic. As the person turning waits for a space to get across two oncoming lanes, traffic backs up behind him. If another driver gets impatient and tries to go around the person turning, he runs risk of sideswiping or getting rear-ended by a driver in the other lane.
The center turning lane, Kaplan said, takes someone making a left turn out of the traveled lane and only leaves the driver one oncoming lane to get across. In addition, he said, the center turning lane serves as a “low-conflict” lane for emergency vehicles.
Kaplan said two examples of “road diet” can be found in Vermont, both of which have higher average traffic volumes than Woodstock Avenue. One is Colchester Avenue in Burlington, which sees an average of 18,000 vehicles a day. The other is Williston Road in South Burlington, with an average of 20,000 vehicles a day.
Several people identified themselves as Woodstock Avenue merchants and said they were vehemently opposed to the change as they it would damage their businesses by making it harder for customers to get to them.
One, however, said it would make turning into his business easier. Having been hit by a car while trying to cross Woodstock Avenue on foot, he said, he supported anything that would slow down the traffic there.
While he was not present at the meeting Tuesday, Thomas Donahue, executive vice president of the Rutland Region Chamber of Commerce, has commented that his informal survey showed his membership along Woodstock Avenue is evenly divided on the issue and the chamber would likely remain neutral.
Alderman Christopher Siliski said he arrived at the meeting skeptical.
“Although we’ve heard from aldermen about their strong beliefs ... we’ve also heard real statistics about how it might work,” he said. “I would go with the research and the statistical history. ... I’m very skeptical, but I think I’ve heard enough from the state to at least try it.”
Alderman Thomas DePoy, on the other hand, said he remained unswayed and that the two Chittenden County roads were not comparable to Woodstock Avenue.
“I don’t even want to see a test period done on this,” he said. “I think this is a mistake.”
Alderman Jon Kiernan said he remained skeptical, but the city should try it. However, he said, the city needs to make sure residents don’t see the new lines and think the change is a settled issue, and that they know how to register whatever complaints they might have.
The committee made no recommendation to the full board, and Alderwoman Sharon Davis commented that authority rests with the highway commission rather than the board in any case.
Larson said he expects to distribute various communications he has received to the rest of the committee and then call another meeting to review them.
@Tagline:gordon.dritschilo
@rutlandherald.com
More than two dozen people attended a Public Safety Committee meeting about a plan to adjust the lanes on Woodstock Avenue during the routes 4 and 7 paving project scheduled for this year.
The plan calls for changing the road from two travel lanes in each direction to one lane in each direction with a left-turn lane in the center and bike lanes on the sides. An additional lane would run between the corners of Hillside Road and Stratton Road, giving one lane for drivers turning into McDonald’s and another for those turning onto Stratton.
The design follows a model promoted by the federal government and suggested by the Rutland Regional Planning Commission. It is not mandated, and the plan is to have a 30-day trial after the city’s Board of Highway Commissioners decides whether to continue with it.
The plan proved controversial at last week’s Board of Aldermen meeting, with a discussion ending with the board voting to have the city attorney draft a letter in opposition to the plan and then referring the issue to committee for more discussion.
Alderman Ed Larson, chairman of the committee, said the road sees 12,400 cars a day on average from North Main Street to Stratton Road and 16,600 from Stratton to Gleason Road. Larson and others expressed doubt that channeling that many cars into half the number of lanes would improve traffic.
While much of the discussion Tuesday focused on whether it was worth sacrificing the travel lanes for the bike lanes, Mayor Christopher Louras said the proposed change was motivated by the turning lane and claims of traffic-calming, and bike lanes had not figured into the decision-making process.
“I have not been looking at this from any perspective other than the safety of vehicular traffic,” he said. “We did not discuss, at any level, bike lanes when we were at the department head meetings.”
Louras said after the meeting that bike lanes were included because they were part of the model suggested by the state. He said he was skeptical about claims that the change would improve traffic, and only agreed to it with the provision that the city would have complete authority to call off the 30-day trial.
Jon Kaplan, project manager for the state Agency of Transportation, said the configuration is referred to as a “road diet” and is one of nine safety measures promoted by the Federal Highway Administration.
He said it has been found to reduce rear-end and sideswipe crashes, which together made up more than half the crashes recorded on Woodstock Avenue in the last six years.
Kaplan also said two sections of the one-mile road, each of them about three-tenths of a mile, were on the state’s list of “high crash” zones.
The existing configuration causes problems, Kaplan said, when somebody tries to make a left turn during high traffic. As the person turning waits for a space to get across two oncoming lanes, traffic backs up behind him. If another driver gets impatient and tries to go around the person turning, he runs risk of sideswiping or getting rear-ended by a driver in the other lane.
The center turning lane, Kaplan said, takes someone making a left turn out of the traveled lane and only leaves the driver one oncoming lane to get across. In addition, he said, the center turning lane serves as a “low-conflict” lane for emergency vehicles.
Kaplan said two examples of “road diet” can be found in Vermont, both of which have higher average traffic volumes than Woodstock Avenue. One is Colchester Avenue in Burlington, which sees an average of 18,000 vehicles a day. The other is Williston Road in South Burlington, with an average of 20,000 vehicles a day.
Several people identified themselves as Woodstock Avenue merchants and said they were vehemently opposed to the change as they it would damage their businesses by making it harder for customers to get to them.
One, however, said it would make turning into his business easier. Having been hit by a car while trying to cross Woodstock Avenue on foot, he said, he supported anything that would slow down the traffic there.
While he was not present at the meeting Tuesday, Thomas Donahue, executive vice president of the Rutland Region Chamber of Commerce, has commented that his informal survey showed his membership along Woodstock Avenue is evenly divided on the issue and the chamber would likely remain neutral.
Alderman Christopher Siliski said he arrived at the meeting skeptical.
“Although we’ve heard from aldermen about their strong beliefs ... we’ve also heard real statistics about how it might work,” he said. “I would go with the research and the statistical history. ... I’m very skeptical, but I think I’ve heard enough from the state to at least try it.”
Alderman Thomas DePoy, on the other hand, said he remained unswayed and that the two Chittenden County roads were not comparable to Woodstock Avenue.
“I don’t even want to see a test period done on this,” he said. “I think this is a mistake.”
Alderman Jon Kiernan said he remained skeptical, but the city should try it. However, he said, the city needs to make sure residents don’t see the new lines and think the change is a settled issue, and that they know how to register whatever complaints they might have.
The committee made no recommendation to the full board, and Alderwoman Sharon Davis commented that authority rests with the highway commission rather than the board in any case.
Larson said he expects to distribute various communications he has received to the rest of the committee and then call another meeting to review them.
@Tagline:gordon.dritschilo
@rutlandherald.com
This will be another headache, like the one they caused when they put the stop sign on Stratton Avenue at General Wing Road. It caused traffic backups that had never been there before. At least they knew enough to stop the experiment without waiting for the full 30 days.
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