Colchester Ave. is one of the most important, well traveled corridors in the City of Burlington as well as a commonly-used connector between Burlington and the Northern and Eastern suburbs. It is also unfortunately one of the most dangerous and unpredictable roads in Burlington.

I believe it is imperative that we make Colchester Ave safe and accessible for all who move along it

As Colchester Ave will be repaved this summer, we have an exciting opportunity to create change. I ask you to please use this opportunity to run a pilot study on Colchester Ave by removing parking between East Ave and Barrett St, widening the automobile lane, and adding in bike lanes on both sides of the street.

These changes will create immediate improvements for the many people in cars, trucks, buses, emergency vehicles, and bicycles that utilize Colchester Ave. To alleviate potential parking issues, temporary parking passes can be issued to Colchester Ave residents who do not have enough off street parking which would allow them to park on side streets off of Colchester Ave. Additional accommodations can be made for local businesses Kathy's Flowers and Kampus Kitchen as needed.

I believe that these changes will allow us to move closer to reaching the goal of having fully protected bike lanes and stormwater runoff mitigation features on both sides of the street.

According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, we have 11.5 years to drastically reduce carbon emissions to avoid the most extreme climate scenarios. Transportation is the biggest greenhouse gas emitter in the US, and accounts for more than half of Vermont's emissions. Delaying climate action has serious, tangible, real impacts. Please do not delay this important opportunity to reduce emissions and move our transportation sector to one that allows for folks to travel around our City, and in and out of it, by whatever form of transport they choose.


Thank you so much for your consideration of this important issue.

The message from DPW has been that Colchester Ave will be repaved this summer. However, per a post on Front Porch Forum last week, that work is actually happening this week. The contractor appears to have started work this morning. At the meeting about this corridor last Tuesday (4/23), we were told that any changes to the layout of the street had to be approved by the DPW commission at the May meeting. Now it sounds as if all the repaving and striping work will be completed this week. How are the proposed changes supposed to be approved by the Commission if the paving and striping are completed before the May meeting?

Please address this issue to have all painting delayed until a decision is made on the layout of the street per the May 15 Public Works Commission.

Colchester Ave has been repaved and repainted since this request was submitted.

The Department of Public Works has resolved this request. Thanks for helping to keep Burlington a great place to live and work.