By Kolby R. LaMarche

The Burlington Walk Bike Council has started a one-week demonstration of protected bike lanes on North Avenue. 

The project is set to run through Oct. 26 along a half-mile stretch between Shore Road and Tracy Drive in the New North End. Crews installed quick-build posts to convert existing buffered bike lanes into physically separated ones.

Residents of the NNE are encouraged to fill out a survey on the bike lanes, open until October 26th.

The corridor connects Flynn Elementary, Hunt Middle School and C.P. Smith Elementary with the Robert Miller Community Center, Heineberg Community Senior Center, St. Marks Youth Center, Oddfellows Lodge and local restaurants and stores.

The Burlington Walk Bike Council, an advisory committee to the City of Burlington, organized the project. 

North Avenue is one of Burlington’s busiest streets. It currently has buffered bike lanes, which consist of painted lines with no physical barrier from traffic. Those lanes were added, after a public vote, in 2016. Residents report discomfort biking there for school commutes, shopping or visiting friends and family, without poles. 

Planning for North Avenue bike improvements began in 2014:

• 2014: City Council unanimously supports a road diet plan to narrow travel lanes, install buffered bike lanes and reduce many sections from four to three car lanes.
• 2016: North Avenue Pilot Project installs buffered bike lanes citywide, supported by a city ballot. One segment between 127 North Avenue and Institute Road tests protected bike lanes, which officials later convert back to buffered.
• 2017: planBTV, the city’s master plan, recommends protected bike lanes along all of North Avenue south of Plattsburgh Avenue.
• 2025: Burlington’s new Walk Bike Safety Action Plan identifies North Avenue as a focal corridor and recommends permanent protected bike lanes.

Officials expect the demonstration to show how protection affects biking comfort and safety. 

“This temporary project lets people experience protected lanes firsthand,” the Walk Bike Council stated in a press release. Results will inform plans for permanent installation.

Some residents, however, disagree – and point to a larger problem. Under Vermont state law, also common across the U.S, drivers must, if safely possible, pull over to make way for emergency vehicles. 

In 2018, WCAX ran a story covering Burlington’s new installation of barriers and its impact on local drivers, where residents and commuters of that neighborhood weren’t pleased, some purposefully running over the flexible barriers. 

In the winter of 2019,  Director Chapin Spencer – of the Public Works Department – followed up, announcing he and a crew of city staff had attended a conference in Montreal that may solve the city’s bike-lane problems. 

Spencer modified the department’s plan, noting they wanted to tackle the snow that would pile up on the side of streets, impacting both pediatricians and cyclists.

Given the snow, bike lanes, bike barriers, and sidewalks: it’s a tight squeeze, especially for emergency and other city vehicles. 

Spencer, in 2019, vaguely acknowledged this, telling WCAX “Last winter, we had a challenge with a recycling truck unable to get through a narrow street…emergency vehicle access and people concerned about whether or not there’s sufficient clearance to get emergency vehicles through.”    

The Walk Bike Safety Action Plan calls for protected bike lanes on North Avenue by 2027. Officials say protection will encourage more people to bike for daily trips.

North Avenue serves over 1,000 households in the New North End. The corridor links to the Lake Champlain waterfront and downtown Burlington. Protected lanes fit the city’s goal to expand its bike network.