Students highlight safety at busiest crossing in Vermont
Sustainable Transportation Vermont UVM students blasted the lack of progress on the U-Heights Main Street intersection Tuesday.
“This intersection allows for far too much interaction between pedestrians and vehicles,” said Zoe Kennedy, a student leader with STVT and a member of the Burlington Commission on Public Works. “Cars are given the priority, leaving students to scramble across four lanes of traffic in under 15 seconds, while dodging vehicles that are legally allowed to turn right, into the active crosswalk.”
“As a student who has lived on that side of campus I can say from first-hand experience that this intersection is confusing and unsafe to navigate for pedestrians,” said Nathan Greenstein, a student leader with STVT and a senior ENVS major from Massachusetts. “Many of the students like myself will often choose to avoid crossing here altogether, and so are forced to take the tunnel under. We are trying to be proactive rather than reactive to accidents or injuries that are bound to happen without change.”
“Every day students are put at risk from this intersection. Daily commutes to class, the gym, and even dorms require crossing over Main Street,” said Alicia Brisson, the co-coordinator of the STVT student club and a senior ENVS studies major from Lyndonville, VT. “Just during my time at UVM I have witnessed too many close call accidents that could have resulted in serious injuries from cars moving through the end of yellow lights and even the green right turn arrow that leads moving cars into walking pedestrians.”
The student leaders cited data that shows more than 7,000 pedestrians and 15,000 cars pass through the intersection each day – yet a significant number of drivers are using their cell phones, running through red lights, and turning right into pedestrians, the students said.
The intersection is currently designated a High Crash Location (HCL), according to a memo from RSG to UVM (Oct 9, 2018) and there were “105 crashes in the 5-year period between 2012 and 2018, including 3 pedestrian crashes and 7 heavy vehicle crashes. 20 crashes resulted in injuries.
“Members of our community with mobility issues, such as the injured and disabled, are at increased risk in this intersection because of the short countdown at the crosswalk. This leaves many students that I have talked to feel disadvantaged and forced out of their way to get around the campus that they live on,” said Kennedy.
A clear problem the students identified is that drivers don’t feel they have enough time at the light so they are gunning through yellows and sometimes reds while pedestrians are walking. At the same time, there is a green light pedestrian walk overlay that allows drivers and pedestrians to be in the crosswalk at the same time.
“This is a car-centric intersection and UVM’s population is only going to continue to grow causing more and more pedestrians,” Brisson said. “It would be better to see fewer cars and more safety.”
The Intersection has been identified as a top priority in the city and UVM planning for several years, yet nothing significant has been done. For example, in a study conducted by UVM in 2016 – the Active Transportation Study – the intersection was identified as the top pedestrian crossing at UVM. A number of solutions were proposed including striping a wider sidewalk, bumping out the curbs, and painting a UVM symbol in the middle. None of those have been done. Other ideas that have been suggested include something called a “barn dance” where all lights are red and pedestrians can cross each way and widening the traffic media in the middle and building a sidewalk on the west side of U-Heights to bring pedestrian traffic that way.
The students also pointed out that the cycle track should be 5 feet and it feels very unsafe riding on that part of Main Street with no space for cycles.
