Chittenden County is Vermont’s most populous and includes its largest city, Burlington. One interstate highway traverses the area: I-89. The Regional Planning Commission has been assessing future transportation needs and how that sector will change in the coming decades. Wednesday evening it held one of a series of public meetings to review the latest analysis and evolution of the Chittenden County I-89 2050 Study.
The virtual meeting was the sixth on the I-89 2050 study held by the Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission. It focused on the impact transportation action will have on climate in the Chittenden County corridor. Commission Executive Director Charlie Baker began with background and noted the last public meeting focused on proposed physical changes to interchanges.
“The last time we had a public meeting last spring we were focused on the interchange evaluation. We got a lot of feedback about not addressing properly the climate emergency. And so now that we’re in Task 5 and starting to look at alternatives this meeting is really focused on the climate actions related to transportation that we evaluated." Baker continued, "And we have a couple more tasks after we put together these alternatives. We’ll evaluate them. We’ll get an implementation plan and a final report. We are hoping to wrap this up this summer.”
Planning Commission Transportation Program Manager Eleni Churchill showed a pie chart illustrating that during pre-pandemic commuting in the Chittenden County area, 47 percent of employees worked in jobs requiring they be on site. The remaining 53% worked in mixed or professional categories that could receive incentives for teleworking. Churchill said their goal is to reduce vehicle miles traveled and greenhouse gas emissions.
“You choose what we call key drivers of change, which is the categories that you think they going to have an effect in actually accomplishing your goals. For this study we use land use, transit improvements, electrification of the fleet for the greenhouse gas emissions," said Churchill. "We also used pricing, fuel pricing, and some other categories climate change included. And then within those key drivers of change we included a number of policies and strategies and levels within those policies and strategies within those options, the investment options or packages.”
Another presentation reviewed sectors such as community and land use design, bike and transit options, demand management and pricing. Senior Transportation Planning Engineer Jason Charest said potential options parallel the 20-year Metropolitan Transportation Plan.
“Within that we’ve called for significant expansions to walking and biking and adding transit routes and increasing frequencies. And in terms of its effect on reducing greenhouse gas emissions we’re calling for 90% of personal vehicles, including light trucks, will be electrified. And this is looking out at the future year of 2050.”
The I-89 2050 Study assesses scenarios as transportation shifts from gas taxes to mileage fees due to increased use of electric vehicles. One virtual questioner asked how such a fee would be imposed on transient travelers or if it would only be applicable to Chittenden County residents. Baker noted that it is likely to be dictated by federal policy.
“That clearly isn’t happening by action of our board. It’s not happening by action of any municipality. Could the state legislature do something like that? Maybe." Baker noted, "Most of the conversation I’ve heard about that idea this would have to be a federal policy change. And frankly this has been a topic of conversation in D.C. particularly with the U.S. DOT about how to fund the transportation infrastructure of the country, which is now predominately funded by the gas tax. And if we are successfully converting over to electric vehicles that revenue is going to go down. What is it going to be replaced with? It is very much a national question.”
The I-89 Advisory Committee will next meet on February 8th and a public meeting is being planned for spring.
