Burlington Walk Bike Council — Burlington, VT
Date: 2025-11-05
Time: 17:30

AGENDA - Burlington Walk / Bike Council
 November 5th, 2025, Wednesday 5:30 – 7:00 pm
MEETING OPTIONS:
 1. In-person - DPW conference room at 645 Pine Street, Burlington
 2. Virtually - using Zoom:
 https://us02web.zoom.us/j/88225473951?pwd=YzFFQ1Q3Y3J4bzcwR2VNYWRFWnhtUT0
 9 Passcode: 091788

AGENDA:

1. Announcements and Updates (10 min)

2. Debrief on North Ave. Protected Bike Lane Demonstration Project (50 min)
We’ll discuss how the recent demonstration project went, including feedback from various
sources, and lessons learned.

3. “Block Party Designation” proposal (30 min)
We’ll discuss the idea of proposing that Burlington designate specific weekends or dates to
encourage block parties citywide.

Previous Meeting – At our Oct 1 meeting, we got an update on the demonstration projects we have
proposed as well as proposed ordinance updates, and then discussed priorities for the BWBC to focus
on in the coming year.

Next Month: BWBC meets Wednesday, December 3rd, 2025, 5:30 – 7:00 pm

The BWBC is an all-volunteer advisory council to the City of Burlington. We work closely with and advise the Department of
Public Works and the Department of Parks, Recreation, & Waterfront on infrastructure improvements and policy changes for
walking and bicycling. The council also leads advocacy efforts and organizes events and activities that promote and
celebrate walking and biking in Burlington and beyond. See BWBC Webpage and Meeting Minutes and Agendas

BWBC Coordinating Committee
Erik Brown Brotz,(erik@burlingtontelecom.net), Chair, Jason Stuffle, Jak Tiano, Gordon Dragoon, with Jack Evans (Local Motion)

Burlington Walk Bike Council (BWBC)
 November 5th, 2025 Meeting Notes
The monthly meeting took place 5:30- 7:00 pm via Zoom and at the DPW Conference
Room.

In-Person Attendees: Erik Brotz*, Phillip Peterson (DPW), Jason Stuffle*, Gordon
Dragoon*, Jack Evans* (Local Motion), Jak Tiano*, Gabe Nelson, Andy Tracy, Ellery
Ames, Nolan Rogers

Online Attendees: R. Alex Reutter

* BWBC Coordinating Committee members

1. Announcements & Updates
 ●​ Erik will be stepping down from BWBC, probably at the beginning of the year.
 Gordon will be taking on the role of Chair. Erik invited people interested in joining
 the BWBC Coordinating Committee to contact him or Gordon.
 ●​ The city will be selecting a consultant soon to begin working on PlanBTV 2050,
 which also includes an update to the City’s Transportation plan.

2. Debrief on North Ave. Demonstration Project
 ●​ Jack gave an overview of the data collected from the community survey. A copy
 of the presentation can be found at
 https://burlingtonvt.portal.civicclerk.com/event/8574/files/agenda/15359
 ●​ Findings
 ○​ The survey was open from 10/15 at 6 PM to 11/2 at midnight, a total of 19
 days.
 ○​ The demonstration ran from 10/19 to 10/26.
 ○​ The survey received 746 responses, with 704 responses indicating
 feelings of safety
 ○​ Council agreed there were some issues with the survey:
 ■​ Engineering and studies show that this infrastructure is safe, so the
 central question should have been “do you support implementing
 this”?
 ■​ Likely many of the “Way Less Safe” or “Less Safe” respondents
 were not less safe, but rather disliked the project for another
 reason. This is anecdotally corroborated by conversations Jack had
 with individuals who had taken the survey and said they felt less
 safe.
 ■​ By not restricting submissions, some individuals seem to have
 “response-bombed” the survey (as suggested by “grouping” of very
 similar responses without comments in a short time period) this was
 mentioned on the NNE facebook group by someone opposed to the
 project
 ○​ As the survey went on, more cyclists said they felt “less safe” due to
 observation of bad driver behavior during the pilot.
 ○​ Overall, majority of responses felt positively or neutrally about the project
 ■​ Among people who walked and biked most often, that sentiment
 was stronger
 ○​ We received 292 comments associated with responses that were “Less
 Safe” or “Way Less Safe”. These comments were reviewed in full and
 categorized:
 ■​ Concerns about emergency access or ability to move over for
 emergency vehicles (123)
 ■​ Mentioning that there is a parallel path, or few users to support this
 infrastructure (77)
 ■​ The impacts on traffic congestion due to not being able to use the
 bike lane to bypass a left turning car (39)
 ■​ Additional concerns included “agency”, “winter maintenance”,
 “cost”, “aesthetics”, and that the cones would make drivers more
 aggressive and dangerous
●​ Erik reviewed the sentiments of FPF posts, and found ⅗ of the ones that
 appeared to have an opinion were positive. All but 3 of the total 47 comments
 were from the NNE itself.
●​ Our bike counts were pretty solid? 32 cyclists during 28 minutes by the school in
 the morning.
●​ Jack plans on sharing our data at next month’s NNE NPA.
●​ We didn’t actually lose that many cones—possibly around 3. Some damaged but
 cones are fairly resilient and most could be fixed by punching out from the inside.
●​ Phillip said total cost under $1000 for everything including lost hardware and staff
 time
●​ Phillip thinks that overall this project was a big success, and DPW staff feels
 good about it.
●​ Phillip thinks concern about emergency vehicles getting through is not a real
 issue - they will find a way.

  Lessons Learned
●​ Temporary spray marking cone locations would ensure proper placement
 by volunteers in the future
 ●​ Longer demo to better collect data
 ●​ Likely different time of year, bike to school week suggested
 ●​ Survey only open once project installed, ensure user authenticity
 ●​ Use large programmable sign to alert drivers to demo project, continue
 greenbelt signs that people using the sidewalk or bike lane can read
 ●​ Change "do you feel safe" type question to "do you support" in survey.
 ●​ Collect data on other uses of bike lane - wheelchair, scooter, walk/run,
 grocery trolley, etc. Not just for people biking.

 Ideas for future Demonstration Projects
 ●​ Considered whether to repeat project in same location next year.
 ○​ Some felt like it wouldn’t make sense to “swing twice” and would
 rather try new ideas to add to the broader conversation.
 ○​ Could do a series of demos in a concentrated area to repeatedly
 bring conversation to the issue at hand.
 ○​ Could repeat demo for buffered bike lane from 127 to BHS and/or
 BHS to Washington St. once new BHS opens
 ●​ How to streamline process so a group like an NPA could pick it up and
 quickly get to implementation with minimum hurdles.
 ○​ Discussed doing an update to the guidelines on demonstration
 projects, or a “guide to the guidelines,” to make it easier for
 community groups..
 ○​ Create basically a pre-planned checklist to get common demos like
 add crosswalk, add bumpout, etc. done.
 ●​ Consider pedestrian-focused demos; possible ideas - add South Union and
 Bradley crosswalk which is heavily used but with no proper infrastructure,
 Colchester Ave at Kampus Kitchen traffic calming for RFB crosswalk - sign
 in road is repeatedly destroyed, usually within days


3. Block Party Weekend(s) Designation Proposal
 ●​ We should get the city to adopt some kind of block party weekends that expedite
 and simplify permitting for block parties.
 ●​ Question: why is this relevant to BWBC? Response: It’s relevant to BWBC
 because it’s about reclaiming streets for people.
 ●​ We should draft some resolution language and put together a letter to send to the
 city council next month.
 ●​ Ideas:
 ○​ Have cutoff date to apply,
 ○​ produce map of all block parties
 ○​ have incentive to have people attend multiple parties with a punch
 card type of system that can be redeemed for a "prize" from a
 sponsor. Could be attend 3 block parties and get some sort of
 discount at a business.

Meeting adjourned at 7:00 PM