Committee vets Battery Street plan; staff recommends west‑side two‑way protected bike lane, businesses warn over parking losses

City transportation staff and consultants presented a preferred design for the long-running Battery Street scoping study to the Burlington City Council Transportation, Energy & Utilities Committee, recommending a west‑side two‑way protected bike facility (referred to in the study as “alternative 2”). The team said the approach best meets the study’s safety, accessibility and multimodal goals while minimizing vehicle-delay impacts compared with other options.

Drew Jim Lewis, the project manager for VHB, and Julia Rysocki, city staff, explained that the planning process produced two main alternatives and a hybrid third alternative requested by the study advisory committee. After public outreach, an online survey with roughly 500 responses, targeted events and advisory committee deliberations, the project team recommended alternative 2, a two‑way protected bikeway along the west side of Battery Street from the northern end down through the corridor, with refinements to protect pedestrian crossings and to limit impacts to businesses in the southern block.

Why it matters: Battery Street is a mixed-use corridor with pedestrian-heavy blocks, tourist-facing businesses and commuter traffic. The chosen design would permanently change lane configuration in…