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Burlington School District travel plan presented to TAC, emphasizes partnerships, equity and bike parking needs
Summary
CCRPC staff and Burlington representatives presented a school travel plan that assessed campus and neighborhood travel patterns, used digital walk-audit tools and surveys for public input, and included specific recommendations on transit, crossings and bike parking; members urged better engagement of families with disabilities and faculty/staff.
Dayton Crites, representing the City of Burlington, presented highlights of the Burlington School District travel plan to the Transportation Advisory Committee on May 2, 2023. The plan assesses regional, neighborhood and individual campus travel patterns and offers recommendations ranging from infrastructure changes to operational improvements such as crossing guards and transit coordination.
Crites said public input for the plan came through walk audits and maps, an online survey, and interviews, and that the report’s digital design allows users to access school- and neighborhood-level recommendations directly. Jason Charest, CCRPC project manager, thanked Melanie Needle (CCRPC) for creating the online audit and map used for public engagement.
Committee members raised several follow-up items. Sandy Thibault noted the report’s navigability and suggested it could be a model for other school districts. Thibault asked whether a faculty/staff survey had been included; Dayton said it had not been conducted comprehensively and that principals provided some staff perspective. Jonathon Weber asked whether bike parking had been studied; Crites said bike parking needs were noted at multiple schools and appear in recommendations. Adam Wechsler asked whether families of children with disabilities had been interviewed; Crites acknowledged they were not interviewed extensively and staff indicated some responses may have been captured by the online survey or principal conversations.
Key takeaways noted by staff were that school access improvements require partnerships; that a range of approaches should be explored; that safety and convenience sometimes conflict and need trade-offs; and that districtwide efforts require careful input from those familiar with each site. TAC members were encouraged to ask staff for more information on the status of ongoing projects and to consider this plan as a potential regional model for school travel planning.
