Article Title: A Master Parking and Transportation Plan

Edition: May 2002
Category: ViewPoint
Author: Paul Guare
Article:

Montpelier is uniquely bisected by two rivers which form valleys to accommodate commerce, industry and community assembly. Its residents, like the romans, for the most part, occupy the slopes and summits of the city's seven hills.

For centuries, this composition worked happily until recent years and the perplexing proliferation of motor vehicles. Into the fifties, the city maintained a hitching post behind city hall for visiting teams and horses.

Moving into our third century, a forceful claim may be offered that our valleys no longer can supply space for motor vehicles and places to put them.

In recent years, parking and its sibling, traffic, has been Montpelier's intractable enigma. We are aware of a scheme to pile cold steel for parking to bruise and scar the revered replica of the adjacent pavilion; a parking garage behind city hall and a bridge of limited purpose over the North Branch. Near Shaws which would connect to main street and create another four way intersection with traffic signals.

If the above thesis can be accepted, this conclusion would seem to follow. Reduce the movement of vehicles in the city and places for them to park. To be achieved as follows:

Construct parking facility and bus terminal at the triangle bounding Interstate 89 and its access roads. The space could include the junction road and railroad since both are in public ownership. Air rights could be used.
Move the liquor warehouse to a more effective distribution center -- perhaps White River -- and convert the Liquor Board Office to a tourist center.
Establish bus shuttle similar to exemplary operation at Manchester Airport; an expansion of the existing shuttle. Visitors could exit the Interstate shuttle quickly to the Complex, City Center, etc., and shuttle quickly back to their vehicle. No traffic or parking hassles.
Move Motor Vehicle Department -- downtown's principal traffic generator - to the Department of Employment Security location.
Provide express service from the junction to Barre. This could be a trolley as seen bearing tourists in Boston. It could move over the road or more pleasantly as a light rail on the M and B Railroad.

With the shuttle it would serve Amtrak, the Capitol Complex at the pending Taylor Street Transit Center; the developing Two Rivers Agriculture and History Center at the Jacob Davis Farmstead Near Cabot Cheese; the Granite Museum and the Historical Society's Museum under construction at the former Spaulding Graded School in Barre. These can be expected to emerge as major tourist attractions.

Reduction of motor vehicles and places to put them would not limit or deter access to commercial and official Montpelier; rather it would expedite parking opportunities. It is accepted in motorist culture that a driver visiting Somers Hardware will seek to park in front of Somers Hardware.

There are other potentials. Think of State Street from Taylor to Bailey with no parked cars. A landscaped median could be built in the center of the road above the old trolley tracks.

The 1948 Motor Vehicle building which faces the State House -- and which state officials reportedly describe as an office building disaster -- could be eliminated. The Capital Green would extend from the State House steps to the river.

This is a summary. Others are invited to add their vision and views.

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