Photo: Aerial rendering of Colchester Exit 16. Courtesy Photo.
by C.B. Hall, Vermont Business Magazine While the Agency of Transportation's list of highway projects this year is prodigious (see below), the agency does a lot more than replace worn pavement and fix bridges on Vermont's state, federal and interstate roadways.
AOT and its many partners also reconfigure city streets, maintain state-owned rail corridors, develop bicycle-pedestrian trails, build sidewalks, and perform an abundance of other infrastructure chores.
These other projects, often managed by towns and cities, tend to be more interesting than the usual routine of installing traffic lights and paving over potholes. This year, for example, AOT's work list will include reinforcing the stone underpinnings of the covered bridge that connects Windsor with Cornish, New Hampshire.
At 449 feet, the Windsor-Cornish structure was the nation's longest covered bridge until 2008, when a longer one was completed in Ohio. Built in 1866 for only $9,000, or about $160,000 in today's money, the Connecticut River crossing was a privately owned toll bridge until the 1930s.
The original toll eastbound into New Hampshire, which unlike Vermont boasted legal sales of alcohol, was 2 cents.
But, perhaps because of the ease of wringing an extra copper out of an inebriated traveler, coupled with the promptings of penny-conscious Yankee culture, returning westbound to Windsor cost 3 cents.
The reinforced bridge, which enjoys a place on the National Register of Historic Places, will thus continue to remind us of how New Englanders once lived.
The price tag for the work is a mere $90,000, a tiny fraction of what some of the projects on AOT's 2021 list will cost.
For instance, the next Connecticut River crossing to the north, the I-89 traverse at White River Junction, will be rehabbed and widened over the next four years for about $17 million.
The AOT project list also includes restoration of the 1880 covered bridge over the Mad River, just off Vermont 100 in Warren.
In Cambridge AOT will meanwhile be stabilizing a covered bridge that the state acquired in 1950 to maintain access to a farm field isolated at that time, when the state built a new bridge across the nearby Lamoille River to accommodate Vermont 15.
Big Burlington-area projects: Not quite yet
The chart, below, also omits a couple of very big projects that simply haven't happened yet.
They include the Champlain Parkway, which is an addition to Burlington's road infrastructure that has been in the works since before most of us were born.
Conceived in the highway-building heyday of the 1960s, and the subject of much controversy since, the project still has gas in the tank today, even although walkability, environmental justice, and open space conservation have replaced "See the USA in your Chevrolet" as watchwords of transportation development.
No substantive work on the ground is expected for the parkway this year, but things are moving forward, slowly.
The Burlington Public Works Department, the lead partner in the undertaking, is awaiting a Federal Highway Administration record of decision on the project.
That decision will likely approve a limited-scope supplemental environmental impact statement completed by consultants for city, and permit the shovel work to begin, Burlington Public Works director Chapin Spencer reported.
He said a request for bids could go out as early as September, but called a launch construction this year only "a remote possibility."
"It is a two-year construction project once we get under way," he said.
Assuming construction begins next year, completion by September 2024 – the date anticipated on the AOT website – "sounds about right," in his words.
When completed, the project will create 2.8 miles of new or redesigned two-lane roadway between the west end of I-189 and downtown Burlington.
Asked about the cost of the long-planned undertaking, Spencer said that the city put about $14 million into the effort since it assumed its project management role in 1998.
Construction is not quite imminent on the other big Burlington-area project, either – that being the remake of I-89's exit 16 interchange, which serves US 2/7 in Colchester.
Photo: Street view rendering of Colchester Exit 16. Courtesy Photo.
The new intersection will become a so-called diverging diamond interchange (DDI); that is, traffic on US 2/7 will cross over to the left side of the roadway so as to facilitate left-hand turns onto the interstate's ramps without left-turn lanes, dedicated left-turn signals, and the risks of cutting through oncoming traffic – hassles that, for example, anyone leaving the nearby Costco or Shaw's and heading onto I-89 southbound encounters today.
DDIs are already in use across the United States and in several foreign countries.
While they have their drawbacks – notably including confusion among drivers who haven't seen the critter before – their advantages are clear.
They reduce the number of phases, or intervals dedicated to successive streams of traffic, in each cycle of traffic-signal changes.
They eliminate queues of motorists waiting for left-turn signals and thus move the traffic along more quickly. And a DDI is a cheap solution compared, for example, to the wholesale reconstruction of an interchange, including in this case I-89's twin bridges.
The original plans for the undertaking, priced at about $14 million according to the AOT project website, date from 2012, but litigation over aspects of the project kept it on the drawing board for several years.
While a November 2020 Vermont Supreme Court judgment appears to have put an end to the courtroom battles, AOT is not planning on commencing construction this season, as preliminaries to the shovel work unfold.
The project is expected to go out to bid in early 2022, with construction beginning later that year and winding up in spring 2025, according to the website.
A few miles to the south, the city of South Burlington will be more active this summer, replacing the temporary bridge that has spanned Muddy Brook, on Kimball Avenue at the Williston line, since 2017.
Photo: Rip-rap supports the bridge abutments on Kimball Avenue above the Muddy Brook at the South Burlington-Williston line. VBM Photo.
A spring storm that year damaged the culvert that the earthen structure traversed, creating a big hole in the roadway.
The temporary bridge subsequently installed served its purpose until late 2019, when high water washed away the culvert and the soil surrounding it.
By placing rip-rap along the brook's banks, the city reopened the bridge on the last day of that year.
In September 2020, to create a less bumpy ride for the 7,000 plus vehicles the bridge sees on an average day, South Burlington Public Works closed the bridge for three days and paved it with a thin layer of asphalt, but the asphalt soon became what one motorist termed "a minefield of potholes."
That led the city to tear out the asphalt, necessitating yet another short closure. It was paved again with the same result. The new pavement was beaten by motorists mostly off the bridge, in which state everyone is working with until a permanent solution arrives.
The Burlington Free Press then reported that the bridge was "shaky but safe" – although perhaps not for everyone, given the lack of dedicated space for bicyclists and pedestrians.
The tribulations should however come to an end this summer, as the temporary structure will be removed and a culvert installed that will be "buried and out of sight," the city's Public Works director, Justin Rabidoux, told VBM.
The new crossing will include sidewalks for foot-powered travelers. Construction is expected to begin in June, with the goal of completing the work 12 weeks later – almost four-and-a-half years since the original failure.
Bikes And Pedestrians Count, Too
Foot-powered travel should also get a boost this year along the Cross Vermont Trail in Washington County, where contractors will be extending Montpelier's existing bike-pedestrian path east to U-32 Middle-High School, and then across the Winooski on a new, dedicated bridge.
From there the construction will continue a short distance along the north side of US 2 to a point just beyond the East Montpelier line.
The Cross Vermont Trail is a 90-mile route that follows the Winooski and Wells Rivers from Lake Champlain to the Connecticut River. With the new Montpelier-East Montpelier segment in place, 30 miles of off-road trail will be open, with the remaining 60 still in public roadways.
Greg Western, executive director of the Cross Vermont Trail Association, told VBM that the ultimate goal is to get the whole trail off the road wherever possible.
"Our prioritization is to get off the busiest roads first" – meaning central Washington County, for example.
"Our goal is to get it open by the end of this year," he said, referring to the 1.8-mile Montpelier-East Montpelier segment.
Pedestrians and bicyclists will also be welcoming progress in Bennington, where several routes will be developed for their use this year and in 2022.
The paths, and one active transportation corridor that combines an off-street path with on-street bicycle lanes, total some four miles, all on the north side of the South Shire's main community.
"There's a [Bennington County Regional Commission] comprehensive plan to connect all the pathways in an appropriate way – so we're basically building out a network in our entire community," Bennington assistant town manager Dan Monks said.
The projects on the current work list "will form the backbone of the network."
The pending projects will among other things create a route for non-motorized travel between Bennington College and downtown – some four miles – and allow people without cars to patronize the north side's box stores and fast-food outlets more easily.
The initiative will however leave the southern half of Bennington untouched for now, as it lacks the concentration of commercial attractions and is somewhat less densely populated than the north side.
Major Projects Spur Community Amenities
Improved community amenities will come in the wake of a major transportation undertaking in Middlebury, where a multiyear project that has replaced two old bridges in the heart of the shire town will wind up this spring.
That effort also lowered the railbed of the Vermont Railway tracks that ran beneath the two nearly adjacent bridges, which a tunnel 350 feet long has now supplanted.
Atop the tunnel and between the former bridges' locations, the town will be putting in a small park this year; a bit to the north, the town will be creating a park on what was a major excavation site during the main phase of the tunnel project.
These improvements will put the final touches on the undertaking, whose price tag will wind up in the $70-80 million range.
Photo: A vehicle tip-toes across the temporary bridge as a smidge of asphalt still clings to the road bed. VBM Photo.
A quarter-mile north of the tunnel, AOT will be launching construction this summer of a boarding platform to be ready when Amtrak service is extended from Rutland north to Burlington late this year or early in 2022.
Jim Gish, Middlebury's municipal liaison for the tunnel project, told VBM that the town has meanwhile contracted for construction of a landscaped parking lot to serve the Amtrak stop, again for completion before the first train pulls in.
The demise of the two bridges has thus nested well with civic enhancements that will serve the town for many years to come.
A somewhat similar sequence of improvements has unfolded in Waterbury, which has gotten plenty of attention in the wake of tropical storm Irene's unwelcome visit 10 years ago.
The TLC has encompassed, among other things, reinventing what remained of the Waterbury State Hospital as a state office complex, spiffing up the Vermont 100-US 2 intersection with a new roundabout, replacing bridge decks on I-89, and rehabbing the Waterbury-Stowe Road, a key corridor for retail outlets such as Ben & Jerry's and Cold Hollow Cider.
All of the improvements are now complete, with the exception of the so-called Waterbury Main Street project.
That undertaking, like the amenity upgrades in Middlebury, is demonstrating how the updating of transportation infrastructure dovetails with any number of initiatives to help a community both serve residents and attract visitors.
In the words of the pertinent AOT webpage, the Main Street project will "rebuild a 1-mile section of Route 2 integrating pedestrian and streetscape improvements and facilitating access."
Having begun in 2019, with an expected completion date of 2022, the project is entering its final phases, according to the town's community transportation liaison, Barbara Farr.
In terms of road construction, the street, which US 2 and Vermont 100 follow through the downtown, needs only a final layer of asphalt, which will go on this summer. Farr expected that the final touch, removing the utility poles and the transmission lines undergrounded earlier in the project, will not however be complete until the summer of 2022.
"Things went really well last year," she noted, "because businesses were closed, people were working from home, schools were closed, or in the fall they opened part-time" because of the pandemic. "The contractors were able to get a lot of work done while people were not on the road."
The remaking of the town's main thoroughfare, and a bit of two adjoining side streets, will cost $22 million, she estimated.
"Not only is the downtown going to be a lot more beautiful and a lot safer, with the bump-outs and so forth ... the big stuff is the stuff people aren't even going to see – the underground water lines, storm drains, electrical lines. The infrastructure improvements are setting Waterbury up for the next 50-plus years."
In other words, AOT's job is not simply to get you down the highway more easily, but also to maintain and improve the things that make Vermont an attractive place to live or visit – be that rail trails that beckon the cyclist, or streetscapes that, as a long year of social isolation fades into history, invite neighbors who have not seen each other in all too long, and visitors too long absent, to sit down for a leisurely coffee at a sidewalk cafe.
2021 Construction Projects
| TOWNS, CITIES |
ROADS AFFECTED |
DESCRIPTION OF WORK |
START DATE |
COMPLETED BY |
| Addison | VT 125 | Replacement of bridge over Wards Creek | July | October |
| Bakersfield | VT 108 | Drainage and other improvements at junction with VT 36 | 2020 | May |
| Barton | I-91 | Bridge maintenance at mile marker 160, northbound only | November | 2022 |
| Bennington | VT 7A | Rail trail construction at crossing of 7A | July | 2022 |
| Berkshire | VT 118 | Remediation of culvert | May | December |
| Berlin | VT 12 | Bridge maintenance at unnamed creek | August | October |
| Berlin | I-89 | Replacement of decks of bridges over Crosstown Rd. | 2020 | 2022 |
| Berlin | I-89 | Replacement of decks of bridges at exit 7, over VT 62 | 2020 | 2022 |
| Berlin to East Montpelier | US 2 | Construction of shared-use path along north side of US 2, .2 miles | August | 2022 |
| Bethel to Sharon | I-89 | Repaving, 13.2 miles, both directions, including ramps | 2020 | August |
| Bloomfield | VT 102 | Maintenance of Nulhegan River bridge | April | June |
| Brattleboro | VT 9 | Maintenance of bridge over I-91 | December | 2022 |
| Brattleboro | VT 142 | Replacement of Vermont-New Hampshire bridges | May | 2024 |
| Brattleboro | I-91, US 5 | Installation of debris catch systems on I-91 bridges over US 5 | August | October |
| Bridgewater, Plymouth | VT 100A | Repaving, ~7 miles | July | 2022 |
| Bridgewater to Ludlow | VT 100 | Rehabilitation or replacement of culverts, repaving, ~14 miles | April | 2022 |
| Bridport, Middlebury | VT 125 | Culvert replacement, repaving, rumble strip installation, ~8 miles | April | November |
| Brownington | VT 58 | Rehabilitation of culvert | July | October |
| Burlington | US 7 | Reconstruction of intersection with Locust St. and Ledge Rd. | July | 2023 |
| Burlington | US 7 | Concrete repair, .1 mile near South Burlington line | April | October |
| Burlington, South Burlington | I-189 | Repair of ramps | April | October |
| Calais | VT 14 | Replacement of three bridges | April | 2022 |
| Cavendish, Weathersfield | VT 131 | Rehabilitation, 9.0 miles | 2020 | October |
| Chelsea to Thetford | VT 113 | Replacement or rehabilitation of culverts, ~15 miles | March | April |
| Chester, Springfield | VT 10 | Resurfacing, 4.4 miles | April | 2022 |
| Chester, Springfield | VT 11 | Replacement or rehabilitation of culverts | March | December |
| Chester, Springfield | VT 11 | Resurfacing, ~10 miles | April | 2022 |
| Clarendon | US 7 | Maintenance of bridges over Mill River | April | June |
| Colchester, Essex | VT 15 | Construction of parallel shared-use path, 1.6 miles | September | 2022 |
| Derby | VT 191 | Various maintenance projects at bridge over I-91 | April | June |
| Dorset | US 7 | Improvement of grade crossing with Vermont Railway | July | 2022 |
| East Montpelier, Plainfield | VT 214 | Repaving, ~2.3 miles | March | July |
| Eden | VT 118 | Repaving, 4.6 miles | April | August |
| Enosburgh | VT 118 | Replacement of bridge near Prive Hill Rd. | April | October |
| Essex | VT 117 | Replacement of failed culvert at Alder Brook | April | October |
| Essex | VT 128 | Maintenance of culvert at Alder Brook | August | October |
| Fair Haven | US 4 | Replacement of culverts, both directions, between Exits 2 and 3 | May | July |
| Fair Haven to Rutland Town | US 4 | Repaving, both directions,18.8 miles, ramps included | 2020 | September |
| Fayston | VT 17 | Repaving, 4.5 miles | July | October |
| Ferrisburgh | US 7 | Installation of traffic lights at Old Hollow Rd. | April | October |
| Franklin, Sheldon | VT 120 | Repaving, 5.2 miles | April | June |
| Glover | VT 16 | Maintenance of bridge over Barton River | April | June |
| Groton to Newbury | US 302 | Resurfacing, 11.5 miles | May | November |
| Hartford | VT 14, US 4 | Repaving, other improvements, ~1.4 miles in White River Junction | April | 2022 |
| Hartford | US 5 | Construction of roundabout at Sykes Ave. | 2020 | November |
| Hartford | I-91 | Maintenance of Chandler Rd. overpass | August | November |
| Hartford | I-91 | Replacement of joints on White River bridges | 2020 | November |
| Hartford | I-89 | Rehabilitation and widening of Vermont-New Hampshire bridges | 2020 | 2025 |
| Hartland | VT 12 | Replacement of deck of Lulls Brook bridge | August | October |
| Hartland | I-91 | Rehabilitation of Depot Rd. overpass | 2020 | June |
| Hinesburg | VT 116 | Improvements at intersection with Shelburne Falls Rd. | 2020 | August |
| Irasburg to Craftsbury | VT 14 | Repaving, 7.3 miles | April | August |
| Johnson | VT 15 | Repair of bridge over Lamoille River | April | June |
| Johnson | VT 15 | Remediation of roadside slope | June | August |
| Johnson to Morristown | VT 15 | Resurfacing, 9.9 miles | May | 2022 |
| Londonderry to Chester | VT 11 | Rehabilitation of roadway, 14.0 miles | 2019 | 2021 |
| Middlebury | VT 125, VT 30 | Repaving from US 7 within town highway limits, total 1.9 miles | May | October |
| Middlebury | US 7 | Repaving in Middlebury village, 1.4 miles | May | October |
| Middlesex | I-89 | Culvert maintenance; traffic will affect northbound traffic only | June | October |
| Montpelier | US 2 | Improvement of railroad crossing | October | 2022 |
| Morristown | VT 100 | Resurfacing, .4 miles, in Morrisville village | May | 2022 |
| Morristown | VT 15A | Repaving, 1.5 miles | May | 2022 |
| Morristown, Stowe | VT 100 | Repaving and other improvements, 7.5 miles | 2020 | July |
| Newport Town, Troy | VT 100 | Maintenance and replacement of culverts, ~4 miles | April | October |
| North Hero, Grand Isle | US 2 | Replacement of bridge over Lake Champlain | 2018 | 2023 |
| Norton | VT 114 | Maintenance of Averill Creek bridge | August | October |
| Norwich | VT 10A | Replacement of traffic signals | December | 2022 |
| Norwich to Hartland | I-91 | Repaving, both directions, 8.8 miles, including ramps | May | 2022 |
| Pittsford | US 7 | Reconstruction, 1.4 miles | 2020 | November |
| Plymouth | VT 100 | Replacement of two culverts carrying Reservoir Brook | July | October |
| Richford | VT 105 | Replacement of bridge over Loveland Brook | October | 2022 |
| Richford, Jay | VT 105 | Resurfacing, 7.4 miles | 2020 | November |
| Ripton | VT 125 | Roadside slope and streambank remediation, 5.7 miles | April | November |
| Rockingham | I-91 | Replacement of Williams River bridges | 2017 | June |
| Rutland Town | BUS US 4 | Maintenance of Otter Creek bridge | April | June |
| Rutland Town, Clarendon | US 7 | Replacement of traffic signals | December | 2023 |
| St. Albans Town | VT 104 | Maintenance of bridge over I-89 | April | June |
| St. Albans Town, Georgia | US 7 | Repaving, 8.6 miles | June | September |
| St. Johnsbury | US 5, Main St. | Bike and pedestrian improvements | August | 2022 |
| Sharon | I-89 | Rehabilitation of bridges over White River | April | 2022 |
| Sharon, Hartford | I-89 | Resurfacing, southbound lanes, 12.2 miles | April | September |
| South Burlington, Shelburne | US 7 | Replacement of traffic signals | April | November |
| Springfield | VT 106 | Resurfacing, 3.2 miles | April | 2022 |
| Sudbury | VT 30 | Culvert rehabilitation at Warrior Lakes | March | July |
| Thetford, Norwich | US 5 | Repaving, ~9 miles | April | August |
| Underhill | VT 15 | Maintenance of bridge over The Creek | April | June |
| Waterbury | US 2, VT 100 | Repaving of Main Street in village, 1.0 miles | June | July |
| Waterbury | I-89 | Maintenance of bridge over US 2; northbound lanes only | April | June |
| Weathersfield | I-91 | Replacement of decks on bridges over VT 131 | May | 2023 |
| Weston | VT 100 | Repaving, 3.8 miles | June | October |
| Whitingham | VT 100 | Repaving, 5.5 miles | April | July |
| Williston | US 2 | Resurfacing, 1.1 miles; reconstruction of Industrial Ave. intersection | May | 2023 |
| Williston | VT 2A | Rehabilitation of culvert near Zephyr Rd. | August | August |
| Wilmington to Brattleboro | VT 9 | Resurfacing, culvert replacement, other improvements,12.6 miles | March | 2022 |
| Woodstock | VT 12, VT 106 | Repaving in Woodstock village, total ~2.6 miles | April | 2022 |
Information is from AOT website, project managers and/or local authorities. Dates are approximate.
C.B. Hall is a freelance writer from Southern Vermont.