Your Survey, Your Voices

Welcome to Fall!

On behalf of the entire Vergennes PEL Study team, let me kick things off here with a big thank you to everyone who responded to the public survey that we released in late August and closed on September 25.

We developed the survey to provide people who live, work, and travel through northern Addison County with an opportunity to provide feedback on five routes currently under evaluation that would reduce the impact of truck traffic on Main Street/VT 22A in downtown Vergennes.  You can review those routes by scrolling to the bottom of the Public Survey page of the Vergennes PEL Study website here.

The survey also provided people with an opportunity to share their preferences on the trade-offs that may need to be made with each of the roadway concepts.

Hundreds of people from Waltham, Panton, New Haven, Vergennes, Ferrisburgh, Addison, Weybridge, and beyond took part in the survey.  While it’s going to take a few weeks to process and report on the survey’s results, I thought I would share with you a small sample of the types of comments we’re seeing.

“I think this needs to be done with the least bit of impact on both housing and environment.  How that works, I don’t know!”

“I believe that rerouting trucks onto existing roads is the best all-round solution for the noise and traffic created by commercial trucking (long haul) in downtown Vergennes.  Routes 17 and 7 already have truck traffic and are designed for this type of use.  Building new roads and bridges is an unnecessary expense and burdens some current residents with truck traffic and noise that would be shifted near their residences.”

“Making improvements to Rt 17 is welcome, but truck traffic cannot be expected to make that detour, adding many miles to their journey.  In an age where many seem to be concerned with their carbon footprint, expecting truckers to take a longer route will add a countless number of additional gallons of fuel to be burned up.”

“I live on Main St in Vergennes and would love to see the majority of traffic routed around the city.  Our yard is practically useless because of the constant noise of traffic.  Also we are on the edge of town and the trucks constantly use their jake brakes, which is oppressive.”

“May I commend you for your work, hope that the experts' best ideas are merged with the needs and preferences of the communities affected by the various route options, and note that that is far more important to me than any personal preference I might have.”

As you can see—and as is the case in any community—there are differences of opinion!

I’ll be sharing more survey results for you in future blog posts.  In the meantime, if you have questions or concerns or comments, please reach out to me at jgish@vhb.com.

Jim Gish, Vergennes PEL Study Community Liaison