MONTPELIER — Planners are working on conceptual designs for two plazas in Montpelier.
The proposed plazas, on Main Street opposite City Hall and on the Rialto Bridge on State Street, are designs created by SE Group, landscape architects in Burlington. The company is working with the city’s Complete Streets Committee on finding ways to make Montpelier more friendly and safe for pedestrians and cyclists.
The designs are part of a larger study by the city, The Main Street/Barre Street Bicycle and Pedestrian Scoping Study, that seeks to make improvements to streets and sidewalks in the city’s travel corridors, funded by a $20,000 grant from the VTrans Bicycle and Pedestrian Program with a matching grant from the city.
The study by SE Group is an extension of “traffic calming” techniques on Main and State streets that offer two design concepts for each of the proposed plazas. The design concepts emphasize the “pedestrian experience and placemaking over transportation on downtown streets” with two alternatives concerning parking. More expansive street designs are dependent on the city building a proposed public parking garage.
Concept A for Main Street opposite City Hall proposes extending the City Hall Plaza park space across Main Street, requiring the removal of parking spaces on both sides of the street within the width of City Hall. Decorative paving would enhance the street surface and there would trees, benches, bollards and street lighting of historical character to enhance the site.
Concept B for Main Street opposite City Hall proposes the removal of some parking spaces along Main Street and the widening of sidewalks that would reduce the width of the street and allow for protected bike lanes between the sidewalk and street.
On State Street, Concept A proposes removing some parking spaces on the Rialto Bridge and the use of decorative brick paving on sidewalks and in the street to accentuate a public gathering space under a canopy overlooking the North Branch River that would be separated from the street by attractive bollards and raised planters. There also would be enhanced street lighting and larger tree plantings that would extend beyond the bridge along both sides of the street.
Concept B on State Street proposes removing parking on only one side of the street nearest the river to create additional space for a plaza overlooking the river, with raised planters to provide a buffer between the seating and the traffic, and similarly, larger tree plantings on both sides of the street.
Kevin Casey, community development specialist, said the designs were presented at a public meeting at City Hall on Thursday when participants were asked to comment on the various options. He said the design team would look at comments received that might lead to “hybrid” designs that would be presented at future public and City Council meetings.
Casey noted that the plaza design for the Rialto Bridge was prompted by the proposed rebuilding of the bridge by the Agency of Transportation that would require closing State Street between Main and Elm streets.
Part of the project would include an upgrade to the combined sewer overflow system coming down the hill along East State Street. When the sewer and stormwater lines reach State Street, they are combined to take all of the fluids to the Waste Water Treatment Facility because there is nowhere to discharge the stormwater. The rebuilding of the bridge would allow for an extension of the stormwater line to the bridge, where it would discharge into the North Branch River.
Casey said there was no firm timeline for the rebuilding of the Rialto Bridge, which could begin within two years or may be delayed as much as four or five years. In the meantime, he said, the Planning Department decided it wanted to have a redesign of State Street to allow for the plaza to be built if the street was going to be closed to rebuild the bridge.
“If we’re going to be doing this, it’s going to be a big impact on State Street, so let’s rebuild,” Casey said. “We need new sidewalks and we need to rethink how our downtown works – it’s old.
“It hasn’t really been rebuilt like Barre, or St. Albans, or Middlebury or Waterbury, so here’s our opportunity. If there’s going to be a big disruption to the businesses, let’s look at the opportunities to redesign the streetscapes,” he added.
Planning Director Mike Miller said a complete plan would consider all of the contingencies in a major reconstruction project to rebuild the bridge.
“If we have to shut down State from the Rialto Bridge to Main Street and we already have to tear up the road to connect this (stormwater) pipe, let’s look at the sewer lines, let’s look at the water lines, let’s look at the street trees, let’s look at the light poles, let’s look at the benches, where do we put the curb lines – let’s just really re-envision how this street would work,” Miller said. “That was how this (streetscape design) project started, on paper.
“Even if it’s five years out, seven years out, in order to build the project, we would need to do the conceptual design, do the engineering, get it to bid documents. We would need to have it ready at the same time as bridge construction, so we can bid it as a single package and get the bond money for that single package,” he added.
Casey said it was also decided that the streetscape study needed to look at other areas of impervious development where the use of underground storage of stormwater to reduce flooding could be developed in other areas of the city. They include Blanchard Court behind City Hall, the Jacobs Lot off Main Street, The Pit (between Court and State streets), the Washington County Police Department parking lot at the intersection of Langdon and Elm streets, and the proposed Confluence Park on the Montpelier Transit Center site.
“How do we actually look at the other civic or civic-controlled spaces, along the river and the parking lots?” Casey said.
Large tree plantings along Main and State streets could also be used to create larger underground catchment areas that would absorb water that would support the trees and create more space for root growth to extend tree life.
An earlier, related study that involved the city’s Transportation Infrastructure Committee and consultants Dubois & King looked at resolving conflicts at intersections on Main Street at Barre, State, Langdon and School streets and connecting the shared-use path from Main Street to Stone Cutters Way along Barre Street.
To view the plaza proposals, visit bit.ly/PlazaProposals
stephen.mills @timesargus.com
