The Addison County Regional Planning Commission (ACRPC) worked with municipalities along the three main highway corridors between Addison and Chittenden counties – U.S. Route 7 through Ferrisburgh, Vergennes, Waltham and New Haven; Vermont Route 116 through Starksboro and Bristol; and the town roads of Silver Street, Monkton Road and Burpee Road in Monkton and Bristol.

In addition to conducting a build-out analysis to illustrate existing development patterns and project potential development based on current land use policies, ACRPC undertook a visual analysis of the corridors that identified scenic resources and evaluated safety issues. ACRPC also recommended specific access management guidelines and policies to municipalities along the corridor to address safe and efficient roadway functions in anticipation of future growth while not compromising existing landscape quality.

Visual Analysis

The Addison County Regional Planning Commission partnered with the Champlain Valley Greenbelt Alliance (CVGA), a local organization with a mission to create greenbelts of open space along major road corridors as a way to preserve Vermont’s scenic resources. CVGA had undertaken a visual analysis of the Route 7 corridor from Shelburne to Middlebury. ACRPC supported CVGA’s efforts to complete that project in northern Addison County. ACRPC then followed the methodology used by CVGA to conduct similar analyses on the two other corridors studied as part of the Northwest Project.

CVGA produced two publications, The Roadscape Guide: Tools to Preserve Scenic Road Corridors, and The View from the Road: Patterns, Principles & Guidelines for Roadscape Design, which:

Building upon the visual analysis of the highway corridors, ACRPC and CVGA developed model language for a scenic overlay district, which towns can customize and incorporate into their zoning regulations.

Build-Out Analysis

The Addison County Regional Planning Commission further developed its existing Community Build-Out Analysis software and prepared build-out analyses for the highway corridors. The software uses current zoning, tax parcels and house locations to determine existing development capacity and project maximum build-out potential under current regulations.

Modeling the maximum build-out of the land area within a half mile of the highway corridors under current regulations in each town revealed the following potential:

• 644 new residences along Route 7 in New Haven
• 109 new residences along Route 7 in Waltham
• 213 new residences in the Route 7 buffer zone in Vergennes
• 604 new residences along Route 7 in Ferrisburgh
• 497 new residences in Starksboro along Route 116, 250 in the village center and 218 outside the center
• 347 new residences along Route 116 in Bristol north of the village center to the Starksboro town line
• 590 new residences along the Burpee and Monkton roads in Bristol
• 726 new residences in Monkton along the Bristol Road and Silver Street

ACRPC also calculated the increase in traffic that would accompany future residential development. Using the Institute of Traffic Engineers trip generation factor of 10 trips per day for a single-family residence, the potential impact of full residential build-out is sobering. Route 116 and the Bristol-Monkton roads currently have a daily traffic load of 3,000 vehicles. On Route 116, the increase in traffic generated solely by potential new residences along the corridor would be three times the current flow. While it is unlikely that the full build-out will be realized in these corridors, even a relatively small percentage of that growth has the potential to seriously impact the functionality of these road corridor.

An additional module for the build-out software was developed and tested as part of the Northwest Project, which allowed the depiction of new roads and driveways connecting future development to the existing transportation network. The tool was able to calculate and illustrate the potential for new curb cuts. While this tool remains a prototype and the results preliminary, adding new roads and driveways does provide a more realistic depiction of the future development pattern within the study area.

Access Management

Addison County Regional Planning Commission also prepared access management recommendations for the municipalities within the study area and made presentations on access management techniques to local planning commissions. After meeting with participating communities, ACRPC noted that better examples of access management applied in a rural context are needed.