It's now a little bit easier to take a trip on the bus.
CCTA bus schedule info is now available on Google Transit. That means when you're looking for directions on Google Maps between places serviced by these bus systems, Google shows you a public transit option alongside the drive, walk and bike options.
Try it out! Enter your current address and where you want to go — Google will tell you where and when to pick up the bus, which route (or routes, in the case of transfers) to take, and what time you're expected to arrive at your location. It's important to note that this isn't realtime tracking data, so Google won't tell you where exactly your bus is along its route or if it will be late. But it does make it much easier to figure out how to take the bus efficiently, especially if you're just a casual bus rider. And it works on smartphone versions of Google Maps, too.
It's not just useful in Burlington, either. Live in, say, Waterbury? Google will give you driving or walking directions to the nearest park-and-ride and tell you when to expect a LINK bus there. And if you're traveling from Burlington to Middlebury, Google's directions transition from the CCTA to Addison County's ACTR buses, which are also on Google Transit. Easy-peasy!
Getting the CCTA on Google has been a long process dating back a few years, according to Ross Nizlek, IT and scheduling specialist for the CCTA. To integrate with Google Maps, Google needs the schedule data in a very specific format, Nizlek explains. The process includes gathering GPS coordinates for every last stop and updating how the agency stores its route data.
"What I did over a period of months was I took the bus map and guide, took Excel and I handcoded each trip," Nizlek says. The result was a bundle of data that Nizlek submitted to Google back in December. A few months after that, Google and the CCTA went back and forth hashing out the minutaie, down to confirming each stop's name and each route's designated color. Now, it's finally ready.
If you live outside of Chittenden or Addison counties, fear not. The Agency of Transportation is spearheading an effort to get Vermont's smaller, rural transit agencies integrated with Google Maps, according to Ross MacDonald, the state's public transit coordinator.
"We have a lot of small providers with just a few employees," MacDonald says. "The state will participate by bringing that technology experience and knowledge to get the state up and running [on Google Transit]." The AOT will also help communicate with Google to get schedule and route changes updated when they occur, MacDonald says. (And don't forget about Go Vermont's programs to help commuters save money and be a little greener.)
If you're hoping for, say, a smartphone app with live CCTA bus tracking, you'll have to wait a little longer. "It is something we're very excited about doing, but it is a couple years out," Nizlek says. "Right now we're consumed with the downtown transit center." Once those plans are solidified, Nizlek says to expect more progress on realtime bus info.
In the meantime, the CCTA is pressing on with more tech improvements. A few more kinks still need to be worked out, including the fact that some of the route lines appear to fly through the sky rather than follow the roads. And local developers, your turn to play is coming up: Nizlek says that the agency expects to open up its schedule data on its website later this year.
Burlington's long-stalled Champlain Parkway project took a big step toward reality today.
In a 63-page ruling issued this morning, the District #4 Environmental Commission of the Vermont Agency of Natural Resources has found that the South End highway project "will not cause or result in a detriment to public health, safety or general welfare" under Act 250.
However, the commission stopped short of issuing an Act 250 permit because it is waiting for state-issued stormwater permits.
Still, the decsion is a major milestone for a project conceived 45 years ago as a four-lane, limited access highway called the "Southern Connector." At one time, the highway was slated to run alongside Lake Champlain and connect with the northern Beltline highway.
As approved (or nearly approved), the revamped Champlain Parkway is instead a two-lane, pedestrian-friendly urban boulevard that will have new trees, sidewalks, new turning lanes and crosswalks. It will finally connect the abandoned highway off I-189 with Pine Street through Burlington's South End.
A small but dedicated group of property owners have fought the project, viewing it as outdated, expensive and unnecessary. While the parkway would accomplish its goal of diverting truck traffic off residential side streets, congested intersections in a low-income neighborhood — particularly along Pine Street at Maple and King streets — would barely improve under the plan.
Allan Hunt, who lives and owns property along the parkway's route, said Friday he would reserve comment until he'd had a chance to read the Act 250 ruling. Hunt (pictured at top) has fought the project for years and hired a lawyer and traffic expert to rebut the city's engineers during Act 250 hearings last summer. Hunt, or anyone else with "party status" in the case, has 15 days to appeal the decision to state environmental court, though Hunt declined to say whether he would do so.
"The devil is in the details," Hunt said.
We'll update this post later after we've dug into those details.
Photo credit: File photo by Jordan Silverman
Since taking office in January, Gov. Peter Shumlin has taken regular respites — mostly long weekends at his chateau on Cape Breton, Nova Scotia — while at least one high-profile vacay took him to the sandy Caribbean isle of Dominica.
Shumlin was away this past Columbus Day weekend, just six weeks after the state was ravaged by Tropical Storm Irene.
Vermont’s Republican Party took the governor to task for his holiday weekend getaway, believing the gov should have stayed at home and used his bully pulpit to tout the state’s foliage to out-of-state travelers. The gov's staff called the charge "shameful."
Perhaps. If nothing else the vacation was ill-timed as many communities are spending their weekends orchestrating cleanup and repair efforts as evidenced by the calls for help from VTResponse.com.
For the record: Gov. Shumlin has an investment stake in 17 homes and investment properties — mostly in Windham County — aside from the Cape Breton home. Despite the many abodes, he is currently renting a spread outside of Montpelier that was originally the home of Republican Gov. Deane Davis as his primary dwelling.
This past weekend marked the third time since May that the gov headed north to his vacation home on Nova Scotia. Aside from Cape Breton, Shumlin secretly trekked to Dominica during the monumental March blizzard and has made a couple of out-of-state trips to New York, Washington, D.C. and Rhode Island for political and business events. When he’s in state, he’s no less at rest— often criss-crossing the state daily in one of his two taxpayer-funded, gas-guzzling SUVs.
All of this in-state and out-of-state travel makes the code name Team Shumlin has for the boss all the more amusing. Seven Days stumbled across the nickname while reviewing a recent records request.
No, it’s not “Shummy” or “Putney Pete” or “Gov” or even “Pete.”
It’s “GPS.”
Funny, right? Since “Global Positioning System” is used to help determine someone’s location, and Vermonters might find it hard keeping track of their gov on the go. So, did staff come up with this acronym because of Shumlin's constant jet-setting?
Nope.
Chief of Staff Bill Lofy said the origin of “GPS” is far less interesting than the three letters may imply. Simply put, Lofy notes, “GPS” is the acronym for Gov. Peter Shumlin.
From the Vermont State Police press office comes this pulse-pounding tale about a road crew rescued from a new round of flash floods yesterday.
According to the state police, construction workers Kenneth Clark, 43, and Robert Butler, 25, both from Danby, were repairing a section of storm-damaged Route 7 in Clarendon on Thursday afternoon when new rain — and new flash floods — left them stranded on a dirt island with no way out.
From the VSP press release (apologies for all CAPS):
A giant of the Burlington taxi community has passed away.
Paul L. Robar of Colchester, who built Benways Transportation into the largest taxi company in Chittenden County, died last Thursday, August 18. He was 55 years old.
Robar purchased Benways Transportation in 1973; he was also the owner of Morf Transit and Apollo Limousine. He was hospitalized in critical condition on July 27 after crashing his car on North Avenue in Burlington; he apparently suffered a brain aneurysm while driving. Police said Robar was traveling south on North Avenue when his car left the roadway and brushed a telephone pole and a tree, causing the airbags to deploy.
Recently, he had been a vocal opponent of the city of Burlington's new taxi regulations and threatened to pull his business out of the city if they were enacted, pledging to take "every legal action known to mankind to fight them." Passed by the city council on July 11, the regulations require all cabs to install taximeters by next year and impose a host of other restrictions on cabbies. Robar had predicted taximeters would cost riders more than the current zone pricing system.
Reached by phone, Robar's widow and business partner, Wanda Robar, said she wasn't up for talking about her late husband. Paul Robar's funeral was yesterday, August 22.
Fred Solomon, an independent taxi owner who drove a cab for Robar at two different times in his life, describes his old boss this way: "I wouldn't say he was cutthroat, but he was a tough and relentless businessman.
"Paul was the epicenter of the Burlington taxi industry for over three decades," Solomon adds. "His operation, Benways Taxi, was the stabilizing force in the local taxi world. He employed dozens, if not hundreds, of local folks through the years. Those of us cab owners who competed with him couldn't help but admire his own drive and success."
Robar was a colorful character with a penchant for unfiltered quotes. Discussing a threat from the state of Vermont to fine his cab drivers $10,000 for smoking in taxis, Robar told Seven Days, "I can ream them a new butt hole. I can tell them they're not going to smoke, but it's a little harder said than done." Robar complained about refugee taxi drivers who don't speak English getting assistance from resettlement programs. "You've got to be able to speak English, and you've got to know where you're going," he told me in February, adding that when the ride is over, "They understand the money. They understand that, but they don't understand anything else."
Robar also had a brush with the law years ago. In 2004, Paul and Wanda Robar pleaded no contest — not admitting guilt, but acknowledging the state had enough evidence to convict — to two misdemeanor charges that they failed to file Vermont withholding tax returns and had failed to remit Vermont withholding tax to the Vermont Department of Taxes in the 2003 tax year.
According to his obituary, Robar "was very proud to have provided employment to 75 people every week. He believed it was important to have a job that helped people in their daily lives; which he did as he provided a wide variety of rides to and from important events in customers' lives." He was both a Mason and a Shriner and was, according to the obituary, "the type of gentleman that could easily rally a large group to do good for the less fortunate."