Residents and transit advocates are pushing to improve safety on a road that connects Colchester to Winooski.
A few dozen people shared their concerns about Malletts Bay Avenue at a Colchester Select Board meeting on Tuesday night. Some of them participated in a group bike ride to the meeting from Malletts Bay Avenue to raise awareness about conditions.
At the meeting, speakers complained that the road lacks sidewalks and bike lanes, and has narrow shoulders.
Carrie Rigoli, who lives on the street, told the board she lives three miles away from the town hall building, but still did not want to bike on Malletts Bay Avenue.
Just to get to the Colchester bike path, she explained, she bikes a roundabout route through Burlington instead of down her street.
“There’s no way to bike on Malletts Bay Avenue, into Colchester, and feel in any way safe,” Rigoli said.
Last month, Michael Pickering, 52, was killed after being struck by a teen driver on the road. Police say Pickering was walking in the middle of the road at night when he was struck, and described him as wearing dark clothing.
But meeting attendees said Pickering’s death was preventable.
“I could have just as easily been driving that car,” Sarah Clemmons, who lives just off Malletts Bay, told the board. “I have almost hit pedestrians a million times. The lighting, the lack of sidewalk, there's just so much going on that stretch all the time.”
One of the organizers of the group bike ride, Clarissa Gold, who also lives on the street, told Vermont Public in an interview that Pickering was “denied the right” to walk safely.
“People who have been victimized by Malletts Bay and the drivers therein are asking for reasonable change, and to deny such a thing in the face of such grave circumstances would be disheartening, but we would still continue to rally for what is rightfully ours, and that is safety and movement.”
Colchester officials say the town plans to build a sidewalk on Malletts Bay Avenue in 2029. The Winooski Walk-Bike Plan identifies this area as a top priority for safety improvements.
The board told the group it would need money if Colchester were to install sidewalks sooner than that.
"Unfortunately, sidewalks are about a million dollars for roughly 0.3, 0.4 [of a] mile due to state and federal regulations," Colchester Town Manager Aaron Frank said at the meeting. "It is challenging to build one. We do have it planned and the answer would be more money, sooner."
They encouraged residents to partner with the nonprofit Local Motion to find grant funding to possibly speed things along.
That frustrated some members of the group.
“That is literally what we have our town representatives for,” Rigoli said in an interview with Vermont Public. “And it should not be our town citizens' job to go out seeking funds to make sure that we can walk down our streets and not risk getting hit by a car.”
The select board has expressed interest in exploring the group’s other ideas to improve the street, such as installing lights.
