In the past year, seven people were killed in crashes while biking, walking, and rolling on Vermont roadways: Mauricio Martinez, Janet Spencer, Kylee Bean, Owen Rich, Devin Pierro, Shiloh Skalka, and Todd Ward. On this World Day of Remembrance, we honor them, as well as the 139 more people injured, and the impact left on their families, friends, and communities.

At 3 PM, November 13th, we will be honoring their memories during a press conference in front of Shiloh's ghost bike (in memory of Shiloh Skalka - directly adjacent to 645 Pine Street), where additional ghost bikes and shoes will be placed. All are welcome to attend. This display will be left temporarily for the community to visit.

On Sunday, August 4th, 1929, between five and ten thousand people packed Burlington’s City Hall Park to watch the death of the street car.

Others squeezed along Main Street or watched from the windows of nearby buildings, while local dignitaries looked on from the balcony of the Hotel Vermont. At 5 o’clock, a military band marched down Main Street playing a funeral dirge, followed by Car 5, the oldest trolley the company owned, draped in black with a wreath on its front, and twenty mourners dressed in black.

The procession stopped beside City Hall Park. Men soaked the car's interior with gasoline, a trumpeter played Taps, and two of the company's oldest employees set it on fire. When the fire burned down, twenty new buses came down Main Street two by two, and the crowd cheered.

Forty-four years earlier, Burlington had thrown a celebration for the opening of Vermont's first street railway. Now the crowd cheered its end.

Over the years I have found many things by the side of the road. I have panniers on my bike so it is easy for me to take home the treasures I encounter. Most of the stuff I find is food but sometimes it is clothing or household items. I have found some wallets over the years but of course I have turned them in right away.

Finding things and using them is part of the ethos of riding a bike instead of driving a car. Much of the food I find would go to waste if I did not use it. Scavenging is also part of my heritage. Growing up in a working class neighborhood in Providence Rhode Island, all of the kids picked black raspberries, blackberries, apples, blueberries and grapes. We returned bottles and used found materials to make forts, tree houses, slingshots, and mini-cannons. I don’t rescue all the abandoned food I see. Recently I observed two bagels in the garden at City Market and I had enough self-control not to pick them up. I am sure the birds and the ants enjoyed them!

This fall, four Vermont communities are using paint, straw bales, planters, and cones to try out street changes before anyone commits to permanent changes.

This map presents initiatives built and implemented around Vermont since 2019 that are making it easier for residents to get around their communities without a car.

Last Spring, Winooski held its first-ever Walk to School Day. It rained the whole morning, but the children showed up anyway equipped with umbrellas and rain jackets, walking to school with their families and neighbors for the first time as a group. It was the first event pulled off by Winooski’s brand new Safe Routes to School task force, a group of school staff, parents, advocates, and city staff who’d started meeting only a few months before with the shared goal of making it safer and easier for kids to walk, bike, and roll to school.

I do many different kinds of bike rides. Almost every day I ride from Winooski to Burlington. I mostly go to some combination of the group home where I work, the Family Room, City Market, the Fletcher Free Library, and the YMCA. I am starting this essay on Monday, August 3rd, which will be a typical riding day. First I will go to the Y to teach a swim lesson, then I will be at the group home from 9 AM to 2:30 PM. After work I will go to City Market but also the FedEx store and the Asian Market. Then I will ride home.

Vermont’s roads are seeing more crashes involving pedestrians, bike and e-bike riders, scooters and other micromobility devices, and e-moto riders. How these crashes get reported shapes how the public understands traffic violence, particularly who’s at risk and who’s responsible.

The Conspiracy to Blame the Pedestrian

“It won’t be long before children won’t have any right at all in the streets.” 

Those are the words of a Philadelphia judge from the early 1920s, lecturing drivers from the bench about the newly invented automobile that had swept the country. He meant it as a warning. It turned out to be prophetic.

On Sunday, July 5th, I opened my checklist binder to the one for riding and swimming. I have a checklist for every conceivable activity. Checklists give me a sense of security.  I put my purple bathing suit on under my bike shorts and packed my pink bathing cap, tinted swimming goggles and lightweight camping towel. I also brought along my plastic banana holder to prevent my banana from bruising. Bananas are a good snack on a bike ride. As I left my house, I felt prepared, just like a Boy Scout but to paraphrase Robert Burns, the poet I share a last name with, the best laid plans can go awry.