St. Paul Street Demonstration Project
On behalf of Suisman Urban Design
Great Streets BTV is an effort by the City of Burlington, Vermont, to develop a downtown that is a vibrant, walkable and sustainable urban center. The project establishes a set of downtown street design standards that re-envision the function, look, and feel of downtown’s public streets.
These standards, which were applied to St. Paul Street, guide the selection of the streetscape elements, including street trees, stormwater infrastructure, paving materials, furnishings, lighting, street art, and appropriate street and sidewalk widths.
Burlington Great Streets Design Standards
One of our tasks was to develop the street design and construction standards for all of downtown’s streets, in an effort to make “great streets” throughout downtown. This work covered nine miles of roadway on 14 streets across nearly 36 city blocks. We produced a 400-page document covering all aspects of streets from snow removal, shade trees, and rain gardens to bike lanes, transit shelters, and parking. The reconstruction of two blocks of St. Paul street became our demonstration project, giving us a chance to create a new streetscape according to the new standards and to test them in the real world.
