Issue Focus
How residents move through Burlington — by foot, bike, bus, and car — and whether the city's streets and transit serve daily life.
Resident sentiment on transportation, past 90 days.
Burlington residents say bus frequency, pedestrian safety, and late-night service are shaping daily life — especially for those without a car. Calls for more frequent service on the College Street and South Burlington routes are the most common, alongside concerns about pedestrian safety after dark on Main and St. Paul. Residents under 30, students at UVM, and parents in the New North End are the most likely to put transportation among their top concerns.
How often transportation came up across all responses, past 90 days.
29%
504 of 1,739 respondents raised transportation in the past 90 days.
↗ Up 3 points since Jan.
Transportation mentions have risen in every timeframe — up 20 points since 2020.
Sub-topics within transportation, surfaced from open-response analysis.
#1 Theme:Transit Frequency
Residents who'd prefer transit cite low frequency and unreliable timing as the reason they drive instead. Late evenings and weekends are repeatedly named as the worst stretches.
What people are saying:
I live a fifteen-minute walk from a stop, but if the bus comes every 45 minutes I can't actually use it for anything timed. It's the frequency that decides whether I drive.
Saturday service on the South Burlington route is two-hour headways, and half the time it's late. I've stopped trying to do errands without a car on weekends.
After 9pm there are basically no buses, so my late-shift coworkers either drive or walk home in the dark. The schedule treats night-shift workers like they don't exist.
If GMT ran every 15 minutes during commute hours I'd cancel my parking pass tomorrow. The math only works when waiting doesn't cost me an hour a day.
#2 Theme:Bike Infrastructure
The Burlington Bike Path is consistently named the city's best piece of infrastructure. Residents want the protected-lane network extended onto neighborhood streets and connecting routes.
What people are saying:
We need protected lanes connecting the New North End to downtown. The painted ones don't count — drivers don't see them.
I bike to work eight months a year because the path exists. Every other corridor I have to use feels like I'm gambling with traffic.
Winter maintenance is the gap. The path is plowed; the connecting streets aren't. So six months a year the network breaks at every neighborhood edge.
My kid wants to bike to school but I won't let her cross North Avenue without a buffer. A simple jersey barrier on that stretch would change what's possible for our family.
Concrete proposals from residents themselves.
A two-hour evening loop on the busiest corridors so the last bus isn't at 8 PM.
I work the dinner shift on Church Street. The last bus toward home leaves before I'm off. If there were even one loop running until midnight on Friday and Saturday, I would never drive into work again.
Solar-powered countdown signs at the top 20 stops — knowing the wait changes the decision.
If I knew the bus was 4 minutes out, I'd wait. Not knowing whether it's 4 or 24, I just walk to the next thing or call a Lyft. The information is the deciding factor — not the schedule.
Extend the protected bike network from the bike path onto North Ave, connecting the New North End end-to-end.
We need protected lanes connecting the New North End to downtown. The painted ones don't count — drivers don't see them.