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New Vermont Roadway and Multimodal Guidance Development

Project Overview

The Vermont Agency of Transportation (AOT) is excited to announce that an effort is underway to revise and update the Vermont State Design Standards (VSS) to meet and exceed the current state of the practice for designing and planning multimodal transportation facilities.  The primary audience for the new document is AOT policy makers, designers, and planners, along with municipal and regional partners. The new guidance will be written, illustrated, and published such that it is easily accessible and updatable, with features that practitioners today expect.

The VSS were created in 1997. At that time, they were groundbreaking as they provided planners and designers with flexibility to balance roadway geometric design standards with the natural and cultural context so critical to Vermont. These standards also allowed for practicality in the design of transportation projects with the Level of Improvement standards.

The VSS have served Vermont well in the planning and design of transportation projects. However, they have not been updated since they were created and as a result, they do not reflect the last few decades of the evolution of the thought process around planning and designing Vermont’s roadways. Namely, present day front-of-mind concepts such as Active Transportation, Context Sensitive Planning & Design, and Performance Based Practical Design all need to be considered and expanded upon in this new guide.

The need to update the VSS was illustrated by a study prepared for AOT by Smart Growth America. The study is titled, Revising the Vermont State Standards; M2D2: Multimodal Development and Delivery (M2D2) and represents an in-depth and collaborative, plan to update the VSS. Today’s effort will build from the 2015 work and will further refine the content through collaboration and extensive stakeholder engagement.

The guidance update project consists of three phases.

  • Phase I (current phase)

    • Goal: Develop an Annotated Outline through extensive stakeholder engagement and the review and research of successful precedent guidance.

    • Milestone: Draft #1 Annotated Outline - January 2025

  • Phase II

    • Goal: Create the Guide with continued engagement from the project advisors.

  • Phase III

    • Goal: Educate and conduct outreach to the transportation community (municipalities, RPCs and MPOs, etc.) to assist in the statewide implementation of the new guide.

During Phase I and Phase II, AOT plans to hold several public presentations to provide information about the current development of the guide, answer questions, and solicit input on the structure, look and feel, and content of the guide.

Project Vision and Goals

Vision 

Develop guidance that supports the AOT Strategic Plan and provides a foundation for designing a safe, reliable, equitable, and environmentally sustainable and resilient multimodal transportation system for all users that is efficient to operate and maintain. The guidance will promote user inclusive and context appropriate design that supports economic growth and community development; complements Vermont specific smart growth land use goals of town centers surrounded by a rural countryside; and encourages personal health through movement.

Goals 

  • Develop framework for balancing the impacts, tradeoffs, and interactions of all potential travel modes from safety, funding, physical constraints, operational, and maintenance perspectives. 
  • Promote best practices for coordination between AOT and agency partners during planning and project development to align with existing local, regional, and corridor plans. 
  • Establish guidance that reflects current state of the multimodal transportation planning/engineering practice while supporting design flexibility within a Vermont context (rural and low density, land use transition areas, etc.)  
  • Build on work created in M2D2 document and close identified gaps and barriers within current Vermont State Design Standards. 
  • Integrate and reference relevant AOT and external resource guidance where appropriate while providing easy to follow direction  on how guidance should be utilized. 
  • Present guidance in a way that is accessible, easy and efficient to navigate, practical, contextually relevant, respectful to project funding/type, and updatable. 

Stakeholder Engagement Process

The Stakeholder Engagement Plan for the project is intended to be dynamic and scalable to evolve in response to the needs of the project and opportunities to engage stakeholders at the right time and setting. Three stakeholder groups have been identified to guide this process including the Project Steering Committee (PSC), Technical Working Group (TWG), and the Stakeholder Advisory Group (SAG). 

Project Steering Committee (PSC) 

The PSC drives the overall process and serves as the key decision maker for the effort. The PSD is comprised of AOT staff who have the authority to make content decisions where complete consensus is not practical or achievable among the stakeholder groups.The PSC is updated and consulted as needed during the progress of the project. 

Technical Working Group (TWG) 

The TWG’s primary focus is to advise the project team on technical content with representatives from the AOT Asset Management, Highway, Planning, Maintenance, and Chief Engineer offices, along with representatives from regional planning commissions (RPC) and the American Council of Engineering Companies (ACEC). The members of the TWG were selected by AOT and will be involved with all project phases to provide continuity and expertise in the development of the guidance. The TWG provides feedback from a professional and practitioner perspective on how the technical content should be used to meet the vision and goals.

Stakeholder Advisory Group (SAG) 

The SAG consists of a subset of the previous M2D2 stakeholder group along with others identified, who are collectively involved throughout the project’s duration. This group represents a broad cross section of perspectives and includes AOT staff, RPCs, municipal representatives, peer agencies, advocates, equity-focused practitioners, and external engineering practitioners and organizations. The project team works with both the collective SAG as well as subsets of the SAG on critical issues to develop partnering relationships that support the project.

Members of the SAG who have engaged with the project to date include:

  • Vermont Department of Health
  • Agency of Natural Resources
  • Agency of Commerce and Community Development
  • Conservation Law Foundation
  • Transportation for Vermonters
  • Local Motion
  • AARP
  • Vermont Public Transportation Association
  • Vermont League of Cities and Towns,
  • Vermont Association of Planning and Development Agencies
  • American Council of Engineering Companies
  • Vermont Association of General Contractors
  • Vermont Truck and Bus Association

Document Library

Current Agency Guidance

Meeting Materials

Precedence Documents for New Vermont Roadway and Multimodal Guidance Development

News and Events

November and December 2024 Public Meetings

The Vermont Agency of Transportation (AOT) will be holding four Public Information Meetings to discuss the ongoing effort to develop new Vermont Roadway and Multimodal Guidance for planners and designers.

The four Public Information Meetings will vary between a hybrid meeting style (in-person and virtual options) and virtual meeting style. The meetings are scheduled for the following dates and times:

  • Thursday, November 14th at 6:00pm
    • Meeting Type: Hybrid
    • Meeting Location: Chester Public Safety Building, 130 Pleasant Street, Chester, VT
  • Tuesday, December 3rd at 6:00pm
    • Meeting Type: Hybrid
    • Meeting Location: Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission Office, 110 West Canal Street, Winooski, VT

Contact

Kara Yelinek, PE
Project Manager

Kara.Yelinek@vermont.gov