About Turning Lane
Turning Lane is a newsletter focused on the urban future of Burlington, Vermont, published by Studio Pollinator. It offers an unapologetically urban perspective on how transportation, housing, and economic systems shape the region. By cutting through the usual distractions of local debate, Turning Lane examines the root causes of the region’s challenges and explores how systems thinking can lead to better outcomes for all.
At the heart of the newsletter is the argument that transportation is the linchpin connecting housing opportunity and economic resilience. Turning Lane uses clear analysis and real-world examples to show how these systems intersect, inviting readers to see new connections and possibilities. The goal is to expand public imagination and help build the political will needed to move Burlington—and Urban Chittenden County more broadly—off its current path and into the turning lane toward a more sustainable, affordable, and vibrant future.
About Studio Pollinator
Studio Pollinator is a research, engineering, art, and design studio. It is primarily a vehicle for the multi-disciplinary work of Jak Tiano and his collaborators. We observe a world where a significant amount of time, energy, and resources are spent in pursuit of ineffective outcomes. Our mission is to achieve better outcomes with fewer inputs.
We produce knowledge artifacts, exploratory software, art works, and physical products through self-directed projects and in collaboration with public and private partners. We are particularly interested in solving difficult problems that span many domains, across both abstract and physical boundaries, and which require unconventional perspectives and alliances. Our most public effort is this site, Turning Lane, a newsletter designed to challenge assumptions and build local will for better urban places here in Vermont.
About Jak Tiano
I arrived in Burlington in 2011 at the age of seventeen, having grown up in a planned suburban tract development where everything felt disconnected. What immediately stood out was the city’s energy, and the unique sense of belonging in a place built at a human scale. That early impression never really faded. I attended Champlain College, studied design and computer science, spent time abroad in Montreal, and graduated summa cum laude. But when it came time to decide what to do next, it was Burlington’s urban vibrancy that pulled me in and made me want to stay.
After college, I spent several years in Burlington in professional roles that built up my technical foundation. I took jobs working on evolutionary robotics, spatial computing, and even wrote a book on iOS application development. As intellectually rewarding as that work was, it left me wanting something more grounded, with visible stakes for real people. It wasn’t until I briefly left Vermont for a job in South Florida and traded walkable streets for a landscape built around highways that the contrast snapped my priorities into focus. The absence of what made Burlington so livable drove home the value of places designed for people. When my job evaporated and my lease ended in 2020, I was more than ready to return to Burlington with a new sense of purpose in contributing to its urban character.
Since I returned, I’ve followed that mission to plug into as many aspects of my community as I could. From my studio membership at Generator in the South End, to volunteering at the People's Farm in the Intervale, to co-founding and co-operating the Spiral House Arts Collective on Church Street, I've developed a bias toward building, making, and collaboration. In my work on the Burlington Walk Bike Council and on the Ward 5 NPA's steering committee, I've found meaning in stewarding change and community building through local civic bodies. And in my work helping to start and lead Vermonters for People-Oriented Places, I've discovered the power of building coalitions around positive visions of more vibrant urban futures. My role in helping to pass Burlington's Neighborhood Code upzoning reforms felt like a synthesis of all these lenses, and earned me Vermont’s Citizen Planner of the Year award in 2024.
Over time, I’ve found that clear thinking and careful observation are the path towards meaningful systemic change. I’m interested in how systems actually work in the world—what they make possible, who they leave out, and whether they deliver on the promises we claim for them. For me, the purpose of a system really is what it does in practice, not what anyone hopes or says it will do. That perspective shapes both my writing and my work in Burlington. I care about results, about whether our choices actually make life better for people, and especially for those left out of the conversation. My aim is straightforward: to help build a city where more people can find their place, and where our decisions serve the broad public good.