Welcome to Turning Lane

Turning Lane is an email newsletter about the future of Burlington, Vermont. The focus is unapologetically urban, centered on how transportation, housing, and urban economics shape daily life, and how systems thinking can cut through the unproductive local debates that so often stall real progress. As I hope I will convince you throughout our time together, these topics are not just one part of a city to be balanced among competing needs, but the critical building blocks of a functioning urban place. In other words, these are the fundamental topics; they are the present source of our dysfunction, and they pave our only path towards a vibrant future.

Towards a Future for Urban Chittenden County

I believe that much of our region’s public conversation is distracted by symptoms rather than root causes. We spend so much time debating blame or tinkering at the margins that we rarely grapple with the larger, upstream issues driving the challenges we face. As this newsletter will explore, those upstream challenges are largely issues that can be diagnosed and treated through the lenses of systems thinking and urban science—two lenses that are starkly absent from the conversation today. The result is a sense that we're trapped, circling familiar arguments that further entrench partisan polarization instead of addressing what actually needs fixing.

Turning Lane exists to change that conversation for not just Burlington, but the Greater Burlington Area, which I'm choosing to call Urban Chittenden County. This phrasing serves to highlight the fact that the municipal lines between our towns and cities are just a political shorthand that our transportation, housing, and economic systems don't see. While each municipality has its own history and quirks, Turning Lane is more focused on the dynamics at play within the complete urban system: from Burlington to Essex Junction, from Colchester to Shelburne. Since Burlington proper contains the majority of the existing examples of city dynamics, it will be a core focus of past and present analysis, while existing and emerging urban centers—like Downtown Winooski, Market Street in South Burlington, Taft Corners in Williston, and Downtown Essex Junction—will show up in explorations of the short- and long-term future. Making real sense of the path we're on and the options available ahead of us requires a holistic look at the entirety of the urbanized area, which, from a systems perspective, is a single entity.

This newsletter also chooses to explicitly recognize that Urban Chittenden County—Vermont’s largest and arguably only truly urban area—has needs distinct from the rest of the state. For Vermont to thrive, we need room to address our urban core’s challenges directly, without feeling we’re overshadowing rural priorities. Treating Vermont’s future as a single, blended project leads to compromises that serve neither city nor countryside well, and yet Vermont’s tradition of resisting suburban sprawl depends on drawing this line clearly. To help both urban and rural places succeed, we have to acknowledge their differences and give each the focused attention it deserves. There will be an intentional absence of connecting these issues to rural Vermont, not because I don't care about those needs, but because I do care about them, I know that those needs are categorically different from urban needs, and that, most importantly, I'm not qualified to speak to them.

Transportation is Key

The central topic, as you may have picked up from the newsletter’s name, is transportation. Transportation is the linchpin at the center of housing, economic development, and climate resilience. It’s the biggest point of leverage for building a sustainable, affordable, and vibrant future, yet remains the least discussed. As I’ll argue throughout, transportation is also the only one of these core urban systems currently moving in the wrong direction. Even worse: it's holding the others back. We can’t achieve abundant housing, a resilient 21st-century economy, or our collective climate goals without changing course on transportation at every scale, from the region down to the block.

Still, Turning Lane is about more than transportation. The focus grows out of a principled, systems-driven view of how cities work, drawing on urban science, data analysis, and the intersection of people, energy, and economy. Transportation is central because of those underlying dynamics of city life, and this newsletter will unpack those dynamics through real examples. At the macro scale, we’ll pull from systems theory and agglomeration economics to reframe what a city is and why ours works the way it does... and the ways it doesn't. At the micro scale, we’ll look at how small design decisions—like moving a curb by a few inches or changing signal timing—can transform comfort, safety, and possibility for movement on our streets. And throughout, we'll never lose sight of the fact that better transportation options are not just a nice-to-have, but a prerequisite for abundant housing, economic and social mobility, and climate justice.

Shifting Lanes

Finally, the aim isn’t just to inform. Turning Lane is about changing how we see the region and widening the public imagination for what’s possible. I want readers to connect the dots between the issues we debate, and to see that more ambitious, effective changes are within reach. If I do my job, this newsletter will clarify what needs fixing and help build the political will to actually make it happen. In other words, the mission is to shift us into the turning lane: to leave the path we’ve been stuck on, and steer toward a future that works better for everyone.

If you're intrigued by the focus of Turning Lane and live in the Burlington region—or if you're not local, but still interested in following an urbanist project rooted in a small metro area—I hope you'll consider subscribing and sharing with friends or colleagues you think might also be interested. The expected newsletter cadence at this point is at least one article per month, and no more than one article per week. Writing towards positive change requires an engaged audience, and I hope you'll join me.