{"id":786,"date":"2017-10-27T08:51:40","date_gmt":"2017-10-27T12:51:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thewinooski.com\/?p=786"},"modified":"2017-10-27T08:51:40","modified_gmt":"2017-10-27T12:51:40","slug":"vermont-moves-to-deregulate-highways","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/thewinooski.com\/index.php\/2017\/10\/27\/vermont-moves-to-deregulate-highways\/","title":{"rendered":"Vermont Moves to Deregulate Highways"},"content":{"rendered":"

WATERBURY –\u00a0In a move to woo the support of the state\u2019s libertarians and teenage drivers, VT. Secretary of Transportation has announced the deregulation of Vermont\u2019s highways. \u201cThis action is consistent with the Trump administration\u2019s policies of deregulation<\/a> at the national level,\u201d Sec. Joe Flynn said at a special news conference in Waterbury earlier this week. \u201cBut we are going to do it gradually.\u201d<\/p>\n

People who stand to lose their jobs at the Dept. of Transportation say this is a blatantly aggressive policy aimed at keeping wildlife and pedestrians off the roadways. \u201cFirst it will be the state highways,\u201d said employee Joline on condition that only her first name be used. \u201cThen it will be municipalities. Imagine Shelburne Road or the corner of Main and Prospect in Burlington at rush hour. It will be chaos!\u201d<\/p>\n

Barre mayor Thom Lauzon is in favor of the plan. \u201cBring it on,\u201d he said. \u201cFollowing our president\u2019s lead, Secretary Flynn is tapping into Vermonters\u2019 frustration with too much regulation. Besides, we have a governor who drives race cars \u2013 let\u2019s bring some speed and excitement back to all our streets.\u201d<\/p>\n

Thomas Jacobs, chair of Bennington\u2019s Select Board is less enthusiastic. \u201cThis is inviting real trouble,\u201d he said, pointing to the Battle of Bennington monument. \u201cNew Yorkers live just a few miles from here. They are mad as hell that we have this statue. I\u2019m afraid they will use this crazy idea to justify ramming into our monument. They\u2019ve been threatening for years to take it down out of spite.\u201d<\/p>\n

The policy is scheduled to be introduced on state highways in the Northeast Kingdom, starting in January. \u201cIf we won\u2019t put limits on people who are mentally ill from purchasing firearms,\u201d said Flynn, \u201cI don\u2019t see why folks shouldn\u2019t be allowed to drive on whatever side of the road they want.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

WATERBURY –\u00a0In a move to woo the support of the state\u2019s libertarians and teenage drivers, VT. Secretary of Transportation has announced the deregulation of Vermont\u2019s […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":787,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"spay_email":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[5,4,8,6],"tags":[49],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-786","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-montpelier","category-national","category-southern-vermont","category-vermont-life","tag-waterbury"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/thewinooski.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/TWFI-2017_10_27.jpg","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8JVRF-cG","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/thewinooski.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/786"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/thewinooski.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/thewinooski.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thewinooski.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thewinooski.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=786"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/thewinooski.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/786\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":788,"href":"http:\/\/thewinooski.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/786\/revisions\/788"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thewinooski.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/787"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/thewinooski.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=786"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thewinooski.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=786"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thewinooski.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=786"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thewinooski.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=786"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}