BURLINGTON, Vt. (WCAX) – With thousands of people coming to watch the eclipse in Burlington, the city had to prepare a plan to get people in and out. In order to avoid a traffic jam downtown, the beltline was turned into one big parking lot.
“I think it is a good idea as long as it works when everybody has to exit. It looks like it’s just going to be all one way so, it could be fine,” said Jerry Misak of Connecticut.
Misak drove with his entire family from Connecticut to Vermont to watch the solar eclipse. He says they decided to park on Route 127, the Burlington Beltline, because they thought it was their best bet to make sure they had the right spot for their car. And, of course, if they missed a shuttle, they could still see the eclipse from the highway.
“Well once again, I try to gather as many people together, and we all came up. How many, nine of us. Crammed in this thing. Oh full totality yeah, in Connecticut, we were only getting 93% but that wasn’t going to be good enough,” Misak said.
The cars started packing in around 10:30 a.m. VTrans said by noon, the highway was half full with as many as 150 cars lining the freeway.
Busses picked up passengers along the route and travelers said at least the traffic coming into Vermont and onto 127 wasn’t too bad.
“First time just seeing all the traffic coming up here, on the country roads. I guess I was expecting a little bit, well, it was pretty easy to get up here. But we went to Lake George first and stayed overnight at Lake George. Then came here,” said Eric Friedland of New York.
“We drove up last night, stayed in an Airbnb about an hour from here, then finished driving to Burlington this morning. We came from the other way so, this highway closure did not affect us, but it is really interesting,” said Katie Prince of Boston.
Some residents in Burlington’s Old North End played host and watched from home.
“Our granddaughter lives across the street here. We are visiting. Seeing the sun’s corona, totality, and everything else that goes on. Especially when it gets dark,” said Tom Lumenello of Massachusetts.
The city hoped the mass exodus would go as smoothly as the arrivals did.