by Cassandra Hemenway
republished with permission from The Bridge, a central Vermont community newspaper
Parts of Montpelier’s bike path have become dangerous, according to a planning commission member who started logging incidents from children and adults who say men have sexually harassed, threatened, and chased them while they are trying to walk to school or go for a jog.
Montpelier High School coaches have advised students to stay off the bike path and walk through town instead, according to the school’s athletic director, Matt Link.
The issue has been ongoing, according to police. But it came to the attention of Maria Arsenlis, vice chair of the Planning Commission, as she led a camp group this summer on a trip to the Statehouse. They walked on the bike path and people began to harass them, she said.
“I was on the bike path with a group of first-graders — 7-year-olds. The girls were getting approached, things were being shouted at us,” she told commissioners at their Sept. 23 meeting.
Since then, local kids started opening up to Arsenlis about their experiences on the bike path, she said. There were so many stories that she started keeping a log.
She presented a list of the incidents at the planning commission’s Sept. 23 meeting in which there commissioners did not have a quorum and so they took no action. Arsenlis followed up her Planning Commission conversation with an Oct. 10 email to all six Montpelier City Councilors and Mayor Jack McCullough, in which she noted:
“What I’ve heard and documented are fairly consistent experiences of girls, aged 11–16, being sexually harassed by men gathered on the bike path. In several cases, girls have been followed and pursued. In one case, a group of 12-year-old girls began running from their pursuer, only to be chased, until they got to safety. Girls have been asked how old they are. They have had men follow them making kissing noises. Eleven- and 12-year-olds have been catcalled and hit on by men. Young women have gotten similar treatment, hollered at about ‘your ass.’ In many of these cases, the girls didn’t notify anyone of authority and didn’t tell their parents.
“Children have also encountered drugs left behind on the bike path. In one case, a group of middle schoolers found THC gummies. In another, a family came across what they believed was a spoon with heroin. A 15-year-old boy ran to find police officers after he believed someone was overdosing on the bike path.”
Why the Planning Commission? “I think there are some urban planning solutions that could be put into effect,” she said, including better lighting, increasing nearby traffic, and trimming overgrown and bushy spaces as a starting point.
Ultimately, Arsenlis said she wants the city to create a cross-departmental plan to improve security on the bike path, incorporating urban design and social services.
“If this behavior were happening at the corner of Main Street and State Street, the town would not abide it, that 12-year-olds were getting … harassed by men. The fact that it’s happening out of sight … is why it’s allowed to continue,” Arsenlis said.
Who’s Doing it?
The question of who, exactly, is doing the harassing has not been clear.
Arsenlis maintains that she doesn’t know. The people she interviewed have focused on escaping the situation rather than trying to identify the harassers, she said. The fact that the incidents happen primarily near the transit center, where those who are unsheltered often convene, has sparked speculation about those members of the community. That concerns Meredith Warner, deputy director of Good Samaritan Haven.
At the Sept. 23 Planning Commission meeting, city planning director Mike Miller asked twice if it was “the homeless” responsible for the incidents.
“I don’t know,” Arsenlis replied. “Unless you have a tent nearby, you don’t really know.”
And not-knowing contributes to underreporting the problem, she said, especially among children and teens.
Warner — who also serves as co-chair along with Zack Hughes of the Montpelier Homelessness Task Force — emphasized the risk of allegations that could stigmatize unsheltered people as a group, especially when such information spreads through official channels. In an interview with The Bridge, Warner expressed concern that “vulnerable people who are unsheltered were being accused of something they may not have done.”
In a written statement emailed to The Bridge, Warner said she appreciated Arsenlis advocating for young people, and that “It’s essential that we take their voices and experiences seriously and that our community addresses issues like sexual harassment in public spaces with a focus on safety for everyone — our children and our unsheltered neighbors alike.
“It’s also critical to remember that homelessness itself is not linked to any specific behavior, and generalizations can have unintended consequences that harm individuals and our community as a whole. …,” she said.
Police Reports
The incidents Arsenlis described are not news to Montpelier Police Chief Eric Nordenson.
“They are well known,” Nordenson said, noting that he has directed police to patrol those areas with high complaints. “We are doing the best we can with a situation we didn’t create,” he said.
Nordenson said he has repeatedly asked the city for more outreach and added, “I need more cops.”
He said the department has 13 police officers, including one out on a long-term injury. He said “we’ve been running between 16 and 20 percent of our calls with the unhoused.”
The police department logged 347 such calls from August to October; of those, 10 were welfare checks and 12 were “Threats/Harassment.”
“There are some behaviors (on the bike path) that are unsafe,” Nordenson said. But, he added, “Other people go through there and say there’s no problem.”
In fact, Arsenlis’s husband, David Ory (a member of the Complete Streets Committee), said, “From my own personal experience (on the bike path), I’ve been yelled at a few times but … I haven’t felt particularly threatened by it and I continue to go that way. But we want it to be safe and accessible for everyone.”
The Complete Streets Committee also weighed in on the issue in an Oct. 10 memo to the city council, which states in part, “We encourage the city to seek more enduring solutions, including the development of adequate housing in this area. In the immediate term, we suggest the city recommend these individuals gather elsewhere, specifically at locations that are not adjacent to shared use paths commonly used by children.”