We took a full-day detour to answer this question from Heather Channon of South Burlington:

"Who is using all of the park-and-ride lots?"

We spent 12 straight hours (yes, you read that correctly) at one of the busiest park and rides in the state, on one of the busiest travel days of the year, to find out.

This is the story of our day — and all the people we met along the way.

A big shoutout to a little-known podcast called This American Life, which has done two all-day (and all-night) episodes that inspired this piece: “24 Hours at the Golden Apple” and “Rest Stop.”

This episode was reported and produced by Josh Crane, Sabine Poux and Burgess Brown. Our intern is Camila Van Order González. Our Executive Producer is Angela Evancie. Theme music by Ty Gibbons; Other music by Blue Dot Sessions.

Special thanks to Elodie Reed, Amy Tatko, Tricia Roy, Jessica Fay, Betsy LeBlanc, Sara Walker, Robert Blandon, Terrance Sayers, Glenn Varricchione, Tricia Roy, Cliff Mix, Minda Stridsberg, Brendan Grahn, Jean Koegler, Brenda Rose, Pete Niarchos and everyone else we spoke to at the Richmond park and ride on Labor Day 2025.

As always, our journalism is better when you’re a part of it:

• Ask a question about Vermont
• Sign up for the BLS newsletter
• Say hi onInstagram and Reddit @bravestatevt
• Drop us an email: hello@bravelittlestate.org
• Make a gift to support people-powered journalism
• Tell your friends about the show!

Brave Little State is a production of Vermont Public and a proud member of the NPR Network.

Every summer, we add a new chapter to our favorite annual tradition: investigating the origins of Vermont’s strangest road names, as chosen by our listeners.

This summer’s crop included Horn of the Moon Road in East Montpelier, Scotch Hollow Road in Newbury and Goodenough Road in Brattleboro.

Tune in to hear us raid town archives, chase down local lore… and spend an inordinate amount of time driving up and down the three roads in question (sorry, neighbors!) — all in the name of journalism.

And don’t miss the seven previous installments of this road-names-extravaganza. You can find them all here.

This episode was reported by Burgess Brown, Lucia McCallum and Sabine Poux. Editing and additional production from Josh Crane. Our Executive Producer is Angela Evancie. Theme music by Ty Gibbons; Other music by Blue Dot Sessions and Universal Production Music.

Special thanks to Craig Goodenough, Bill Holiday, Joe Rivers, Mary Collins, Aroline Putnam, Paul Cate, Steve Picazio, Karalyn Mark, Jessica Leal, Trina Magi, Olivia Campbell, Eric Anderson, Corinne Cooper, Jennifer Boyer, Sarah Wilds and Bob Nuner.

As always, our journalism is better when you’re a part of it:

• Ask a question about Vermont
• Sign up for the BLS newsletter
• Say hi on Instagram and Reddit @bravestatevt
• Drop us an email: hello@bravelittlestate.org
• Make a gift to support people-powered journalism
• Tell your friends about the show!

Brave Little State is a production of Vermont Public and a proud member of the NPR Network.

Starting this summer, Vermont farmers are some of the first in the nation to face major restrictions on neonicotinoids — a kind of pesticide widely used to treat corn and soy plants. In part, that’s because neonics are killing honeybees.

Quebec has had a similar law on the books for years. So we head north of the border to see what we can learn from our Canadian neighbors and answer this question from Curtis Mraz, of New Haven:

“What is Vermont doing to protect our pollinators?”

For a full transcript of this episode and photos from our reporting, check out our web post.

This episode was reported by Sabine Poux. Editing and production from the rest of the BLS team: Burgess Brown and Josh Crane. Additional support from Ainslie McClellan, journalist at CBC Montreal and the host of a podcast called This is Montreal. Our intern is Lucia McCallum. Angela Evancie is our Executive Producer. Theme music by Ty Gibbons; other music by Blue Dot Sessions.

Special thanks to Abagael Giles, Howard Weiss-Tisman, Andrea Laurion, Laurie Kigonya, Todd Mallory, Seth Bedard, Noah Villamarin-Cutter, Valérie Fournier and Steve Dwinell.

As always, our journalism is better when you’re a part of it:

• Ask a question about Vermont
• Sign up for the BLS newsletter
• Say hi onInstagram and Reddit @bravestatevt
• Drop us an email: hello@bravelittlestate.org
• Make a gift to support people-powered journalism
• Tell your friends about the show!

Brave Little State is a production of Vermont Public and a proud member of the NPR Network.