Thanks to Boulder County, Cyclists for Community has had a good conversation with the Boulder County Transportation Department resulting in an understanding of what to expect from the Fourmile Canyon construction project and related closures to cyclists.
Boulder County supplied extensive written material to C4C explaining the project. The County also lent time from its personnel to further converse with C4C about the construction. C4C’s Operations Manager, Matt Muir, characterized the discussions as “enlightening in content and kind and professional in tone especially with respect to the costs and trauma resulting from the 2013 flood.”
C4C did propose one question that it hears from cyclists, ‘is it possible to examine potential reductions in the closure’s hours or geographical segments over the remaining year plus of the project’s duration?’
The answer from the County is ‘no and yes.’ The complexity of the project mixed with the inherently hazardous nature of construction operations makes reducing the hours prohibitively difficult for the foreseeable future.
One example is the objectively demonstrated threat to persons cycling from long wheel base tractor-trailer trucks employed in the work whose trailer component necessarily tracks through Fourmile’s curves impinging upon the yellow line and/or the small to non-existent shoulder that drops off in a winding canyon with poor sight lines and embankments and escarpments.
Alternatively, the County expects the upper part or parts of the construction project to be completed as early as sometime this autumn. When completed, the County intends to examine ways to potentially open an upper part or parts of the related road corridors to cyclists in some way, shape, or form.
C4C thanks Boulder County for attending to its inquiry regarding Fourmile Canyon. When you engage the County in constructive terms and when you support institutions like C4C you make it possible for entities to partner on solutions. Thank you.
Please visit https://www.bouldercounty.org/news/cycling-restrictions-in-fourmile-canyon-begin-april-4/ for information or links to more information from the County.