The board, volunteers, and staff of C4C lament the death of Juliane Herlihy on Septemeber 16, 2024 while bicycling on US 36 North Foothills Highway near Longhorn Road.
Advocates and others have long and rightly pointed out that these outcomes are forecast by crash data showing the U.S. to be worst by a margin among peer nations for traffic related killed and seriously injured. Those critics have added that the slow adaptation of infrastructure and policy results in the continuation of predictably adverse safety outcomes while solutions lag behind in implementation.
Consequently, it is reasonable to ask, “what does C4C intend to do?” The answer is that C4C intends to stay its course. The same course that has been strategically planned for years now. It would be fair to to respond, “isn’t more urgency required?” The answer is that C4C has partnered closely and carefully with Boulder County for both long term change and, relevant to the urgency, more rapid change.
Specifically, C4C’s partnering with Boulder County government on the North Foothills Bikeway contains within it a challenge to state and federal transportation funding entities. The normal funding limit for a bike/ped project is $3M – $5M. That is not a serious or consequential scale of funding. Alternatively, larger bike/ped projects are often an accessory to a roadway project whose costs are far greater, for example, the US 36 Boulder – Westminster Path that took 20 years to realize. Tying bike/ped projects to roadway projects–ones that are sometimes flawed–is not a serious solution either.
By seeking $95M for a stand-alone bikeway (multi-modal facility alone), Boulder County is telling funders, “if you’re serious about safety, opportunity, emissions…all the categories; then you need to be serious about funding multi-modal projects.”
On an ongoing basis, C4C is partnering with Boulder County in an effort to support the funding process for the design and construction of the North Foothills Bikeway and, by doing so, increase multi-modal funding on a regular basis. For starters, C4C could use at least $500,000 to use as a matching fund in order to raise $1M and then put that $1M on the table to incentivize construction from the City of Boulder to Lefthand Canyon Drive.
Putting money on the table gets things done. Until then, hope is not a strategy: Boulder County Crash Data.
Note the two memorials in this image alone. The path on the left is a rendering of the proposed North Foothills Bikeway.