Introduction
C4C summarizes its work about twice a year. For reference, here’s a link to the 2024 mid-year update. This 2024 year-end summary includes C4C’s program service goals for 2025 as well.
C4C’s mission is safer and better cycling through partnerships with Boulder County governments and communities focusing on infrastructure, policy, and outreach. C4C pursues this mission by advocating for the full expression of the network multi-modal elements of the Boulder County Transportation Master Plan.
Safer cycling is the measurable reduction of traffic related killed and seriously injured to within peer nation standards. Better cycling is the preservation or improvement of the opportunity of cycling in Boulder County. These outcomes are conditioned by infrastructure and policy.
Network multi-modalism is the diverse utilization of public rights-of-way instead of solely for roadways. That is, roads as appropriate, transit, multi-use facilities such as paved paths and soft-surface trails, rail, and, ideally, wildlife crossings. The network extends equitably to residents of Boulder County and the multiple modes offer choices for safe and appealing access to work, services, and play resulting in full human lives.
Infrastructure
The North Foothills Bikeway
After nearly five years of partnership with Boulder County government, the North Foothills Bikeway passed unanimously at the county commissioner level into design phase. It is now seeking funding for the $8M per mile cost. The total is $95M including a contingency fee for the 11 mile project between Boulder and Lyons.
Now, C4C’s goal is to raise $1M to donate to incentivize the construction of the five mile, $40M segment between the City of Boulder and Lefthand Canyon. This is the most used and most dangerous segment of the project. It’s one of the most lethal roads in the state for cyclists.
In return, Boulder County government is willing to negotiate naming rights. Similar to a stadium, a major donor or donors could have their name or names attached to the facility that would result in zero or near zero auto-on-bike fatalities.
US 36 North Foothills Highway has 70,000+ bike trips a year according to the CDOT bike counter.
A Golden – Boulder Bikeway, The “GoBo” Proposal
In close partnership with Bike Jeffco and, more recently, Bicycle Colorado; C4C has proposed a bikeway between Golden and Boulder in the SH 93 right-of-way. “Right-of-way,” in this sense, is the publicly owned land used for transportation networks. It can be conceived of as the land between fences on which roads are usually built. Its characteristics may vary widely.
The purpose of this project is two-fold. One, as indicated in the Boulder County TMP, the goal is to achieve safety, access, and appeal where currently none exists between Golden and Boulder. Here’s a recent GoBo summary with more information.
Two, to scale network multi-modalism, not roadways, and the associated benefits to the greater Front Range. Roadway utilization of right-of-way results in empirically forecast adverse outcomes in safety, lost opportunity, land-use, water conservation, emissions for climate and health, equity, and the environment.
Take, for example, a typical transportation project with somewhere between 0.5% to 3% of its budget for bike-ped facilities or maybe an aspirational goal of 15% in some CDOT plans. Such plans also have no real conception of how that project is part of a multi-modal network. Those are not serious figures nor plans. They risk treating multi-modalism as a token or toy.
Alternatively, take a leading and role model network multi-modal project like the CDOT 119(B) Diagonal Boulder – Longmont Project. In partnership with Boulder County, it’s a $135M project with 100% multi-modal design and funding. It includes a $50M above standard bikeway. The roadway portion contains transit and safety improvements but no added general purpose travel lanes. Eventually, rail should exist in the travel area as well.
That same 119(B) project is also part of Boulder County’s planned multi-modal network with various connections all along the corridor. Connections, current or planned, consist of other hard surface paths, soft-surface trails, bike-able shoulders, transit, and rail all of which connect to Longmont, Niwot, and the City of Boulder.
C4C can pick its battle over things like bike lanes, signage, and striping. Those same things, however, have limited benefits. Projects like the Diagonal 119(B) project promise to create safe and appealing infrastructure at a systemic level. With the Golden – Boulder SH 93 project crossing Boulder and Jefferson County lines, CDOT Region 1 and 2, and touching multiple municipalities; the point of the GoBo Project is to develop network multi-modalism at scale on the Front Range, regardless of arbitrary jurisdictions, and for broadly shared benefits.
Currently, C4C, Bike Jeffco, and Bicycle Colorado are waiting for a reply from CDOT regarding how there can be progress on the Golden-Boulder proposal.
In addition to the above projects, C4C maintains a monitoring position on other projects like the SH 7/Arapahoe Road Boulder – Brighton project. The BERT is also important to C4C but, like many good projects, it too is seeking funding.
Highway 93 between Golden and Boulder is widely avoided by cyclists due to its lack of safety.
Policy
Policy work is tedious in nature. C4C has several things that it’s trying to push forward.
C4C is advocating for a statewide standardized electronic crash report system. Crash reporting determines how we think about, understand, and act on safety. By making it efficient, uniform, and automatic it will be possible to do what resourced counties and municipalities already do: Act on data in the form of safety adaptations that save lives.
C4C is working to partner with Bike Jeffco and Bicycle Colorado to better organize advocacy organizations across the state in order to form an aligned agenda and unified voice.
Thanks to a relatively new board member, C4C has improved relations with the Boulder County Sheriff’s Department and intends to keep improving that relationship.
C4C has been exploring legislation for an annual Colorado driver’s update video. It could be, perhaps, a 90-150 second annual video update that is voluntary to watch. It would potentially reach Colorado’s four million licensed drivers and build awareness on new traffic laws, problem areas, and the contract that we all enter into upon using our pubic roads, paths, and trails.
Along with partners like Community Cycles, C4C is waiting to learn more about a City of Boulder process to connect Open Space and Mountain Parks properties as well as other destinations by non-motorized (car free) routes.
C4C participates in ongoing Vision Zero work. Boulder County, in particular, is doing good work on this topic.
Wednesday Morning Velo sure is a good time! Photo by Tim Stone
C4C’s Other Work
There are lots of parts to C4C which require work. Crank It Forward is C4C’s annual fundraising gala and needs planning. Wednesday Morning Velo exists under the umbrella of C4C and is the social manifestation of C4C’s mission.
C4C is slowly working to improve its communications with the Boulder County Cycling Community that was originally set-up by Don Hobbs. Now the task is to get that community informed on the shared topics that are of importance to all Boulder County cyclists.
C4C has a modest porta-potty program by which it pays for porta-potty units in unincorporated communities that experience heavy cycling traffic. It takes a line item of their budget and establishes a positive relationship with that community.
SHIFT Driving was a program that C4C originally hoped to scale into driver’s education programs and similar. After multiple attempts, that idea is making no progress. Bicycle Colorado reports that the program does continue to get use. It’s tempting to move efforts away from this and to other things, like improved driver’s certification standards.
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Like the Highway 7 Arapahoe Boulder – Brighton project, CDOT’s best work is when it adopts network multi-modal standards and eschews outdated roadway planning, design, and construction norms.