A couple years ago, Don Hobbs offered to organize the contacts around Boulder County that he has built up over a lifetime. They amount to about 80 shops, clubs, industry members, nonprofits, and similar. Things got sidetracked. Now, C4C has put renewed volunteer power behind this effort.
The intent is communicate to these cycling entities about shared interests. C4C does not want their money, does not want their mailing lists, or anything that interferes with the organizations. C4C just wants to communicate on topics of shared interest.
C4C’s mission has to do with safer cycling through multi-modal transportation. The Unites States is worst by a margin among peer nations for traffic related killed and seriously injured, that affects cyclists at a disproportionately high rate. Combined with Boulder County’s nationally leading population of enthusiast cyclists on rural, unincorporated county roads; safety is a problem for Boulder County drivers and cyclists.
Safety outcomes are conditioned by infrastructure and policy. In policy, C4C partners with Bicycle Colorado who has a history of legislative capacity. There’s more to it but that’s one part of policy. C4C’s focus is infrastructure. Specifically, the full expression of the network multi-modal elements of Boulder County Transportation Master Plan.
“Right-of-way” is the system of public lands used for connecting communities. For about a hundred years, it’s been used primarily as roadway. Boulder County’s transportation plan calls for diversifying the use of right-of-way.
The design-use of right-of-way is causal to outcomes in land-use, water conservation, safety (killed and seriously injured), opportunity (quality of life, livability), emissions for health, emissions for climate, environment, and equity. That’s a lot. Let’s focus on safety and its big brother, opportunity or living a full human life.
By accident of history, one can wake up in Boulder County and have a great day on a bike in 15 minutes on their way to work or four hours alone or with friends. The goal is to preserve or improve this opportunity while also improving adverse safety outcomes.
Boulder County’s transportation plan is a good, maybe a great plan. Along major commuter highways or between major commuter destinations, it calls for separated bikeways because the data forecasts killed and seriously injured for cyclist on these roadways. It calls for regional soft-surface trails like the LoBo, Coal Creek Trail, or BERT that are independent of roadway right-of-way. It calls for bike-able shoulders on lower volume and lower speed county roads which is not perfect but it’s a compromise between budgets and connectivity choices. And, it calls for connections to the west in the mountains, municipal systems, and amenities. Its sum is safe and appealing access to work, services, and play across multiple modes of transportation.
We’re lucky to live in Boulder County. Our taxes here go to great plans, great designs, and improvements at an incremental pace that fix safety and improve livability.
There is a great example happening now. Highway 119 the Diagonal Boulder – Longmont could have easily been a “roadway” project consisting of road widening. Boulder County and CDOT partnered to make, instead, a project that leads the way forward for the design-use of right-of-way. There are no added general purpose traffic lanes. There are roadway safety improvements that may reduce ease and convenience but improve safety and opportunity. There is a separated bikeway built to above standard criteria. There is transit in the form of bus-rapid-transit that will prioritize bus efficiency over car efficiency. It all connects to the municipal and county systems in the project corridor on a network basis. There’s more design and construction like this to come. And, eventually, there will be rail connections.
A rendering but close to what it will be like to connect by bike to many other modes and options.
One of the most important projects in Boulder County’s plan which is not in any definite phase of programmatic development is the North Foothills Bikeway. With 70,000-90,000 bike trips a year, this is one of the most dangerous roads in the state for cyclists. It’s also the subject of C4C’s main infrastructure project. C4C is exploring ways to bring $1,000,000 to the table to incentivize the construction of the separated facility from the City of Boulder to Lefthand Canyon Drive, the most dangerous and used part of the right-of-way. There’s more to it but C4C’s basic proposal is to put money on the table to demonstrate the desire for safety, access, and appeal on the corridor.
Another rendering, the North Foothills Bikeway is a $95M project total, about $8M per mile. To get work like this done, C4C is examining every option it can find.
Transportation is one of those things whose details can overwhelm. That’s the work of C4C, to manage all this. Thanks for supporting C4C and contact me, Matt, anytime I can help matt@c4community.org.