Cyclists 4 Community and Community Cycles submit the below comment to Boulder County regarding Boulder County’s draft recommendations to its Transportation Master Plan Update process.
*Please note, a key CC staff person is on vacation this week and he and CC in general reserve the right to edit these comments. C4C staff person Matt Muir is solely responsible for any errors or omissions. Matt’s intention is to submit comment in a timely manner while protecting vacation time of partners per agreement with the CC staff person.
- C4C and CC support Boulder County’s draft TMP update recommendations.
- C4C and CC seek to partner with Boulder County in order to help realize the recommendations and TMP as a whole.
- C4C and CC wish to partner with Boulder County in exploring funding for the recommendations in order to move more items more efficiently into capital improvement plans (funded status).
Notes from Community Cycles
Under Strategy 1 – : DEVELOP A MULTIMODAL TRANSPORTATION SYSTEM. There are many great items listed here!
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Re: Prioritize roadway safety, signage and shoulder improvements on primary corridors that separate bikes from cars and address unsafe conditions. Wonderful to see safety as the first item.
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Re: Add bikeable shoulders with reconstruction of roads where feasible. Anything is feasible … Boulder Canyon is being widened to 6’ shoulders and two tunnels. Money just needs to be allocated…
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Thank you very much for including Vision Zero in your TMP recommendations. With a year specified! The statement “Consider safety within all capital projects” needs to be strengthened to meet Vision Zero standards.
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We are concerned that the table 1 project listings has a section of Safety Focused Improvements. All projects should have safety improvements, if safety/VZ is a priority.
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US 36 Boulder to Lyons (B6) – This and other conceptual bicycle facility projects should be called out specifically in the TMP to ensure further study studies and work is performed to take them into the design phase. The items in the Primary Network (Table 5) should be prioritized based on safety.
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Similarly on US36 (R40) and other Intersection projects – conceptual improvements projects shown on Figure 1. Again these should be prioritized and specifically called out for work in the TMP to move them into the design phase.
General Notes
- Separated bikeways should, in general, be paved if they serve commuting purposes (plowed). More recreational routes, may, in general, remain soft surface paths (un-plowed).
- Please consider widening separated bikeways due to the anticipated growth in e-bike use and due to Boulder County’s significant competitive/sporting cycling population.
- Please consider including and publicizing a glossary of examples, i.e. “buffered bike lane, separated bike lane, etc.”
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Discussion from C4C
The County TMP and its update recommendations are good if not very good. The challenge is to partner with the County and others in order to support the TMP’s realization and, specifically, fund the TMP.
C4C thanks it partners in the community, especially Community Cycles for its reliably constructive attitude and Boulder County for its work in governing our community.
Individuals may comment at https://bouldercounty.wufoo.com/forms/xtnvsl41v2xwax/
See https://www.bouldercounty.org/transportation/plans-and-projects/transportation-master-plan/ and https://assets.bouldercounty.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/tmp-update-draft-recommendations-v3.pdf for information.