What’s with the Double Standard on Right-Sizing a Road?

By Dom Nozzi

Over the past several weeks, there has been an avalanche of letters attacking the City proposal to right-size Folsom. Hundreds of opponents filled the Council auditorium to denounce the idea at multiple meetings. The complaints have been repetitive: There are no metrics telling us whether the projects have succeeded or not! Not enough involvement by stakeholders such as businesses and neighborhoods! Not enough public involvement! No studies showing whether they will work! It will cause terrible congestion and air pollution! No before and after studies! Pro-bike bias! Waste of a huge amount of money!

First of all, citizens should know that City staff has done many studies and public meetings that are alleged to be lacking. Far more than most other transportation projects conducted in the past.

Second and much more importantly, I am utterly shocked by the double standard here. I have been working professionally and academically in transportation for over 30 years, and I have never seen this level of enraged opposition, calls for studies, and requests for more public input. One would think that the City was proposing to bring about the end of the world.

The double standard is that I don’t recall ANY opposition when the City has proposed to install a second left-turn lane at an intersection (which has been done several times in Boulder), among many other pro-car projects. No calls for studies. No demands that stakeholders be involved. No metrics telling us if the double-left had the intended benefits a year later. No before and after studies. No cries that it will increase air pollution or car dependence. No demands that the double-left turn be tested first before it is made permanent. No whining that the double-left turn is a big waste of money (for the record, double-left turns cost a lot more money, generally, than right-sizing).

Few people, if any, attend meetings to oppose such an enormous expansion of an intersection.

I would think that the outcry from a proposed double-left would be furious. After all, double-left turns increase air pollution, car trips, local taxes, regional car trips, car crashes, speeding, inattentiveness, injuries and deaths. They reduce walking trips, biking trips, and transit trips (because the intersection is now much more dangerous to walk through or bicycle through). They are toxic to businesses and homes near the intersection.

By striking contrast, national studies show that right-sizing reduces air pollution, speeding, inattentiveness, car trips, car crashes, injuries and deaths. They increase walking trips, biking trips, and transit trips. They improve the health of retail and residences (I understand that many businesses in Seattle now ask that their street be right-sized after they have seen their competitors benefit after their streets were right-sized).

Yet in Boulder, we see furious opposition to right-sizing and hardly any objection to a proposed double-left turn. And by the way, unlike right-sizing, double-left turns are NEVER tested first to see if they will work. They are just “rammed down our throats,” as many right-sizing opponents oddly tell us about right-sizing.

Making a road change that eases bicycling and walking is met with fury. Making a road change that eases driving (and discourages bicycling and walking) is met with silence.

Given this, one would think that there is a very pro-CAR bias in Boulder. One also has to ask: Who needs enemies when we have ourselves?

Stimulating Roads

By Dom Nozzi

In December 2008, I read an otherwise admirable essay by E.J. Dionne [“Obama’s Manna”, op-ed, Dec. 5]. He informed us that there is “nothing wrong with spending on roads…” when it comes to a possible Federal stimulus package that the Obama administration was crafting at the time.

Really?

There is certainly nothing wrong with repairing roads. And yes, it is appropriate that stimulus spending be forward-thinking, rather than backward-looking, investments.

Why, then, after several decades of ruinous failure in trying to build our way out of congestion, would anyone even consider widening roads?

It is now abundantly clear that road widening powerfully induces more sprawl, more car travel, more gasoline consumption, more traffic congestion, more loss of environmental quality, more governmental financial woe, more loss of quality of life, and more destruction of downtowns.

Given this colossal squandering of countless trillions of public dollars to worsen our communities, is there anything worse than spending stimulus dollars on road widening?

In an age of growing concern about Peak Oil, long-term sustainability, and global warming, the absolute last thing we should be doing is building bigger roads.

While transportation needs in America are so enormous that Federal stimulus is highly appropriate, dollars must be properly targeted. For starters, that means the stimulus should be directed to restoring the woeful national passenger rail system. And ending car welfare program by huge motorist subsidies for free use of roads and parking. We can also stimulate long-term sustainability and quality of life by correcting our 20^th Century widening binge. Namely, by engaging in a nation-wide road narrowing (“road dieting”) program.

War on Cars?

By Dom Nozzi

Many in Boulder seem to believe that City government is engaged in a “war on cars.” Let’s tally the “casualties” over the past century.

Number of motorists who killed a cyclist when crashing into them: An unacceptably large number. Number of cyclists who killed a motorist when crashing into them: Probably zero.

Taxes and asphalt cyclists (and others) must pay or put up with due to the negative costs of motoring: Very substantial and always increasing.

Taxes and asphalt motorists must pay or put up with due to the negative costs of cycling: Comparatively tiny.

Quality of life harm that cyclists (and others) must bear due to motorist noise and air pollution (cars are the largest source of noise pollution in Boulder): Substantial and uncontrollable.

Noise and air pollution caused by cyclists: Negligible.

Destinations that cyclists (and others) cannot get too because the destinations are too far away or the routes are made too dangerous by motorists: Too many.

Destinations that motorists cannot get too because the destinations are too far away or the routes are made too dangerous by cyclists: None.

Increased cost for groceries that cyclists (and others) must pay at the supermarket so that the store owner can pay the enormous cost to provide a vast sea of asphalt car parking: High and unfair, since the cyclist, pedestrian, or transit user does not need the car parking.

Increased cost for groceries that motorists must pay at the supermarket so that the store owner can pay the cost to provide bicyclc parking: Probably no cost increase.

Hmmmmmm. It appears that there is NOT a “war on cars.” Seems much more reasonable to conclude that there has been a century of all out war against cyclists (and others).