Improving Bicycling in Boulder, Colorado

 

By Dom Nozzi

April 30, 2019

Boulder is preparing to update its Transportation Master Plan, and part of that is to adopt new policies for improving Boulder’s bike network. Here is what I suggested…

The following are essential reforms for improving bicycling in Boulder:

1. On roads that are more like highways than the slower-speed streets they should be in the Boulder town center (such as Canyon, Broadway, Arapahoe, and Folsom), lane-reducing road diets are very important. These high-speed roads should not be the car-only routes when they are in the town center, as healthy town centers need both slower speeds and rich transportation choice (cars, bikes, ped, transit).
2. Lane reductions are needed for Boulder intersections that have double-left turn lanes (they need to become single-left turn lanes, or in the town center, zero-left turn lanes).
3. Coupled with lane reductions, highways in the Boulder town center should also incorporate effective HORIZONTAL traffic calming (since the highways are also emergency response routes, calming that is compatible with emergency vehicles is necessary – including bulb-outs, circles/roundabouts, and on-street parking). Examples of “horizontal” calming includes intersection and mid-block bulb-outs, reduction in travel lane widths, and on-street parking. Examples of “vertical” calming includes speed bumps/humps, and speed tables. Vertical calming designs are almost never desirable or appropriate.
4. One-way streets must be converted back to two-way operation.

Bicycling in Boulder will become much more common if the following non-bike network reforms are achieved:

1. Parking is reformed (eliminate required [minimum] parking, establish more parking cash-out, unbundle the price of parking from the price of housing, price free parking spaces, and reduce the quantity of free parking spaces).
2. Reduce travel distances for bicyclists by substantially incentivizing a much larger quantity of compact, mixed-use development in the city.

I would point out that each of the above tactics are effective ways for Boulder to achieve its climate change goals.

Shame on Boulder for being so far behind the times on the above six items – particularly given the crisis in recent years of the unacceptably high level of traffic injuries and deaths in Boulder, not to mention the affordable housing crisis.

 

Is Bicycling Without Separated Bicycle Paths “Suicidal”?

 

By Dom Nozzi

December 18, 2018

Someone responded recently to an essay I wrote. My essay mentioned the fact that the US has the lowest levels of bicycling in the world. He claimed that this low level was due to the fact that it is “suicidal” to bike when there are no separated bicycle paths.

As an asice, bicycle paths that are physically separated from the street, in contrast to bicycle lanes, which are in-street bicycle routes separated by car travel lanes by a painted white stripe.

My response…

I’m not sure why a person would consider bicycling on streets rather than on separated bike paths is “suicidal”?

I have been a bicycle commuter for about 50 years (about 2-6 bike rides every day during that time, and almost never on a separated path. I have never had a close call with a motor vehicle in all that time. In addition, I have been working academically and professionally in bicycle transportation for about 35 years, and know from that work the following: bicycling is far safer than most people realize (which confirms my own personal experience). I have long known a great many friends who are both motorists and who have ridden a bike without separated paths.

Of the friends who were killed in road crashes, nearly all of them have been killed while driving a car than riding a bike (admittedly, this is anecdotal). However, the data supports that anecdotal observation. For example, your life expectancy is longer if you are a bike commuter rather than a car commuter, and not only because you are more healthy.

My 35 years of academic and professional work also shows that separated bike paths are not an important limiting factor in the number of people who choose to become bike commuters. Even if it were, almost no city can afford to install a comprehensive system of off-street paths, and without such a system, paths are of little use to the bike commuter.

Much more important limiting factors in how many people choose to travel by bicycle are density of housing, retail and offices (a measure of how compact the community happens to be), distance to destinations, and available free parking for motorists. Each of those factors are enormous barriers to widespread bicycling in the US, due to the very low levels of compact density, the relatively large distances to destinations, and the enormous amount of free car parking provided in US cities.