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Cyclists 4 Community 2024 Program Service Goals

By October 23, 2023November 20th, 2023No Comments

~Working Draft – Updated Links Etc. to Come~

As part of Cyclists 4 Community’s strategic plan, its 2024 program service goals have been established.  When you support C4C, the below is a summary of the outcomes that you pay for.

Infrastructure

  1. Initiate corporate fundraising efforts to raise $1 million to $3 million by the end of 2025 to contribute to the projected $6 million to $8 million cost to build the North Foothills Bikeway from the City of Boulder to Lefthand Canyon Drive.
  2. Remain involved in planning, design, construction, and monitoring of projects like the Highway 7 / Arapahoe Project, the Highway 119 Boulder – Longmont Project, and the US 287 Lafayette – Longmont Project.
    1. Focus on the Highway 7 / Arapahoe project, a parallel and separated bikeway, and an exploration of getting this done sooner.
  3. Partner with Boulder County and The City of Boulder on other high value infrastructure projects that can be realized sooner through collective funding.  For example, there is an emerging plan for an underpass at Joder Ranch off of US 36 North Foothills Highway where crossing is currently dangerous.
  4. Raise $30,000 to contribute to funding for a $450,000 feasibility study for a Golden – Boulder bikeway in or near the Highway 93 right-of-way.  Do this while partnering with Bike JeffCo on coordinating cooperation on the project across county, municipal, and CDOT region boundaries.

Already one of the state’s most dangerous roads, 80% plus of cyclists avoid US 36 North Foothills Highway altogether.   We can be sure we’re underestimating the popularity and use of a separated bikeway here when it’s built.

Outreach

  1. Maintain or improve C4C’s modest but successful porta-potty program consisting of paying for porta-potties in unincorporated parts of Boulder County heavily impacted by cycling in order to improve relations between locals, drivers, and cyclists.
  2. Continue to communicate and advocate for the Boulder County Cycling Community.

It’s hard to believe how much of a difference a small gesture like a porta-potty can make in improving relations between drivers, cyclists, and locals.

Policy

  1. Continue to support Bicycle Colorado’s legislative agenda including a hands-free device bill, a Vulnerable Road User Equity fund, and improved certification requirements for 16 – 19 year-olds.
  2. Partner with Boulder County on exploring ways to improve safety and access to mountain cycling connections, especially in places with constricted right-of-way (old, mountain roads).
  3. Explore ways to partner with the Boulder County Sheriff’s Office on improved enforcement for safer roads.
  4. Help scale the application of SHIFT Driving to Colorado’s four million drivers.

Brief Discussion

Raising $1M – $3M by sometime in 2025 is new territory for C4C.  It’s also a way to incentivize Boulder County government and others to bring a total of about $6M – $8M to the table to build the North Foothills Bikeway in what is statistically the most dangerous part of a dangerous road.  Boulder County has about $3M allotted to this project in its working budget.

After review, C4C moved up the priority of a separated bikeway along Highway 7 / Arapahoe Road or a parallel and complementary alignment like Baseline Road which may have advantages.

Additionally, and after review, C4C is going to explore high value projects that can be realized sooner through cooperative government and nonprofit funding.  This is an emerging topic for C4C.

The Golden – Boulder Bikeway Project crosses Boulder and Jefferson County jurisdictions, CDOT Region 1 and Region 4 jurisdictions, and it touches the City of Golden and Boulder.  All this makes the project a sort of “orphan.”  That’s a good place for C4C and Bike JeffCo to step in to coordinate.  It’s also challenging since no single agency is incentivized to lead with authority on the project.  This work will take time and, for a comparison, C4C spent two to three years in the equivalent phase of the Boulder – Lyons bikeway project.

Strategy

The maximal expression of Boulder County’s leading Transportation Master Plan is good for everyone, not just cyclists.  It intervenes to remediate adverse safety outcomes where the data indicates the need.  And it creates network access to work, services, and play for health, livability, and human flourishing among residents.

It does this by building separated, dedicated cycling infrastructure parallel to major commuter highways.  It intersperses soft-surface regional trails like the LoBo, BERT, and St. Vrain Greenway around the county for recreation.  It incrementally widens shoulders on lower volume and lower speed county roads.  It does similar to improve access and safety on old, mountain roads with constricted right-of-way (narrow and limited space).

The U.S. is worst by a margin among peer nations in traffic related serious injury and fatality rates.  Current state and federal funding levels causally produce these adverse safety and design outcomes.

Boulder County has a great way of life characterized by access to activity in nature like cycling.  The budget gap to realize its leading, solution oriented TMP as of a couple years ago was $170 million or $2.2 billion with rail.  C4C’s strategy is to speed up and improve the process of funding the TMP for safer and better cycling access across Boulder County.

The problem

Part of the solution, but not fully funded.  C4C steps in to leverage and incentivize funding for Boulder County’s planned network multi-modal system.

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