Metro-area transportation projects ask for public input

By Kurt Nordback

Three major transportation projects currently in the planning stage have the potential to change the face of transportation in the north Denver Metro area over the next decade or two. The public has an opportunity for input, as part of the process of drawing up an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for each project.

Most Boulder County residents are probably familiar with the US 36 project, intended to deal with growing congestion on the section of US 36 between Boulder and Denver. The EIS will consider several alternatives (besides the required No Action alternative), each consisting of a cocktail of transit and road-widening elements. Significantly, thanks to the tireless campaigning of the Build The Bikeway organization, each includes the Denver-Boulder bikeway, a paved, off-street, multi-use path connecting the two cities plus Superior, Louisville, Interlocken and Flatirons Crossing, Broomfield, and Westminster.

Potential transit elements are bus rapid transit (BRT) on US 36 and commuter rail on the Burlington Northern - Santa Fe rail line. Proposals for road widening include additional general-purpose travel lanes, toll lanes, and high occupancy vehicle lanes. Each proposal also nominally includes transportation demand management (TDM), though no specifics on what this might involve have been made public. It appears that TDM has not yet been given nearly as much thought as the engineering aspects of each alternative.

The Northwest Corridor project originated as a proposal to complete the beltway around Denver formed by E-470, C-470, and the recently-completed Northwest Parkway. Several other options are now being considered, due to strong opposition to the original plan from Golden and Boulder County, and because the original conceptual route would have cut through Rocky Flats, now a wildlife refuge. But a huge highway project is still a possibility. Among the alternatives on the table are a freeway from the western terminus of the Northwest Parkway to Golden, or a tollway along more or less the same route. Expanding existing arterial roads connecting the two is another option. Yet another is either BRT or light rail between Golden and Broomfield or the Church Ranch area.

Notably missing from all the Northwest Corridor proposals are any kind of bicycle or pedestrian facilities along the route. And as with the US 36 EIS, TDM that might reduce the need for a huge building project is getting short shrift, in favor of engineering solutions.

The third regional project is on the North I-25 corridor from Fort Collins to Denver. This EIS is in an earlier stage of its development than the other two, but the potential ingredients are similar: road-widening, rail of various sorts, BRT, and some consideration of TDM. Somewhat surprisingly, alternatives other than adding lanes to I-25 are getting heavy emphasis. But that in no way means road-widening won't be the major component of the proposal that comes out of the EIS process.

All of these projects are contingent on the availability of serious funding. The US 36 alternatives have price tags in the $1-2 billion range -- and that doesn't include the full cost of property acquisition for rights-of-way, rail stations, and so on. The other projects don't yet have costs identified for their alternatives, but again expect prices well over $1 billion.
For more information, visit the projects' websites:
www.us36eis.com
www.dot.state.co.us/NorthwestCorridorEIS/
www.dot.state.co.us/NorthI25eis/

Opinion: Jelly Donuts

By Stuart Black

Jelly donuts. Just let those words roll off your tongue. Jelly donuts: Sweet. Gooey. Oily. You walk into an empty conference room and there is a box of donuts on the table. The jelly ones just cry out to you, don't they?

Jelly donuts are just about the most perfect food around. Everyone knows how good they are and how calorie-packed they are. That's why I am proposing that we bicycling commuters start referring to our daily, yearly and lifetime fuel savings not in miles per gallon or even in total gallons of gasoline saved, but in a way that the motoring public can understand. To them it's just gasoline. They pump it, they burn it and they forget it.

But what if you were to ask them in a friendly manner, “Hey, you air pollutin', precious-resource-wasting, ozone-depleting, global-warming hog, how many jelly donuts did you burn on the way in this morning?” That question might just baffle them long enough for you to get away before they beat you to a pulp. But it might also set them to thinking.

Now stay with me here. One gallon of gas contains roughly 34,000 Kcal. (If you've forgotten your middle-school science, one calorie is the amount of heat needed to raise the temperature of 1 gram of water 1°C. A Kcal is the amount needed to raise 1 kilogram of water 1°C.) A jelly donut contains roughly 250 Kcal. When a car is driven the distance to work of, let's say, 20 miles round trip, it uses about one gallon of gas, equivalent to 34,000 Kcal of energy. You could heat that liter of water to 34,000°C. That's one steamin' cup of joe! But if you put it in terms of the number of jelly donuts you'd have to use, it would be 124 jelly donuts per round trip. Over a week, that's 640 jelly donuts; over a year, 32,240 jelly donuts!

On the other hand, on the same round trip by bicycle you'd only use a single jelly donut. To figure your own fuel savings in jelly donuts, just divide your commute distance in miles by the car's gas mileage. (Be honest and measure the mileage. The EPA estimates are just that — estimates, and bad ones.) Then multiply that number, the gallons used, by 34,000, which will give you the Kcals the car uses. Now divide the result by 250, which gives you the Jelly Donut units — the number of jelly donuts you'd have to feed your car to get it to carry you to and from work. From this substantial number, you can then subtract the number of jelly donuts per ride. For a rough estimate use one jelly donut per half hour of riding. (If you want to be more accurate go to www.shastasoftware.com/CycliStats/addride.htm for an involved spreadsheet.)

The result is how many jelly donuts you save by commuting by bicycle. Report your jelly donut savings to your co-workers. With luck it will pique their interest. Or perhaps it will just make them hungry.?

17th Street Bike Lanes Get Final Approval

By Dave Allured, BBC Spokesperson for 17th Street

On September 20, Boulder City Council gave final approval of the 17th Street bike lane project. Following a lengthy debate, they voted 5-4 against a "call-up" which would have extended the discussion into more meetings and debates. In effect they let stand the August 30 approval of the Transportation Advisory Board.

Thanks go to the seven people who came and testified in support at the Council meeting, as well as everyone else who has testified, written letters and e-mails, and attended meetings over the past two years. Thanks also go out to Indian Peaks Group of the Sierra Club and to Plan Boulder County for lending their support.

Thanks are also due to city transportation staff for very hard work to resolve all the requests and complaints coming from all directions over the past two years; and to everyone on City Council, Transportation Advisory Board, and the lone advocate on the Downtown Management Commission who supported this project.

Here is the expected construction schedule through next summer, from the city's 17th Street web page:

Transportation staff seeks to complete safety improvements recommended at the south end of 17th Street this fall. These improvements include installation of a raised pedestrian-crossing treatment at the intersection of University Avenue and 17th Street and a median south of the Hillside neighborhood to address the identified safety problem with northbound vehicles traveling too fast around the curve and leaving the roadway.

Remaining improvements will be completed next spring and summer in conjunction with the 2005 street resurfacing season, including:

Installation of on-street bicycle lanes on 17th Street between

Athens and Walnut streets, requiring the removal of approximately 38 on-street parking spaces.

Construction of pedestrian-crossing treatments at the intersections of 17th and Marine Streets and 17th and Grove Streets.

Construction of neckdowns at the intersection of 17th and Grove Streets

Installation of two new speed display signs and relocation of two existing speed display signs.

Construction of replacement parking in three locations which would replace 21 spaces and require a total loss of 25 parking spaces in the project area.¨

For more details see the city website: http://www.ci.boulder.co.us/publicworks/depts/transportation/projects/17thbikelane.html.