Category Archives: Boulder

Boulder, Opinion, transportation

Flying cars

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When I was young, probably in my pre-teens, I had an old Zenith “tombstone” radio next to my bed (probably a Zenith 5S-228).   I’d listen to comics late at night and news early in the morning.   At some point, probably in the late 50’s Dad bought Becky and me new Motorola portable radios (probably the 5P32R; mine was bright yellow).   This deco-style portable radio used vacuum tubes, and would run off of AC or off of 90-volt and 7.5 volt batteries.  (Remember, although the transistor was developed in 1948, the very first transistor radio was not produced until 1954.  It sold then for $49.95, equivalent to $440 in 2015 dollars.)

By the time I was in high school I was listening a lot to KIMN, the top-40 station in Denver, but in those earlier years I listened almost all the time to KBOL at 1490 kc on your dial.   KBOL was owned and operated by Russ and Ann Shaffer.  (Their son, Rusty, who was a year behind me at Boulder High School, took over the station upon his father’s death.  The KBOL license finally found it’s way to Colorado Public Radio under the current call sign KCFC.)

Anyway, the important thing is that Russ Shaffer would offer an editorial every Friday morning, and one of those has stuck in my mind.  Russ envisioned a day when we would commute around town in our personal helicopters.   Even at that age I’d begun to develop a certain realism (that has since evolved into cynicism) and I remember vividly that I snorted out loud at the thought:  People can’t even handle driving, where they are constrained to two dimensions, how could they handle flying in three?  In bad weather personal helicopters would be falling out of the clouds at the points where popular routes intersected.   Looking before “backing out of your driveway” would take on a life-or-death importance.

I didn’t fault Russ for being a dreamer, however.

Which brings me to today and Sean Mayer.  Mayer is the CEO of the local business development organization, and he offers a column in the local pull-out business section each Friday.  It’s fair to say that I don’t usually think much of Mayer’s columns, since they usually focus on, well, parochial positions favoring business development.   But, today, I found myself in almost-full agreement with him (A Big Idea for Boulder in 2016.)   He sees the future of electrified and automated vehicles, and appreciates the impact that will have on transportation.  And, he advocates that Boulder offer itself to Uber, Google and others as a site for testing developing these emerging technologies.  (You know, sort of a “living lab”.)

I love this idea.  Let’s do it.

But, where Mayer comes off the rails, so to speak, is at the end:

2015 was a divisive year in Boulder as we argued about traffic, transit, bikes and the general difficulty in getting around town. These are 20th Century challenges which could be largely solved by the 21st Century technology of autonomous cars. Let’s think big in 2016 and bring the future to Boulder by embracing this next great technology disruption.

It’s the “largely solved” part that I disagree with.

Electrified transportation will reduce emissions and computer-operated cars will be safer (probably much safer) than those operated by humans (this is realism), but traffic is traffic, whether it consists of electric vehicles or not.  So, let’s dial back that enthusiasm a bit.

Just overlaying the new technology on our existing behavior won’t do the entire job.   For example, applying the Uber model to driver-less cars could make traffic worse–each round trip from my house, for example, would require four vehicle trips.

But, if we are able to change our behavior (a big if), we could end up far better off.   Putting on my dream cap (and dialing back the realism), I could envision a time when a family (at least middle-class families) would have one recreational vehicle, and routine, around-town transportation would happen through an integrated system of mass-transit and Uber-like autonomous vehicles.   The autonomous vehicles would serve as the “last-mile” link to mass transit (itself probably autonomous), and for trips that don’t conform well to the mass-transit system.   Autonomous vehicles would be staged around the community in optimal positions that vary with time of day and predicted demand.  A reservation system could make transportation highly predictable and even more efficient.

Providing the capability for ride sharing for the hoi polloi  would be big efficiency multiplier. (You could program your profile to pass up that sullen and scary woman or that chatty man, or have them pass you up, no matter where they were encountered.  Did I mention privacy concerns?)  And, because these vehicles could be designed to take up less space, both when stored and on the roadway (due to smaller size and the ability to tailgate safely) space currently devoted to the automobile could be re-purposed to other uses.

It is important to recognize if we were to adopt the Uber model using autonomous vehicles we would really be talking about  “supervised autonomous vehicles”.  This model leads to one more operational advantage.  Have you ever been sitting at the departure gate on a flight when the captain comes on the PA and says “Folks, things are bit congested out there in Denver, so ATC has given us a fifteen minute traffic hold.  Sorry about that; we’ll try to make up the lost time.”   The purpose of these traffic holds is to have you sit safely on the ground at your departure airport instead of flying in circles near your arrival airport, in bad weather and in proximity to a lot of other airplanes.   In other words, it reduces congestion thus improving safety.   The Ubermind could do the same thing for local transport, thus reducing traffic delays.  Perhaps you could get a discount for accepting the “traffic hold” or pay a premium to ignore it.

This model, or something like it, could change other aspects of our lives.  Because automated vehicles would “go home” at night to otherwise unused parking facilities, the problem of “too many parked cars” would become less of an obstacle to allowing high-occupancy residences.  Perhaps this would allow us to open up the potential for auxiliary dwelling units that would 1) improve the jobs/housing balance in Boulder and 2) give middle-income couples, singles and small families some income to offset high home prices.

But perhaps more culturally significant, the relegation of the fancy car to the status of a recreational vehicle would make routine transportation a commodity instead of a statement of style, self-worth and independence, and separating speed and noise from the accelerator pedal, in fact eliminating the accelerator pedal entirely, would decouple transportation from illusions of power and control.  That is, this big idea could change our entire relationship with the automobile.

With that relationship healed then perhaps, sometime in the 21st century, Boulder will pry the car out of the cold dead hands (heh, heh) of drivers and follow hundreds of examples in many dozens of  truly innovative cities that will have put their streets on a four-lane-to-three-lane “road diet”, aka “right-sizing”.   Perhaps sometime in his career, Mayer will be able to advocate this as an example of how Boulder can embrace the trailing edge of innovation.

Bicycles, Boulder, Opinion, transportation

Fourmile Canyon Drive

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Residents living along Fourmile Canyon Drive are opposing Boulder County’s plans for reconstruction of the roadway following the floods of September, 2013.   Some residents do not want a wide shoulder along the uphill lane because perceptions of increased safety will encourage “…bike races and amateur and tourist cyclists.”  The horror.

The public side of this debate has been framed largely by Valerie Conway, a resident along the road.   Frankly, it seems like she will throw out any thought in hopes that it might get some traction.   She raises lots of concern about wildlife in what is really a low-density subdivision.  She thinks wider shoulders may encourage her neighbors to speed (she is probably right, there).  Most recently she has raised the Right-Sizing brand in an attempt to mobilize the opposition of the broadly malcontent and the reflexive anti-cyclists.   And, in a guest opinion piece she said that “hundreds of skilled cyclists” prefer the inherent danger of the road.  Improving safety on Fourmile Canyon Drive would be like “grooming the Mary Jane ski area”, in her words.   A few days ago she pleaded to a reporter that the County should get on with the reconstruction because “…we just want to get on with our lives.”   Do drive (better yet, ride) this road before it is reconstructed to see for yourself if you would class that statement as hyperbole.   For extra credit, compare and contrast Fourmile Canyon Drive with James Canyon Drive.

Conway makes her preference clear: she wants the “cyclable shoulders” eliminated from all options.

For what it’s worth, here is the input I offered to the County in support of the rock-cut option.  You have until December 18 to offer input here or by e-mail to Andrew Barth with Boulder County Transportation at abarth@bouldercounty.org.  You can also send copies to the County Commissioners at commissioners@bouldercounty.org.

I support the “rock-cut” option for reconstruction of Fourmile Canyon Drive.  The rock cut option will provide additional resilience against flood-caused transportation disruption, while also providing more safety for uphill motorists and bicycles.

Lessons re-learned from the 2013 flood include the realization that no amount of armoring will prevent Fourmile Creek from taking what it needs from the roadway during the next big flood. The more roadway that is farther from the high-velocity regions of the channel the more roadway that will survive during and immediately after a flood. The wide shoulders on the uphill side of the roadway will be available to contribute to emergency transportation. Further, since the bedrock will remain under a larger part of the road as a foundation that the creek cannot take, reconstruction of lost roadway infrastructure after the next flood will be less expensive and faster than if the roadway were to be built on fill in the channel. The rock cut option is a long-term investment in a more resilient road.

With respect to considerations other than flood resilience, I support the installation of an uphill shoulder that can serve as a bicycle climbing land.  This is a good thing.  The existing roadway is dangerous, particularly on right turns on the uphill side.  Autos drive fast, often exceed the speed limit, and cut the corners, exposing bicycles to danger.   This is one reason why the canyon is not more widely used for cycling.  I realize that some residents are motivated to maintain the status quo to avoid increased bicycle use, but it is good for County residents as a whole to make Fourmile Canyon Drive a safer and more attractive cycling route.  The more recreation we can offer to residents where they do not have to get in a car the more we will reduce local and global impacts.

With respect to natural and social values, it is important to recognize that Fourmile Canyon is not a pristine environment.  It is highly developed, and is really a low-density suburb.  By far the largest impacts to wildlife have been imposed by the presence of the road and the presence and development of residential uses, and these impacts are essentially permanent and cannot be reduced.  The incremental negative impact from the rock cut alternative will be small, and it will be offset by a positive impact on the creek and the wildlife that use it.

Boulder, Opinion

A bastion of conservatism

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Thanks to Silvia Pettem for reminding folks that Boulder was not always liberal.  This follows on an interview two weeks ago with Rob Bowman, who managed the Rocky Flats Plant for Dow Chemical.  Bowman characterized Boulder in the ’50s as a “bastion of conservatism”.

“‘In the ’50s, Boulder was a bastion of conservatism, so there was no bad rap in working at Rocky Flats,’ Bowman recalled. ‘There was one professor (at CU) that was known to be quite extremely liberal,’ Bowman said, searching his memory in vain for the name. ‘He was quite well known, because he was the one liberal in town.'”

I’m really curious who that one liberal was, since it was probably the father of a friend.

Pettem fleshes out Bowman’s characterization with some election history and relates the event that contributed most to the progressive liberalization of Boulder: when eighteen-year-olds got the vote.

There is some truth to the commonly held association of 60’s Boulder with hippies and anti-war protesters, but that is an exaggeration.  Outside of the CU campus, Boulder at that time was still broadly conservative–I remember a billboard that stood for quite some time at the intersection of north Broadway and highway 36 in the early 60’s, prominently sponsored by the John Birch Society and urging the impeachment of Earl Warren.

Signs of change were there, even then.  The Sink put a sign in the window advertising “Free beer for any card-carrying Communist”.  This somewhat belated swipe at the McCarthy Red Scare, coming while memories of the Cuban Missile Crisis (a truly existential threat) were still fresh, prompted some offended local to throw a brick through the sign and the window.  (Well, maybe it was not a local–I think political conservatives were still the majority of the CU student population at that time.)  A couple of nights later the John Birch billboard was blown up.  I clearly recall a photo of a Boulder County Sheriff’s deputy holding up the biggest piece of the sign he could find, about the size of a baseball bat.   This was an early demonstration of the doctrine of shock and awe.  No more bricks were thrown.

As Pettem notes, the flood of new young voters that came when the voting age was lowered to eighteen started to change Boulder.  The Twenty Sixth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified by North Carolina on July 1, 1971, becoming the law of the land.  The amendment passed the Senate 94 to zero and the House 401 to 19, sending it to the states on March 23, 1971.  Its ratification was the fastest ever.  I guess some of the overwhelming support for this amendment was due to an old-fashioned sense of fairness–young men of eighteen were being sent to Vietnam to kill and die when they could not even vote.  I was very clearly aware of that–I voted in the 1971 City Council election and have not missed any election since.   (It’s worth noting that young people would vote at a much higher rate today if the draft were active.  They would probably be serious judges of what constitutes a threat.)

boulder_city_council_1972
Boulder City Council, 1972. Back row: Richard Geesaman, Kenneth Wright, Karen Paget, Dwayne Nuzum, Janet Roberts Front row: Timothy Fuller, Richard McLean, Ruth Correll, Penfield Tate. Credit City of Boulder.

That flood of young voters did tip Boulder toward the left–two young people, Tim Fuller, a 28-year-old bookstore owner, and Karen Paget, a 26-year-old graduate student were elected to the Council.  And, Boulder gave the most votes to Penfield Tate, who was not young but was Black.

Boulder was dubbed the People’s Republic after the election of Fuller, who was gay, and Paget.  (Worse things were probably said about Tate’s election.)  Given how conservative the real Peoples’ Republic is, that might have been a pretty good moniker.

Remarkably, in December of 1973 Tate introduced an equal-rights measure that would have prohibited employers from discriminating against gays.  Just as remarkable as his act of introducing it, Tate’s equal-rights ordinance passed the Council on a 5-4 vote (for: Tate, Ruth Correll, Janet Roberts, Karen Paget and Tim Fuller).  The “vitriol” about right-sizing is but sweet nothings  compared to the firestorm that then ensued, and the Council bowed to the pressure and put the ordinance up on the ballot.  It lost, 13,000 votes to 7,400.  In 1974 voters forced a recall election and Fuller was recalled.  Tate survived by 567 votes.   (I attribute this to the Putney Swope effect.  Because not many people saw the film, you will probably have to look it up.)  However, Tate was not re-elected in 1975.

Pettem sees the reaction of Boulder to the resignation of Richard Nixon as a sign that Boulder had passed the tipping point to liberalism.  But, my recollection of that time is that simply reflected the Nixon Fatigue that cut across the political spectrum.  Boulder finally passed an equal-rights ordinance in 1987.   At that point we can probably think of it as a liberal town.  Those were the days.

Bicycles, Boulder, Opinion, Politics

Right-sizing a parking lot

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When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race.  H. G. Wells.

It is no small irony that McGuckin Hardware announced yesterday that it will start giving employees $240/year toward the purchase of a commuter bike.  This, and provision of EcoPasses (RTD transit passes) to employees is hoped to reduce the number of parking spaces used by employees and thereby increase the convenience of parking for customers.  (On any given day, McGuckin employees use about 50-80 of the 890 spaces available at the shopping center.)

I won’t presume that McGuckin opposed the Right-Sizing of Folsom, but the store was frequently cited by opponents as one whose business was being reduced by the three-lane configuration.   That’s why this announcement made me chuckle–McGuckin employees will still face the most important impediment to transportation cycling: concerns about safety while riding in traffic, something, the primary thing, that the Right-Sizing was intended to address.

(Bus service to McGuckin, from most parts of town, is anything but direct.)

It is also worth noting that anyone who approaches McGuckin from the north on Folsom will have to make a left turn to get to the store, either at Canyon, or in the block south of there.  The three-lane configuration makes a left turn much easier.  Take it from me–I’ve made thousands of left turns, in a car and on a bike, off of the three-lane segment of northbound Broadway.   Right-sizing is good for business.

2015 council election, Boulder, Opinion, Politics

Does Boulder have too many jobs?

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Does Boulder have too many jobs? If you are out of work, then Boulder needs at least one more job. If you are a commercial developer then Boulder needs as many jobs as you can convince the planning department to let you squeeze onto your particular piece of land. If you are a real estate investor, including all of us who own homes, or if you are a newspaper, or a car dealer or a lifestyle publication (“Inspired by community”), then Boulder can never have too many jobs.

But, if you commute to work here and would like to live here, or if you just care about having a real community where nurses, teachers, firefighter and mechanics might hope to live, then the answer is yes, Boulder has too many jobs. According to materials produced by the City’s Department of Planning, Housing and Sustainability as part of the revision of the Boulder Valley Comprehensive Plan, Boulder now has 2.2 jobs per household. By itself, that number may not mean much, but let’s put it in context. In previous draft documents, the planning department provided estimates that Boulder has twice the number of jobs per household as the Denver metropolitan area as a whole. OK, maybe that helps explain some of the reason that housing is more expensive here, but is a two-to-one ratio really that far out of whack? What about other areas?

Data about this are hard to find for the average person (like me), but a 2008 study by the University of California provides some information. Boulder has more jobs per household than any of the 15 California communities with the highest ratio of jobs to households. I guess, if I understand the report correctly, Boulder is already off the charts. The California areas that are closest to Boulder in this respect are Orange County and San Francisco, but those areas only have about 1.5 jobs per household. So, Boulder has one-third more families chasing the available housing stock than does San Francisco. And, San Francisco has the BART. Orange County, by the way, does not have oranges any more, except in museums.

What does the future hold? Will the market fix this? Will increasing density fix this? Can we build our way out? Again, the planning department provides some data. When Boulder builds its last office building and its last residential property under its current zoning “capacity”, what is called “build-out”, the City will have nearly three jobs for every household. This is twice the ratio for the most job-rich California communities.

More than fifty years ago Boulder set out to become a compact and, most important, a finite community, one that rejected the bigger-is-always better model. This idea was opposed at the beginning, and has been opposed ever after by those who profit from growth, but also by people who feel that a community must grow to remain vibrant. That view holds that a town is either growing or it is decaying—a community and an economy cannot thrive without growth. Among the arguments against controlling growth is that limiting growth in an attractive place like Boulder will inevitably result in a wealthy enclave. If not rectified, the jobs/pop imbalance in Boulder will lead to that outcome, which will discourage other communities from trying to control growth. Much of the value of Boulder’s leadership in community planning will be lost or discounted. Lost as well will be the vitality of our community.

The “jobs/pop” issue is not new and it is not a surprise.  People have recognized this problem since at least the 1980’s. Several attempts have been made to re-zone land to provide a balance, or to impose other processes that would lead to a better balance between jobs and dwellings. All have failed. Although I don’t believe the real-estate investment sector had a hand in the origin of the jobs/pop imbalance, it has consistently, energetically, and effectively opposed fixing it. That opposition has been effective in creating a current sense of inevitability fatigue about the jobs/pop issue.

I’m tired, too, but the stakes are high. Even at this relatively late date it is possible to fix this, but it will be hard and it won’t happen without the kind of foresight and gumption that once moved Boulder to do other hard things. Certainly, a form-based code, as pleasant as that sounds, will make no difference. Those who advocate increasing density in order to moderate the price of housing in Boulder need to recognize that the population of Boulder would nearly have to double at build-out in order to bring us just to the same relative demand for housing as San Francisco.  That would require 19 more Boulder Junctions.

2015-10-09 14.35.02
Boulder Junction

Leonard May has proposed a few sensible things we can do to preserve affordable housing, but there is more that we can accomplish by working on the demand side of the housing supply-demand equation. I suggest that we re-focus our primary community-shaping efforts, and money, from Open Space, which has been very successful in creating a compact community, to an Urban Space program that would implement some of May’s ideas but would also put resources to a long-term program of converting commercially-zoned land (and even existing commercial developments) to multi-family housing. This will lead to a higher build-out population for Boulder, but in my view that will be well worth the value of recovering a vibrant community. While we are at it, we would have the perfect opportunity to build “15-minute” neighborhoods that will have many benefits.

Given the self-interest of current home owners (I am one) and that of the real estate, retail and publishing sectors, I can’t be too optimistic that Boulder will find a way to fix this. Maybe in 50 years Pearl will be as notorious as Rodeo Drive, and Boulder will have Maserati and Ferrari dealerships (“It’s the lifestyle”). If this future concerns you, if you have a shred of optimism, and if you want to at least try to move Boulder in the right direction, cast your votes to discourage development of new jobs and to encourage development of new housing. For me, that means voting for 301. As for candidates for City Council, I suggest first Leonard May, who has been most specific in his proposals, Tim Plass who has suggested rezoning commercial land to residential and Suzanne Jones who also recognizes the problem, which is the first step to a solution. Beyond them, I have no idea.

When I first wrote this, I suggested voting against 300.  I’ve now reconsidered and I will vote for this measure.   While I’m concerned that neighborhood referenda could block sensible ideas that would increase affordable housing (everyone will have to give a bit), I think the power 300 gives neighborhoods would be balanced by a new awareness of city-wide issues and (at least I hope so) a new responsibility and motivation to help find solutions to our most fundamental challenge.  That power could also be a positive force in overcoming opposition to those solutions from the development sector.

Bicycles, Boulder, inflammatory, Opinion, Politics

Speeds

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Wherever the law is, crime can be found.  Aleksander Solzenitsyn

I feel a little awkward featuring this quote, because I was introduced to it by Ta-Nehisi Coates in his article on incarceration and the Black family.   But, it is entirely relevant to the topic, and perhaps the contrast between his use and my use will emphasize that most of us face only first-world problems here in Boulder.

It’s also worth remembering that just before the initiation of Right-Sizing on Folsom Boulder Police shot and killed a young CU math student who was evidently under the influence of “bad LSD.”  Samuel Forgy was naked and armed with a hammer.  He was 22.   Only a couple of anguished people wrote “wait a minute, folks” letters about Forgy’s death.   They were drowned in a sea of anger about a minute or two delay on whatever errand, and about government overreach and arrogance.  The irony of that last thought in the face of Forgy’s death leaves an acid taste.

But, back to the first world (or, perhaps the zeroth world, in Boulder).    One thing we got out of the Right-Sizing project is a little data, and one of the things we learned was that 15% of drivers exceed the 30 mph speed limit on Folsom north of Bluff by at least six or seven mph.  The average speed there exceeds the speed limit by two or three mph.  These speeds are a couple of mph lower than before the Right-Sizing, which is one of the objectives of the approach.

Boulder Mayor Matt Applebaum reportedly asked City transportation staff why, instead of installing the three-lane configuration, they didn’t just lower the speed limit.  I don’t know how the staff answered him, but I hope they told him that reducing speed limits has very little effect on speed, because that is true.  Raising speed limits has more effect, but less than you might imagine.

It turns out that road conditions, traffic conditions and the road configuration determine how fast people drive.   Hence the logic of the three-lane configuration.

The one thing that raising the speed limit does do is reduce the frequency of noncompliance.   Right now approximately half the drivers on this stretch are violating the speed limit.  If we raised the speed limit to 36 mph only about fifteen percent would be in violation.

This most recent spasm of anti-bike rage in the local paper is different from those that periodically preceded it only in the intensity of the anger expressed.  I think that intensity is more a function of the time than anything else, and has little to do with actual attitudes toward cyclists.  One thing that was the same-old-thing, though, was the complaint that bicyclists wantonly run stop signs and commit other infractions, and should be called to account.  This is often a prelude to calling for visible license plates and taxation of these freeloading miscreants.

Whenever I read these letters I think, “What’s the big deal, lots of motorists breaks the speed limit.”  Now we have the data.

So, I suggest we give bicycles the same latitude taken by motorists.  On Folsom that’s 36 mph versus a speed limit of 30.   At a stop sign that translates into 6 mph versus a speed limit of zero.  Take a deep breath, and chill.