Residents to provide feedback on modifications
Boulder residents are invited next month to provide input on staff recommendations as the city wraps up work on the Vision Zero Innovation Program that resulted in the implementation of street safety treatments designed to enhance pedestrian and bicyclist safety.
City staff is finalizing an evaluation on its VZIP project that kicked off in 2020 and will make recommendations to the Transportation Advisory Board during a virtual meeting at 6 p.m. on Dec. 12, according to a news release from the city. Members of the public can comment on the recommendations at the board meeting or through a form on the program webpage by Dec. 9.
Staff recommendations will be based on the following criteria: before and after speed and traffic volume data; periodic field observations; maintenance records and maintenance staff feedback regarding snow and ice removal; feedback from the Boulder Fire Department; community input from more than 300 responses via phone, email and a questionnaire.
Over the past two years, the city has used inexpensive tools such as traffic paint and plastic poles, known as delineators, to complete projects along busy streets or intersections in effort to eliminate fatalities and serious injuries caused by traffic accidents.
“We were able to accomplish quite a bit for much less money than our typical project costs because of the types of materials and designs that we used,” Boulder Principal Traffic Engineer Devin Joslin said.
“We found pretty similar effectiveness to permanent projects — not quite as effective as some of the vertical treatments like speed humps or cushions, but very close. What we also found at many of the locations is that the projects prevent a lot of the top-end speeds, so we saw a pretty dramatic decreases in the number of drivers that are going 10 miles an hour over the posted speed limit.”
Joslin said the evaluation study examined the speed of traffic on the roadways — before and after the projects were installed — and the impacts the projects have had on the Boulder Fire Department or city snow plows.
Of the projects, staff are recommending 12 projects remain in place, three be modified and five be removed. The five projects staff are recommending for removal include curb extensions on Aurora Avenue and Evans
Drive; curb extensions and a pinch point on Glenwood Drive, east of 29th Street; a median west of Palisade Drive at Palo Parkway; and two Mohawk Road projects: curb extensions, a median and a pinch point south of Pitkin Drive and curb extensions and medians south of Inca Parkway.
Joslin said he anticipates a recommendation to modify one project on Quince Avenue and keep another may be controversial among residents during the December meeting.
On Quince Avenue, the city is recommending a curb extension and pinch points west of 17th Street remain in place, but wants to modify a curb extension and chicane west of 19th Street.
“The chicane requires motorists in opposing directions of traffic yield to each other (and) take turns going through (the chicane) because it narrows the roadway to a one-lane roadway,” he said.
“I think there are some challenges on Quince because there is not a sidewalk, so some of the ways that the vehicles were going through that area — I think people were feeling constrained or pinched as they were also trying to walk along Quince.”
City staff will begin project modifications next year. Moving forward, the city will pause the program as it continues work on the Core Arterial Network, or CAN, aimed to create a connected system with protected bicycle lanes, intersection enhancements, pedestrian facilities and transit facility upgrades, Joslin said. The city’s Transportation and Mobility Department dedicated $250,000 of its Vision Zero funding in 2020 to VZIP.
“We’re very much in the details of getting some of those corridors like Baseline (Road) and Iris (Avenue) advanced with our (CAN) work,” Joslin said.
“I think it will be a little bit of a case-by-case basis in the future as to kind of where and how frequently we would deploy projects of (the VZIP) type.”