Going all electric? Don’t disconnect natural gas Open Forum

City needs to address employee crosswalk near Longs Peak Hospital

As a very part time volunteer who visits patients at Longs Peak Hospital, I often hear compliments from them about the hospital staff and how caring and competent they are.

This brings up a strong concern I’ve had about the city’s seeming lack of concern for these wonderful caregivers. I’m referring to the very dangerous crosswalk that connects the hospital with the employee parking lot across Ludlow Street.

Since construction began several months ago, the parking lot was built to replace temporarily (which could last for years) the employee parking lot on the hospital campus. Currently, there are signs at both sides of the crosswalk with dim lights constantly blinking. There is no indication that someone is actually on that walk.

That area is very dark from 4 p.m. on — no major street lights — and traffic travels on Ludlow from the large condo/ townhouse area nearby, the main visitor parking lot, Fox Hill Club and Colo. 119. A driver cannot see anyone crossing. The other night, I noticed a hospital security guard at the walkway blinking brighter lights to warn drivers.

It is a city street, and it seems reasonable for the city to put a crossing light where a walker could press a button to begin bright lights on the crosswalk. This setup is like the one on 17th Avenue between Pace Street and County Line Road. It seems incredulous that those valuable caregivers working night shifts have less care from the city.

That walkway is an accident waiting to happen. I hope it doesn’t take one of those hospital employees to end up in the hospital as a patient because of the city not fixing this dangerous situation.

— Patsi Meyer, Longmont

A Jan. 31 Times-call article reported a Boulder homeowner spent $40,000 to electrify her home and then was upset to find out it would cost $5,333 to safely remove her gas supply line. It would probably be prudent for her to leave her gas line installed. She would then be able to install a gas powered generator to supply power to her electrified home when the grid fails, as it surely will if fossil fuel power plants continue to be replaced by unreliable wind and solar.

But because of a recently enacted law, Xcel will not charge the homeowner for removing her gas line. Instead, all of the rest of the Xcel gas customers get to pay for the removal of her line and that of any others that want their lines removed. That includes those Xcel customers who can’t afford the $40,000 or whatever it costs to electrify their own homes. But never fear, the city of Boulder is planning to push for programs to use tax dollars to pay for that.

So, what will it all cost? There are about 2,125,000 housing units in Colorado that use natural gas, based on info from Statista and the Census Bureau. At $45,333 each, that comes to a little under $100 billion. And as I’ve pointed out many times, it won’t accomplish anything if the objective is to decrease the atmospheric concentration of CO2. The increase in emissions from China and India alone will more than make sure of that.