Expressing their concerns
Boulder residents worry about human behavior with transportation
Boulder is in the midst of an effort to better understand how safe people feel walking, cycling, driving or taking other modes of transportation in the city.
Transportation staff on Wednesday conducted a virtual meeting to gauge exactly this and to answer community questions as Boulder moves toward updating its Vision Zero Action Plan.
The plan, a draft of which will be released later this year, will identify specific actions the city can take during the next five years to improve transportation safety and reduce the number of deaths and serious injuries on Boulder’s streets.
The city adopted its Vision Zero goals in 2014, becoming part of a national network of communities striving to eliminate all traffic fatalthis ities and severe injuries.
However, since that time, severe crashes have remained steady, with Boulder reporting anywhere from 55 to 60 a year since 2016.
Further, Boulder’s Safe Streets Report, which focuses on data from 2018 to 2020, identified five areas of concern, which remained largely unchanged from the previous report: crashes involving pedestrians, bicyclists, speeding, making left turns and people age 65 and older.
all speaks to the fact that Vision Zero is a complex goal, Principal Traffic Engineer Devin Joslin noted on Wednesday. And while the city can make changes regarding roadway design, speeds, enforcement, technology and policy, it cannot fully change human behavior.
Kirsten Millar, who attended Wednesday’s meeting, asked questions about that same concept. How might the city modify behaviors and work to encourage people to follow speed limits and other safety rules?
Influencing behaviors is a challenge, Joslin acknowledged. He referenced the work of the local nonprofit It Could Be Me, which aims to change the relationship between drivers and other users of the road. Though not necessarily always effective, Joslin argued it’s beneficial when people can consider the problem with a more empathetic perspective.
“It’s really, I think, important to just put yourself in the position that really within a moment, things can change out on the transportation system and something horrific could occur,” Joslin said. “If people kind of acknowledge that, I think there is a tendency that you may want to be more cautious.”
Millar also asked a question about the city’s “20 is plenty”
“Quite frankly, we found that it did not necessarily have a significant change on speeds across the city. It does take street design to really influence the way people drive on the street.”
Devin Joslin Principal Traffic Engineer On lowering speed limits to 20 mph in residential neighborhoods
effort, which lowered the speed limit on residential streets to 20 mph. It generally feels as if people ignore the 20 mph speed limit, Millar noted.
That is in line with what the city has seen as well.
“Quite frankly, we found that it did not necessarily have a significant change on speeds across the city,” Joslin said. “It does take street design to really influence the way people drive on the street.”
Another attendee at Wednesday’s meeting asked whether Boulder tracks crashes that occur in construction zones.
This person specifically asked about North Broadway, where the city is in the midst of a major reconstruction project that will repave the road, add upgraded bike lanes and a multi-use path, reduce speeds and more.
When a crash occurs, a police report will note whether it happened in an active work zone, Transportation Engineer Veronica Son said.
“We can analyze all these construction zones over a period of time,” Son said.
With support from Boulder City Council, the city is focusing on the Core Arterial Network, dubbed CAN, allowing it to create a connected system with protected bicycle lanes, intersection enhancements, pedestrian facilities and transit facility upgrades along its busiest streets where most crashes occur.
The city will use historical crash data along with input collected in public meetings such as the one conducted Wednesday and through a city questionnaire to inform the Vision Zero Action Plan recommendations.
The questionnaire will remain open until July 17. There also is an interactive map, where people can drop pins in specific locations where they may feel unsafe or have experienced a close call. Learn more about Boulder’s Vision Zero efforts and complete the questionnaire online at beheardboulder.org/visionzero-action-plan.