Opinion: Get needed results with updated Boulder Transportation Master Plan


This year Boulder will be updating its Transportation Master Plan, so now is the time to focus on what needs to be done.
The key fact is that we are past the inflection point on the hockey stick-shaped graph of congestion versus traffic. In other words, we’ve used up the capacity of our roads, so a little more traffic produces a whole lot more congestion. Just look at the huge numbers of cars stacked up for long stretches on Colo. 93, U.S. 36, Arapahoe Road, the Diagonal Highway, etc., in the morning or evening, and the jams during lunch hour in many places around town. Also, many local interior roads that had no real congestion some years ago now have delays through multiple signal cycles at many times during the day.
Having just reviewed the current 2014 TMP, and having been involved in the original plan and its updates, as well as having studied some innovative strategies in other places, here are some suggestions for the city council and staff:
First, set standards that you actually intend to maintain. Having “goals” is nice, but what we need is results. Here are some measureable, achievable outcomes that would benefit us all:
• No increase in travel time on all major and minor arterials. Knowing current travel times will require expanding monitoring from just twice a day on only a few streets, but doing more complete measurements will show the true extent of congestion.
• No increase in traffic light delays at intersections. This is a standard traffic measure, but it seems to have disappeared from the TMP.
• No increase in vehicle miles traveled and no increase in emissions. Reducing both of these measures are already TMP goals, so let’s start by making sure they don’t get worse.
Second, replace the current transportation sales tax with user fees for most of the funding. User fees are much more equitable, because they charge those who use the roads, and are also less regressive than sales tax.
One user fee that is relatively straightforward is charging for all parking spaces other than those where people live. Such fees are easily implemented now, with many companies providing full service systems from license plate scanner-equipped cars to credit card billing. Some parking meters would still be required so that people not enrolled in the system could avoid being ticketed. To interest owners of private lots in allowing the city’s vehicles in to scan plates in their lots, the city could impose high fees on all spaces where these scanners are not allowed; such fees would be justified, because free spaces generate more traffic.
Unfortunately a gas tax won’t work, because it is easily avoided by in-commuters. And it’s not clear that the city could legally put tolls in place, which is too bad, because tolls catch pretty much everyone.
Third, spend some of the user fee money to actually pay people to car-pool, van-pool, walk, bike and take transit. Combining user fees with payments for using alternatives has been shown to work. Then increase both user fees and incentives to the point where traffic is significantly reduced. And set up a ride-sharing website and other tools so that people can coordinate rides, etc. Also, use fee revenues to subsidize delivery services to reduce shopping trips.
It’s worth noting that reducing traffic will also reduce accidents, make walking and biking more enjoyable, and lower the need for parking, all of which are worthy existing city goals.
Fourth, require all new development to be net zero relative to the quantitative standards calculated at the time of development. That doesn’t mean that a new building itself must generate zero traffic, since that would be nearly impossible. But it does mean that new development will be responsible to pay the costs of reducing other auto trips to compensate for the trips that the new development adds. Otherwise everyone else will have to suffer increased congestion that they had nothing to do with creating. (Alternatively, the city and the University of Colorado could plan for a finite and limited build-out, but that apparently is not part of current thinking.)
Once the city implements car/van-pooling, increased transit and delivery systems, new development can invest to expand these services so to maintain the traffic standards. Additionally, the city will have to update its impact fees and possibly use “adequate public facilities” requirements to ensure that necessary system improvements are made.
It will take all this and more to actually deal with the effects of growth on our transportation commons, so it’s time to get going.

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