Bicycle Facilities in
Boulder, Colorado
David Coolidge
26 August 2004
Is Boulder, Colorado, bicycle heaven? Not quite, but as near it as anyplace I've been! On a recent visit I had the opportunity to ride a (borrowed) bike around town, sometimes with and sometimes without a trailer full of grandkids in tow, and I saw some neat stuff. They really take the bicycle seriously on the streets of Boulder, and it shows, in both tangible and intangible ways.
Mixed Street Traffic
In general, cyclists and motorists seemed to understand each other better than they do around here; the interaction was smoother, more predictable, and more confident on both sides. I think there are a number of factors at work that contribute to this.
The first and probably most important and basic thing is simply numbers: the ratio of bikes to cars is very high in Boulder. Based on just looking around on the street, there have to be way more bikes per car than any place I've ever been - it's obvious that the critical mass effect is at work. Bikes aren't obstacles to movement any more, just part of the traffic. (In other words, everyone has internalized the Critical Mass T-shirt message, "We aren't blocking traffic, we are traffic.")
Creative and Effective Signage
Another thing is signage. This is an area where we could learn a lot from Boulder. Unlike other amenities like bike paths, signs don't require a large expenditure - these are some ideas that Berkeley could adopt without busting the city's budget.
First of all, I never saw any sort of roadside or bikepath sign that wasn't a standard configuration traffic sign, whether it was addressed to motorists, cyclists or both. Usually they use the same signs on bike paths as on the streets. (I did see a couple of 3/4 size "STOP" signs on one bike path, but they were the exception.) Bike paths have regular street markings such as centerlines. At blind corners there are "Do Not Pass" and "One Way" signs, again standard road signs. I believe that standardizing signage this way gives a feeling that bicycle and auto traffic is one unified whole, with common rules that everyone has to follow. That in turn contributes both to predictable cyclist behavior and acceptance of cyclists by drivers. Good psychology all around.
Second, there were a number of unique traffic signs on the roads that specifically acknowledged the legitimate status of cyclists and helped control the mingled bike-auto traffic so it all flowed more smoothly. Again, these were standard traffic control type signs, and designed to address cyclists and motorists on an equal footing.
Some examples:
"No Passing Bikes on Curves" - On a twisting 2-lane uphill road in a park area; think Orinda to Inspiration Point except much longer. Interpreted somewhat loosely by drivers, but I did notice that most drivers' FIRST move upon catching up to a climbing bike was to slow down and get situated behind it. A bit different from what's often done around these parts.
"Bikes Take Full Lane" with a graphic of a bike on a downgrade - On a downhill multi-lane street. Helped by a 25 MPH speed limit on a street that would probably be 35 MPH in most of California. As it happened, I took the lane at only about 15 MPH, slower than most bikes or cars on that road, and in spite of being slow had no problem with the drivers who were overtaking me; they all went past quite politely in the other lane.
"Turning Traffic Watch for Bikes" - In left turn lanes on arterials where there was a 2-way bike path aligned parallel along one side. Reminds drivers that there will be 2-way bike traffic to their left and right after they've crossed the opposing motor traffic lanes and completed the turning movement - the point where normally they'd expect to be in the clear.
"Bicycles Only" with the diamond HOV Lane icon. Class II bikeways are set up as diamond lanes, with the same markings as HOV lanes on the freeway and corresponding signs. Drivers seemed to stay out of them quite consistently. On hills, you often see a diamond lane uphill and just a "Bikes Take Full Lane" sign on the downhill side.
Off-Street Bike Lanes & Multi-User Lanes
There's also an extensive network of off-street bicycle lanes that criss-cross the town. I wasn't there long enough to figure out how much these contributed to useful transportation by bicycle, although they definitely serve a campus community and one major employer (NIST) to some extent. These somewhat complement a network of streets that are heavily travelled multi-lane arterials. Bikes aren't prohibited on these, but they aren't comfortable places to ride, either, and, unlike the way they behave on smaller streets, on the arterials the drivers tend to act as if they own them outright.
Creek Trails
In some cases the city killed two birds with one stone by runnng bike/ped paths along the bottoms of cement flood-control channels. These channels amount to what you might call "improved creeks," they aren't the perfectly straight, square-cornered Vallaincourt-looking things you see in places like San Leandro and Fremont. These watercourses still meander a little bit, the water in them flows briskly and there are waterfalls and tiny rapids - undoubtedly artificial, but pretty anyway - to maintain interest and prevent the formation of slime and breeding of mosquitoes.
The bike paths run along beside the creeks, in fact, for some reason, there's often nothing to stop a bike from rolling right off the edge into the creek. To me that seemed an egregious hazard, but the natives assured me that it isn't a problem - I've still got my doubts. Native plants and strategically placed ornamental boulders, together with some creative use of tinted concrete, produce a quite pleasant, if not exactly natural, effect. It's not only the visual details, it's also quiet down in those ditches - you can ride along surrounded by foliage, enjoy the sound of the rushing water, feel that lovely riparian coolth, and generally forget city life for a few minutes - a fine way to commute.
You enter and exit these creek trails via ramps from the street. Where the ramp intersects the street there's usually a wide speed bump with a well-signed ped crossing on top, plus more signs indicating the bike path entrances, so when you pop up out of the ground you aren't a complete surprise to the people already on the street.
My most serious gripe with the creek trails was that the underpasses were too low. One in fact is posted as being 6' 11", and that got my attention because, bareheaded and barefooted, I'm six-four. Six-eleven scared me. When I got home I marked where my head came on the garage doorframe, and as I suspected, I found that my helmet goes up to well over 7 feet in an out-of-the-saddle sprint, making a concrete sill at 6' 11" potentially lethal. How such a dangerous feature got incorporated into an otherwise excellent design mystifies me completely - I mention it here just because it shows that eternal vigilance is still the price of good bicycling accommodation.
Multi-User Surface Paths
As well as the creek trails there are some multi-user surface paths that parallel streets - usually very busy arterials or out-and-out freeways. ("Multi-User" is the official name - other users are skaters and skate-boarders and sometimes pedestrians, though they often have their own separate sidewalks.) These paths are wide, smooth, well marked and generally excellent. Intersections with crosstreets are incorporated in the design with good provision for both function and safety - you don't get that damnable "End Bike Route" sign every time you come to a difficult spot. Two such paths provide good access from two different directions to the Colorado State University campus. Another connects the downtown area and the NIST labs (a major industry in Boulder).
Outside of town, the main highways have wide bicycle lanes on the shoulders, with signs warning drivers to "Watch for Bikes next X Miles." In the course of a 40 mile Saturday drive out State Highway 36 to visit Rocky Mountains National Park we passed a huge number of riders coming and going out to about 20 miles from Boulder. Riding is obviously a major life activity for a whole lot of Boulder people. As in town, the drivers and riders seemed to interact quite easily and with minimal stress. Colorado being a strange blend of liberal coast-type people (who predominate in Boulder and Aspen) and far-right last-mountain-man types, I don't know whether, if you and your bike were to stray too far from the liberal enclaves, you'd find yourself being disrespected by pickup drivers or not. Where I was last week, though, it wasn't half bad, bike-wise.