After a summer of record-breaking heat, poor air quality and wildfires both near and far away, Boulder residents may be wondering if this is a permanent feature of summers here. What progress has been made to reduce greenhouse gasses that keep dangerous summers on a repeat loop? Driving outside of Boulder in the greater Metro area to places like Broomfield, Westminster or Northglenn, one can be forgiven for the sinking feeling that there is no escape from climate disaster.
Paris is transforming itself from a car-dominated transportation to a city where biking is the first choice. And so can we in Boulder. It’s time!
In 2015, the Boulder Valley Comprehensive Plan included pedestrian-oriented (“15 minute”) neighborhoods as part of its “placemaking” goal. The benefits of such neighborhoods, including reduced traffic congestion and fewer C02 emissions, have been recognized worldwide. Tourists, including Boulder residents, love Amsterdam and Copenhagen for their car-free zones. They offer greater accessibility to stores and services while promoting healthy physical exercise, social interactions, and a more relaxed atmosphere. Given the choice of exhaust-filled air, jarring noise, and harried visual landscapes vs. the vibrant and relaxed atmosphere of a pedestrian-centric zone, humans are simply drawn to the latter.
Boulder has made little progress in creating 15-minute neighborhoods during the last ten years, while other cities have made huge strides. No one has been more aggressive in implementing changes to create a 15-minute city than Mayor Ann Hidalgo in Paris. She described the goal this way:
“It’s the city of proximity, where you can find everything you need within 15 minutes of your home. It’s a prerequisite for the ecological transformation of the city, while improving Parisians’ daily lives. By bringing the locations of work, play, home, shopping, and service in closer proximity, it reduces the need for motorized transport, decreasing carbon emissions and increasing air quality.”
Mayor Hidalgo’s plan has transformed transportation in Paris. Using strategies that promote biking (adding many miles of protected bike lanes) and discourage driving (closing roads to cars and removing parking), Hidalgo has moved the needle on sustainability goals in just a few years. Boosted by the pandemic, from 2020 to 2021, cycling trips increased by 70%. Car ownership in Paris has fallen from a high of 60% several decades ago to 35% in 2022. This has cut the carbon emissions in Paris by 20%. For details, see the video by Michael Thomas: “How Paris is Leading a Sustainable Transportation Revolution.”
People love 15-minute neighborhoods because shopping, recreation, health care, schools, and services are near where people live. And to get to those other locations, walking or biking is safe and pleasant, and one arrives at the destination in less than 15 minutes without having to use a car. Here is a graph to explain the distances accessible within 5 and 15 minutes without a car.
Boulder is compact, with a tight boundary. It’s only 6.6 miles from north to south and 5 miles from the furthest house in Gunbarrel to the Pearl Street Mall. Boulder can become a 15-minute city more easily than most places.
The essential feature of drawing housing, shopping and services into closer proximity are connections that enable safe and pleasant walking or cycling instead of the speedy movement of cars. Cycling and walking along low-stress paths protected from car crashes helps to create a social connection between people and the living environment, expanding the love of place.
Who would say that they love 28th Street, Baseline, Arapahoe or Iris? And yet cyclists and walkers can name and trace the routes they love for cycling and walking. When the design of our City favors low carbon movement over traffic, people will experience qualitative improvement in daily living even as we make progress toward Boulder’s goal of reducing carbon emissions 70% by 2030 (from a 2018 baseline).
Importance of protected pathways. We cannot create 15-minute neighborhoods without creating the pathways for walkers and cyclists to use that are protected from motor vehicle traffic. The community appears to have crossed an important threshold: no longer does paint on the road qualify in Boulder as a sufficient bike lane. As more people opt for walking and biking—look at the explosion in the number of e-bikes and cargo bikes transporting children and groceries—the City must respond with a robust capital commitment to make many more protected pathways in the city. The Core Arterial Network is only a start. But it does not anticipate housing in the Planning Reserve, nor propose sufficient protected pathways north of Iris or south of Baseline.
Major Update to the Boulder Valley Comprehensive Plan. Planning Board and Council are embarking on the once-every-ten-years major update to the Comp Plan. It is the once in ten-year chance for BHN subscribers to support an aggressive program to become a 15-minute city. The Community Kick-off Event for the 22-month Major Update to the BVCP will occur on October 19, 2024. We will provide details as the date draws near. But we all need to pitch in to support the City investment to put us on the path of a 15-minute city.
Get Involved: How you can express your views to Planning Board and City Council
You can Email Planning Board to express your views.
You can email the planners on this project, Kristopher Johnson and Kathleen King and ask them to forward your comments to Planning Board and Council. Or fill out the form for contacting Council here. Choose “Planning and Development Services” for the topic, and check the box at the bottom to send your comments to all of Council.