Members of our Community Editorial Board, a group of community residents who are engaged with and passionate about local issues, respond to the following question: The Iris Avenue Transportation Improvements project aims to make the stretch of Iris Avenue from Broadway to 28th Street safer, better connected to surrounding areas, and more bike- and pedestrian-friendly. However, the idea of reducing the number of lanes on Iris has sparked a backlash from some in the community. Your Take?
I’m an avid bike commuter. At least I have been ever since I started working at CU, where they don’t provide free parking. I could pay for a parking pass, but, as frequent readers are well aware, I’m all about carbon reduction. It has nothing to do with being a cheapskate.
With my bona fides established, hear me out on a radical proposal. The proposals for Iris are called a “Road Diet.” But just like with people, we shouldn’t be body-shaming roads. We need to accept roads of all sizes. Not all roads need to be thin. They probably have hormone issues. Be kind. In fact, Iris could benefit by bulking up a bit. It needs to be bigger, not smaller.
First, let’s be honest. No proposed changes are for bikes or pedestrians. Proponents do this because they are not confident that the masses will make the “right” choice if they are completely honest.
I rode Iris this week. There is a bike lane and it’s fine. Cars move a bit too fast and the bike lane is a bit too narrow for some, but cyclists have no reason to be on this road anyway. Kalmia, which parallels Iris just to the north, is a quiet, pleasant neighborhood street — ideal for cycling. Instead of changing Iris, why not just educate cyclists?
Another claimed reason for the changes is to make the road safer. There are lots of methods to do this that don’t involve reducing the number of lanes: traffic signals, stop signs, or lower speed limits and radar enforcement.
I’m here to tell you the real reason: Boulder hates cars. But we citizens love cars. They are so useful. They keep us safe, dry, cool in the summer and warm in the winter. They carry lots of stuff. But the city council wants to turn Boulder into Amsterdam, without having visited there apparently, because Boulder is not Amsterdam. It snows here. We don’t have commuter rail. The Netherlands is ten times as densely populated with a vastly different culture.
But we can improve Iris. Here’s how. First, get rid of the bike lanes! Redirect cyclists to Kalmia. Bicycle safety solved. Next, reduce the lane width so that a fifth (middle) lane can be added for left turns. This will make aggressive lane changes a thing of the past. The narrower lanes slow traffic — this is exactly the approach taken in Superior with Rock Creek Boulevard, where a lane-count-reduction proposal was rejected as a means to calm traffic. Sanity prevailed there. It can in Boulder as well.
Bill Wright, bill@wwwright.com
While something must be done to improve the safety of Iris Avenue, now is not the time to do it. Instead, now is the time to set aside funding and other resources to develop a plan for the probable local consequences of a second Trump term. We must face the fact that the authority of the Constitution is being weakened on a daily basis. The Supreme Court just granted extraordinary powers to the president and simultaneously disempowered the professionals at government agencies. At the same time, President Biden’s debate performance and the Democrats’ apparent lack of consensus about how to move forward are only adding to the urgency of the situation.
Many of us were shocked during Trump’s first term as he used the power of the presidency to quash dissent, separate children from parents, sabotage the ability of the government to respond to the pandemic, and so on. At this point, does anyone doubt that Trump will follow through on his campaign promises to round up undocumented immigrants, further weaken the protections available to LGBTQ+ individuals, target people of color, reduce corporate accountability and cut government spending for social welfare programs? This time, he even has a plan, Project 2025, which presents an all-too-realistic blueprint for severely compromising our Constitutional system and persecuting those with the “wrong” opinions, skin color, gender identity, sexual orientation, religion and so on. This may sound like paranoid hyperbole, but these threats are real.
Although it’s easy to feel powerless in this context, we must turn our attention to identifying the tools we do have to respond to this potential debacle. While Boulder has limited authority vis-a-vis the federal government, it does have the ability to compensate for and challenge some of the worst items on Trump’s likely agenda. To this end, I propose we act as if we were preparing for the passage of a ballot measure with possibly damaging consequences. In such cases, we develop strategies for legally challenging the measure’s legitimacy and mitigating the damage done by its implementation. In the current context, this means developing plans for both the possibility of another Trump presidency and the probability of continued attacks on our democratic system even if he loses.
For example, local governments, non-profits and religious/spiritual communities can establish the channels of communication and the infrastructure that will be necessary for coordinating responses to the reduced federal aid and increased restrictions that will likely characterize a second Trump term. Local attorneys can form working groups to identify the remaining legal challenges open to Boulder City and County governments should there be federal interference in local autonomy or local cases of civil rights violations. Law enforcement agencies should begin discussions about how to react to clearly unconstitutional laws and executive orders, as the latter are likely to present difficult moral and ethical dilemmas if Trump wins. Boulder may be a small town, but it is home to the kind of world-class resources we will need to survive a further turn toward autocracy.
Elyse Morgan, emorgan2975@gmail.com
