By Age-Friendly Carbondale
Imagine driving into Carbondale from Highway 82. Just past the Cowen intersection a large, attractive sign arching overhead reads, “Welcome to Carbondale’s Bonedale Boulevard. Speed Limit – 25 mph.” Narrowing lanes, central planters, shrubbery along the curbs, pedestrian refuge islands, roundabouts and signalized, raised crosswalks every 600 feet (two city blocks) make it unlikely that you will want to exceed that limit.
For more than a year, Age-Friendly Carbondale has been studying what residents and frequent visitors think Highway 133 is like and what we would like it to be. The study is now complete and the paragraph you just read describes what we think most people want. There are many obstacles to achieving it, but one obstacle affects all the rest and has to be overcome before other significant improvements can be made. That obstacle is vehicular speed.
Respondents repeatedly cited excessive vehicular speed as contributing to accidents, near accidents and, most of all, to fear of being in an accident as a pedestrian or cyclist. They said they would increase their walking by 24% and cycling by 72% if they weren’t so afraid.
The speed limit from Highway 82 to Meadowood Lane is 35 mph, including the “School Zone” from Keator Road to the Snowmass Drive intersection, and road conditions make motorists comfortable driving at that speed and faster. The school zone speed limit does not change during school hours. Lack of crosswalks in a school zone does NOT prevent people from crossing. In fact, this school zone is one of the areas where adults, children and even wheelchair users commonly jaywalk.
Research supports people’s fear of excessive speeds. When a vehicle traveling at 20 mph contacts a pedestrian the fatality likelihood is 8%. At 30 mph it’s 20%, and at 40 mph it’s 46%. Locally, danger is exacerbated by increased traffic volume from recent developments, increased volume of vulnerable users from the same developments, a growing number of distracted drivers and increasing environmental distractions. To reduce the danger, we need to do two things: lower the speed limit and redesign the street to make motorists feel unsafe when they speed.
Existing Colorado law allows us to move in the direction of lower speeds on 133 inside town limits. This is the essential first step for transforming 133 from a fast-moving vehicular corridor to a pleasant boulevard that accommodates motorized traffic without prioritizing it over pedestrians, cyclists and even more vulnerable users. But it is only a first step, and it’s the easy part, because most of us don’t drive at the posted limit. We drive as fast as it feels safe to drive. That means major redesign work from Highway 82 to RVR. We’ll talk about the specifics of that in the coming weeks.