Correction: the Bicycle Pedestrian and Trails Commission is an advisory body and will not make final decisions on infrastructure changes and funding as previously stated by this article. Those decisions lie with the Board of Trustees.
On Nov. 4, the Carbondale Bicycle Pedestrian and Trails Commission (BPTC) held an open house to review the third draft of its Carbondale Mobility Access Plan (MAP) and solicit feedback. BPTC members, Town staff, and a Front Range planning consultant have been working on the MAP for a year and a half. Representatives from four Town of Carbondale boards attended the open house, as well as citizens concerned with safety and quality of life along public thoroughfares. The open house revealed a long road ahead amid unprecedented growth.
Adam Cohen, who lives on 8th Street/Cowen Avenue, opened public comments. He’s a dad; the neighbors on either side have kids, too.
“We’re a bit nervous to have our kids ride bikes to school, ride our bikes to town, because there are just so many speeders on this street.”
The family’s 3-year-old dog was hit and killed in front of their home, yet Cohen appeared hopeful. Sharing images of East Village Road in Willits, he described narrow lanes, crosswalks, speed tables and bulb-outs “that make it almost impossible to speed.” The design of the road makes for a safe, vibrant street for pedestrians of all ages, cyclists and dogs.
“There’s a great opportunity to turn our street into something like this, simply because it’s still an open canvas,” he said, pointing out that nothing has to be torn down to create a strong pedestrian and bike corridor, “to make a fresh start.”
Pre-pandemic, Carbondale viewed itself as “a funky little mountain town,” a friendly place, idyllic enough to walk or bike anywhere. Since 2020, Carbondale’s population has grown by 5.27% and traffic has intensified. Some locals believe this growth to be an urban influx, bringing an aggressive edge to driving.
Public comments at the open house emphasized an increase in both overflow traffic avoiding Highway 133 and speeding on residential streets. They expressed concern over poor street planning, dangerous intersections, a lack of guiding signage, little to no traffic calming infrastructure and the inefficacy of policing or ticketing. In the earliest draft of the MAP, there were about a dozen locations associated with these concerns. This third draft lists approximately 75 problem areas.
To some present, the MAP was beginning to feel unwieldy, producing more questions than solutions. How will the Town fix so much soon enough? Where will funding come from? How to prioritize what should be done first?
BPTC member Ted Zislis asked why Complete Streets, a specific planning approach and process, was only mentioned once in the 65-page document.
“The Complete Streets concept is a holistic approach to city planning,” Zislis emphasized, “not just fixing one little street corner at a time.”
Smart Growth America explains that their Complete Streets program “is the integration of people and place in the planning, design, construction, operation and maintenance of transportation networks.” Their website continues, “Complete Streets policies can help [towns] transform how they make decisions about their streets.”
Zislis wanted to see Complete Streets front and center in the MAP, clearly defined so that policy makers, stakeholders and the public understand exactly what it is.
“There are 10 guiding elements that philosophically support the Complete Streets concept and yet they appear nowhere in our MAP,” said Zislis. Those ten elements establish accountability measures.
“The problem is, we recognized we had so many of our current road problems back in 2013 [when Carbondale completed a comprehensive plan] but no commitment was made, so nothing has happened since then,” Zislis said.
Smart Growth America found that early versions of Complete Street policies “failed to specify and require the incredibly difficult work of institutionalizing the approach, such as training agency staff, traffic engineers and project managers.” Complete Streets has since integrated these aspects.
So, in addition to adopting a Complete Streets policy, Zislis urged the Town to hire a traffic engineer — an experienced professional who can put the MAP into play.
“The community wants to see some changes now. But as slowly as the wheel turns, I don’t think we’re going to see a lot of change until the Town government starts to make a real commitment to follow through,” he concluded.
BPTC expects the Carbondale Mobility Access Plan to be finalized by January 2025. Based on other management plans in the Town quiver, the MAP open house revealed that final decisions regarding infrastructure and funding will more likely be an ongoing and iterative process.
MAP Carbondale can be found on the Town website under the “Boards and Commissions” tab: www.carbondalegov.org
