Will right-sizing work?
Published in the Boulder Daily Camera, 6/18/15
To me, at least, this came out of nowhere. The first I heard about this new thing called "right-sizing" was in the June 2 edition of the Daily Camera where I was told that Boulder was thinking about doing some of it. What could they mean? My first hope was that maybe Boulder was considering a "right-sizing" project where all this rightness represented some kind of plan to shift Boulder politics from their far-leftward lean more to the right. Fat chance. Then I thought maybe this has something to do with selling sugary sodas or even, dream of dreams, some kind of male enhancement therapy. Nope, not them either.
Turns out, "right-sizing" is about bicycles and roads — not making roads bigger or smaller, just changing how much space from existing roads gets allocated to bicycles. Maybe the city figured that if they called it, "Making driving slower and bicycling easier on a few major Boulder streets," they might get push-back from the locals.
But, cutesy names don't fool us Boulderites, not one bit. We got what the city was up to and jumped in with both feet, shouting and screaming all the way through its predictable passage by the city council.
To our credit, Boulder has been working for decades to encourage people to get out of their cars and find other ways to get around town. The city has done this through sound and well-considered transportation policies including things like 1) infrastructure development with all those great bike paths and lanes, 2) public transit incentives like neighborhood eco-passes and bus routes with cute names like Hop, Skip, and Jump, and 3) public relations activities like Bike-to-Work week.
As a result, Boulder city government and its transportation division have done a great job creating a town where people can rely less on their cars to get around. Boulderites ride the bus at twice the national average, walk three times as much, and bicycle 21 times as much. Those behaviors don't just reduce our environmental footprint, they make us healthier.
However, a good track record of Boulder transportation planning does not guarantee that all ideas they put forth will work.
I read through the detailed plan and was impressed by two things. First, the city staff did its homework and based how to restructure the roads on research and established traffic models. If it is right, the worst increases in travel time during peak travel hours will be 30 seconds or less. Not too bad and, if true, this should not chase drivers out of their vehicles.
Second, "right-sizing" has been presented as a pilot project and an experiment. Those are big words because they mean that the city knows that it may not work and that, if it doesn't, the city will abandon it.
With this in mind, I put on my scientist hat and reviewed the city's plan to see what this experiment would tell us. In any experiment, you need a clear understanding of 1) what you're trying to prove, 2) what data will be collected, and 3) how that data will be used to determine whether you were right. While the plan is clear that increasing bicycle use is a key goal, the data they want to collect include all sorts of esoteric measures coming from things such as social media. A social media popularity contest over "right-sizing" is of no value whatsoever if getting more people to ride bikes is your goal. Solid data will be collected on bike usage at peak travel times before and after "right-sizing," though I couldn't find any clear statements about what sorts of increased bicycling and at what cost in increased driving times would constitute "success." These are concerns, but by no means fatal flaws.
My sense is that this pilot project will provide data from which we can determine whether "right-sizing" gets more people bicycling. My fear is that it will also provide the city with excuses to continue this policy based upon factors other than tangible results in helping bicyclists at a low cost to drivers.
There are some who believe that the city's real goal is to just make driving harder and "right-sizing" is guaranteed to do that. However, if the city's goal is truly to increase bicycle usage, then it must be prepared to find out that it doesn't work.
On the other hand, if it does work, we should all be thankful that the city was brave enough to try.
Now, let's wait and see.
To me, at least, this came out of nowhere. The first I heard about this new thing called "right-sizing" was in the June 2 edition of the Daily Camera where I was told that Boulder was thinking about doing some of it. What could they mean? My first hope was that maybe Boulder was considering a "right-sizing" project where all this rightness represented some kind of plan to shift Boulder politics from their far-leftward lean more to the right. Fat chance. Then I thought maybe this has something to do with selling sugary sodas or even, dream of dreams, some kind of male enhancement therapy. Nope, not them either.
Turns out, "right-sizing" is about bicycles and roads — not making roads bigger or smaller, just changing how much space from existing roads gets allocated to bicycles. Maybe the city figured that if they called it, "Making driving slower and bicycling easier on a few major Boulder streets," they might get push-back from the locals.
But, cutesy names don't fool us Boulderites, not one bit. We got what the city was up to and jumped in with both feet, shouting and screaming all the way through its predictable passage by the city council.
To our credit, Boulder has been working for decades to encourage people to get out of their cars and find other ways to get around town. The city has done this through sound and well-considered transportation policies including things like 1) infrastructure development with all those great bike paths and lanes, 2) public transit incentives like neighborhood eco-passes and bus routes with cute names like Hop, Skip, and Jump, and 3) public relations activities like Bike-to-Work week.
As a result, Boulder city government and its transportation division have done a great job creating a town where people can rely less on their cars to get around. Boulderites ride the bus at twice the national average, walk three times as much, and bicycle 21 times as much. Those behaviors don't just reduce our environmental footprint, they make us healthier.
However, a good track record of Boulder transportation planning does not guarantee that all ideas they put forth will work.
I read through the detailed plan and was impressed by two things. First, the city staff did its homework and based how to restructure the roads on research and established traffic models. If it is right, the worst increases in travel time during peak travel hours will be 30 seconds or less. Not too bad and, if true, this should not chase drivers out of their vehicles.
Second, "right-sizing" has been presented as a pilot project and an experiment. Those are big words because they mean that the city knows that it may not work and that, if it doesn't, the city will abandon it.
With this in mind, I put on my scientist hat and reviewed the city's plan to see what this experiment would tell us. In any experiment, you need a clear understanding of 1) what you're trying to prove, 2) what data will be collected, and 3) how that data will be used to determine whether you were right. While the plan is clear that increasing bicycle use is a key goal, the data they want to collect include all sorts of esoteric measures coming from things such as social media. A social media popularity contest over "right-sizing" is of no value whatsoever if getting more people to ride bikes is your goal. Solid data will be collected on bike usage at peak travel times before and after "right-sizing," though I couldn't find any clear statements about what sorts of increased bicycling and at what cost in increased driving times would constitute "success." These are concerns, but by no means fatal flaws.
My sense is that this pilot project will provide data from which we can determine whether "right-sizing" gets more people bicycling. My fear is that it will also provide the city with excuses to continue this policy based upon factors other than tangible results in helping bicyclists at a low cost to drivers.
There are some who believe that the city's real goal is to just make driving harder and "right-sizing" is guaranteed to do that. However, if the city's goal is truly to increase bicycle usage, then it must be prepared to find out that it doesn't work.
On the other hand, if it does work, we should all be thankful that the city was brave enough to try.
Now, let's wait and see.
