Traditional road-building focus until 1990
Fiscal, political and physical reality intervened
Goal – Hold Traffic to 1994 levels, reduce SOV mode share to 25%
Why not just build more roads?
If Boulder pursued a road capacity building project:
$200 million on road capacity projects
improve system congestion from 60% in 20 years to 51% congested
would require removing existing buildings in many cases
evidence shows that the benefits are offset by changed behaviors.
Vehicle Technology
greatest short term potential in higher fuel economy – lower emission vehicle
biofuels not a definite benefit
plug in hybrids (PHEV) beneficial if on a clean energy grid
technology alone will not be enough
Land use transportation connection with compact development
shifting investments from conventional to transit and bicycle transportation.
Smart Grid City
Monitoring and remote information of all uses of energy in the grid
Renewable energy
programmable in-home systems to fully automate renewable energy use. (XCEL Energy)
PHEV capacity in a pilot project with Vehicle to Grid battery storage (V2G)
Beginning to see homeowners oversizing solar system anticipating PHEV availability.
Compact Land Use
Urban growth boundary surrounded by publicly owned open space.
Travel Choices
Transit Services
Designed to meet the needs of the customer
high frequency
supported by pass programs – lots of options.
extended hours of service
community characters
real time arrival information
focus on ridership, not coverage.
Create Demand for Transit
Bike System
Pedestrian System
Marketing and information
Land Use/Urban Design
Parking Pricing
Partnership with University of Colorado
But with very limited funds.
Resarch shows that VMT reductions nationwide could be as much as 30% by 2050 – without any other inputs for change.
