City of Boulder improving Folsom Street after more than 500 crashes reported over nine years in the Colorado city
The City of Boulder asked residents for feedback on improving the high-risk network on Folsom Street due to hundreds of crashes in the area.
The city reports 566 crashes between Pine Street and Colorado Avenue between January 2015 and July 2024. Drivers experienced the most crashes, accounting for 82% of the total. Twenty serious or fatal crashes occurred, with 95% involving vulnerable road users, such as people walking, biking, or rolling. City officials said 67% of all crashes resulted in serious injuries or death.
Boulder officials opened a questionnaire to ask residents what needs to be done to make them feel safe. They told CBS Colorado they have already received 3,000 comments, most focusing on separating the bike lanes and sidewalks from the roads.
The city added that, along with safety, residents asked for more focus on travel time reliability, being able to cross the street safely, improving traffic congestion and improving their bus stops. Residents have also asked for upgrades with biking and walking facilities and upgrades to transit. All of this information will be added to their concept design plans.
"People are really interested in safety and comfort for people that are not inside of a vehicle," Ericka Amador, Senior Transportation Planner for City of Boulder. "If you are in your vehicle, you are usually pretty comfy and you feel pretty safe. For people who are walking, biking, taking transit, and rolling, they want to feel safer. They want to be more comfortable to move about the city how I want."
Officials said these issues have been identified in its Transportation Master Plan, Zero Vision Action Plans and Low Stress Bike and Walk Network plan. It has also been added to their toolkit of improvements that need to be made. They said the concept design will take most of 2025 to create.
The city received one million dollars from the Denver Regional Council of Governments to take the project into the concept design phase and city funds will be matched by $500,000. Until the concept design is completed, the city will not have the full cost estimate for this project available.
Boulder invited the community to its upcoming Folsom Street Safety Improvement Project Open House to provide input toward travel safety improvements on Folsom Street. Community members can join in person on Wed., Feb. 12 from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. at the Penfield Tate II Municipal Building located at 1777 Broadway in Boulder.
Residents can also check out the virtual open house here until Feb. 19.
