Community Highlights

Boulder is designated as a Gold-level community due to its outstanding planning efforts, high walking mode share, engineering treatments, city leadership, and community support. Highlights of Boulder’s application include:

• Less than 35 percent of work trips in Boulder are drive-alone trips. Nearly 15 percent of commuters walk to work. Plenty of others bike or take transit. To get a sense for how many people are walking, and not just walk-to-work trips, Boulder has been using travel diaries.
• The City adopted a new Pedestrian Plan with its 2019 Transportation Master Plan update. It lays out a vision for creating safe, walkable streets in Boulder through specific actions, and identifies performance measures for tracking the City’s progress.
• The City collects robust count data to monitor bicycling and walking activity, and pairs this data with reporting on safety trends and crashes to help them respond to needs as they arise. Findings from this analysis are presented in the City’s Vision Zero Boulder Safe Streets Report.
• The city’s Pedestrian Crossing Treatment Installation Guidelines help city staff evaluate individual locations for potential crossing treatments. The Guidelines reflect national best practices, while remaining context sensitive to conditions in Boulder.
• Boulder’s extensive pedestrian network includes over 500 miles of sidewalks and pedestrian-only paths, more than 70 miles of paved and unpaved multi-use paths (predominantly along the city’s greenway system) and about 150 miles of natural hiking trails. The paths provide crucial connections to parks, schools, shopping centers, and employment districts. Along with the city’s hiking trails, these paths also provide valuable recreation opportunities too.
• Boulder has an excellent transit system for a city of its size. With extended service spans and attractive peak period frequencies, the bus system is a convenient choice for many Boulder residents.
• The City of Boulder and the Boulder Valley School District (BVSD) have a long-standing partnership to support Safe Routes to School events and programs. Many BVSD schools have completed travel surveys and the district has tremendous participation rates for Walk to School Day. Parents also provide much of the support for SRTS encouragement programs.
• Boulder’s city website provides residents with an easy-to-read description of the Missing Sidewalk Links Program. Web-users are able to view a prioritized list of sidewalk projects and learn how these projects are funded.
• Boulder has 82 bicycle/pedestrian underpasses that provide connectivity for nonmotorized users while also functioning as a flood hazard mitigation measure along Boulder Creek and other waterways.