The East Arapahoe Transportation Plan (EATP) has been underway since 2015 to identify long-range transportation improvements within the corridor, addressing the need to enhance safety and travel options, and improve conditions for all travelers. In addition to broad community outreach with members of the public, corridor stakeholders, and agency partners, the planning process involved the East Arapahoe Community Working Group (CWG), formed in 2015, to provide input and feedback, from different interests and perspectives, to the city staff during the planning process. This memo outlines the CWG’s involvement and findings.
CWG Process
During its ten meetings, the CWG studied project information, asked questions, offered ideas and preferences, and shared insights on community engagement and communications. In particular, the CWG helped to:
- shape the plan goals.
- describe the character of different corridor segments.
- identify issues and opportunities for each segment.
- review and help refine alternatives and their data-driven evaluation.
Throughout the process, the CWG has recognized and taken into consideration the difficulty of designing a transportation corridor such as East Arapahoe that must function as a regional transportation route with significant daily traffic volumes moving long distances, while also serving as a transportation route for local residents, businesses, and institutions. In particular, accommodating regional commuters (who prefer efficient travel with limited delays) with cyclists and pedestrians in a safe, pleasant environment is especially challenging. The CWG also recognizes that there are needs in the corridor today to ensure East Arapahoe is equally accessible and safe for all users, including but not limited to people with disabilities.
CWG Findings
The CWG supports a preferred vision that is a multimodal complete street design. It includes maintaining two general purpose lanes in each direction throughout most of the corridor, repurposing the existing curbside travel lanes to accommodate a combination of Bus Rapid Transit (BRT), local transit, High Occupancy Vehicles (HOV), right-turning vehicles for business access, and the eventual addition of new shared technologies such as autonomous/connected vehicles. It also includes an off-street multiuse path, raised protected bike lanes and streetscape amenities.
Based on the data and what we’ve learned about each alternative analyzed through the planning process, we believe this vision best meets the plan’s goals and benefits the most people. It is the best opportunity to move more people through the corridor, maintain or improve travel times for all users, and enhance safety and travel options. The vision will increase access and comfort for all people walking and bicycling and will create greater visibility for cyclists as well as separation from general traffic. Importantly, this local plan is supportive of and consistent with regional plans for SH 7 between Boulder and Brighton, which call for high quality-high frequency BRT, a regional bikeway, pedestrian improvements and first and final mile supportive infrastructure.
As members of the CWG, we feel that this was a credible process that accounted for both a technically rigorous analysis and extensive public input. And, we understand that the vision is a conceptual framework and more detailed design and integrated land use planning will be required to begin phased implementation over many years. Transformation of the corridor will be a long-term endeavor and a continuous, evolving process.
We are honored to have contributed to addressing the challenges and future opportunities that lie ahead of us to transform the East Arapahoe corridor into a complete street that provides safe and reliable travel options for all people.