Sprawl and Transportation Committee

Minutes

Meeting Date - December 14 2006

Action items are formatted like this.

Location: Reynolds Library, Boulder. In attendance: Eric Stonebraker, Bill Roettker, Betsy Hand, Laura Scrimgeour, Wayne Schnell, Sarah Silver(recorder).

Boulder Transit Village (Bill)

12-10-06 Transit Advisory Board meeting.

Land owners are getting engaged but unclear if they are going to build what is required of them (alleys, etc).

12-18-06 --- Planning staff to meet with owners in Council offices.

12-19-06 – Staff to update City Council. Meeting begins at 6 p.m., topic to be near end of meeting.

Planning Committee plans approval by February 2007

Bill to be in touch with Micki Kaplan to get update on what’s going on, find out what the schedule for feedback is.

I-70 Transit Issues (Betsy)

12-07-06 there was a meeting of the Mountains to Plains Transit Solutions group to set up press event to announce existence of coalition, present mountain train technology.

Betsy raised idea of organizing meeting of transportation activists within Sierra Club to engage them in this issue.

Bill Ritter and I-70

Ritter is considering changing the head of CDOT but there is discomfort with the way he seems to be going about it, e.g. without transparency or consultation.

The EIS is due out very soon and it is likely to say that it is best to widen the highway. Betsy suggests that Sierra Club write a letter to Ritter asking him to delay the EIS.

Also some talk of litigation. Question as to possible role of Sierra Club

Betsy to draft letter to Ritter re: delaying EIS?

Betsy to find out more about possible litigation.

Vail Village Homeowners Association

Appears to be research into/discussion of (?) a tunnel to put I-70 underneath the Vail Valley. Concern that such a move would remove VVH from coalition of interests opposed to widening highway. Betsy noted a $2.5 mill study of I-25/I-70.

Future Issues (Eric)

Eric plans to work on the web calendar over the X-mas holiday.

Eco Pass Sustainability Committee (Wayne)

Wayne plans to research Denver, SF, DC, Syndey, Munich regarding fares, access, etc.

Highway 36

Alan wasn’t at the meeting so Bill provided an update on the issue of bike lanes. Apparently, the powers-that-be are maintaining the concept of a bike path on 36 and the issue at hand is whether the path will follow the Highway or zig-zag on other roads (e.g. South Boulder Road, Cherryvale etc), which would discourage users by lengthening mileage.

Website Review (Laura)

Laura reported that the IPG/Sprawl and Transportation Subcommittee’s website suffered from several problems including: poor visual organization; a lack of timely information; a lack of a calendar; no contact information; no links to oher organizations; and no general reference center.

Bill asked the question: Who is the audience for the site? Discussion on the subject suggested that the site may best serve the goal of outreach as the listserv has proven to be a very good way to manage internal communications.

Laura is going to write a synopsis of her recommendations (including a first draft of content) and will talk with Eric and Peter about what is really feasible given the volunteer nature of the effort.

Energy Committee/Sprawl Committee Working Group: (Ron)

Ron was not at the meeting so Eric provided us with an update/overview of this new idea. In a nutshell, there has been some discussion of developing a cross-silo working group and one idea floated has been to do so around the Sierra Club “Cool Cities” campaign. This approach might allow IPG to expand our efforts and outreach beyond Boulder to the entire county.

Eric is meeting with Roger Singer, who is the Club’s Southwest Regional Officer, on Wednesday December 20th to discuss various ideas, issues including this one and he may ask for a bit of money (about $200) to support the effort.

What this effort might look like is obviously an unknown. Sarah volunteered to write up a memo that would take a first stab at ideas.

Eric to meet with Roger Singer

Sarah to draft memo

IPG Quarterly newsletter

The Toot is going to “press” sometime in January 2007; Eric is going to write up a blurb that calls for volunteers to the subcommittee.

Eric has made available on the listserv (?) the amendments to the Boulder County Land Use Code

Nominations to the TAB (Transportation Advisory Board)

January 2007: Calls for names

February 2007: Applications due

March 2007: Interviews with City Council

City is seeking public input on the sustainability elements of the Conservation Plan including:

• Greenbuilding
• Development trends in unincorporated areas of the county
• Expanding transfer of development rights.

Meetings to be held on:

January 3, 2007 at Nederland

January 9, 2007 at Boulder County Open Space, in Longmont

January 11, 2007 in Alan’s Park

Eric to forward all information to group.

Back to Top of Page

   get Involved

   get Connected

   get Informed

   get Outside