The City of Boulder and Boulder County are pursuing trail development in a corridor between Boulder and Lyons along or near the Northern Colorado Water Conservation District's Boulder Feeder Canal. Ten of the eleven miles of this corridor pass through the area served by The Table Mountain Association, a voluntary homeowner and landowner association representing the nearly 1000 families who live within 3 miles of Table Mountain. Our mission is to preserve, protect, and enhance the unique quality of life in the area.
Planning, designing, building, and maintaining a trail affects many communities. The safety of users and residents is at stake. Water quality in the City of Boulder and for residents of the Left Hand Water District may be affected. A trail will impact agricultural operations and private property rights. It potentially offers transportation alternatives and recreational opportunities for both residents and non-residents. There are as yet poorly understood costs, affecting many local and regional governments and entities as well as local residents and land owners. There are many unanswered legal and policy questions. Finally, the process used by the City and the County thus far to plan and assess the impacts of the project has been confusing at best and threatening to our community at worse.
We have prepared this statement to preserve and protect the unique rural character and quality of life for residents of the Table Mountain area, to ensure the safety of guests and residents, protect private property rights, ensure high quality domestic water, protect agricultural operations, and address other relevant legal and taxpayer issues. We also suggest specific changes in the process used to consider the trail project.
The proposed trail is unique to Boulder County in combining several factors: its length, proximity to private homes and lands, the adjoining agricultural uses, serious safety problems, water quality concerns, and legal issues. Building and maintaining this or any other trail to connect Boulder and Lyons requires a public process equal to the magnitude of the project.
The assessment and planning process must be inclusive of all communities, especially the neighborhoods it traverses. It must establish residents as stakeholders. It must be transparent, with clearly defined alternatives and decisions, and clearly written, scientific and engineering data relevant to such decisions.
Planning, design, and implementation of a trail must not be done piecemeal, making it difficult to understand the true scope and true costs of the project. Authorities and responsibilities must be clear from the start, instead of requiring various agencies, communities, and residents to pick up loose ends and correct deficiencies after the fact.
Plan first, before approving anything! Present a realistic set of alternatives, including alternative trail alignments and trail head locations. Complete conceptual engineering necessary to identify all impacts and costs. Specify all costs, including indirect environmental and community costs. Define funding sources for design, construction, maintenance, and enforcement of rules. Establish accountabilities for every aspect of the project, and draft an intergovernmental agreement which establishes clear responsibilities for every aspect of the project.
The plan and assessment must propose and objectively address several alternatives including: no action, other transportation routes, and alternative alignments of any proposed trail.
Planning and assessment activities must start with accurate baseline data regarding existing uses.
Consider establishment of a formal standing committee including recreationists, environmentalists, staff, and residents of affected communities, to review planning, design, implementation, and ongoing issues along any trail, if approved.
A project of this magnitude, potential impacts and costs requires a more explicit definition of competing needs and uses, instead of allowing some vague interest in alternative transportation and vague appeals to desires of special interests rule the day.
Identify needs of residents for access, agricultural operations, and meeting legal responsibilities defined by existing easements, deeds, and covenants.
Objectively assess needs for alternative commuter transportation corridors between Boulder and Lyons. What is the real demand for this route or another for commuting? Which route best meets commuting needs. How great is the demand for a long, potentially unsafe, winding route between Gunbarrel and Lyons?
Objectively assess needs for alternative corridors for recreational use, regional connections and links among existing recreational facilities. Include recreational needs of residents in and near the corridor.
Assess these competing needs for several routes which would serve Boulder, Lyons, and Longmont. Prioritize these routes based on which best satisfies the most needs, first relative to costs. Please do not merely assert that one route is a preferred alternative without thoroughly evaluating and comparing all alternatives.
West Foothills Route: Using several existing open space properties through the foothills west of US 36, with additional acquisitions and easements if necessary.
63rd Street Bike Lane: Funding for a 63rd Street bike lane was approved several years ago, but remains unimplemented. Cyclists and motorists continue fight over limited real estate, and cyclists' safety is compromised, especially in hilly locations.
Parallel to US 36: An off-road route parallel to US 36, some on open space properties.
Extension of the Dry Creek Trail: A meaningful extension of this trail along the Diagonal south of Longmont.
Boulder Feeder Canal: Perceived as a “free trail” but requires new right-of-way, new trail construction, safety improvements, land acquisition, and other mitigation costs. Running along a winding route between Lyons and the Boulder Reservoir, this satisfies primarily recreational interests.
More than one of these routes in order to spread out traffic and impacts and better meet different needs.
Any off-road trail, if built, should be a shared-use, non-motorized trail accommodating pedestrian, equestrian, and bicycle traffic, and leashed pets.
Any trail through residential areas should not be made part of a large regional network such as the proposed Front Range trail system. If it is or might be part of the Front Range trail, supplement it with additional north-south alignments to diffuse use, and engineer appropriately ahead of time for high levels of use, including upgrading standards for trailheads and neighborhood protections as specified below.
Special events that would attract high numbers of participants should not be permitted in this corridor.
To minimize neighborhood impacts, minimize the number of trailheads, but design each sufficient for anticipated demand and to minimize impacts.
There should be only 2 trailheads: North and south terminals. At most there should by only 3, a location near the middle of the corridor, preferably on an existing arterial but not on a rural road.
Any trailhead should be in a non-residential area with sufficient buffer from residences, preferably on an existing City or County open space parcel contiguous to the trail.
Trailheads must be designed by a qualified landscape architect to ensure that aesthetic and functional needs are met, including but not limited to protective vegetation buffers with means of irrigation, signage, pull-throughs for horse trailers, restrooms, kiosks, emergency phones, and sufficient parking that future numbers of trail users won't park along neighborhood roads.
Noise rules and a dusk-to-dawn curfew must be enforced at any trailhead.
Trash pickup and an adequate budget for maintenance should be provided.
On-street overflow parking should be prohibited and enforced.
Public safety must be protected. Of greatest concern is the Boulder Feeder Canal corridor, where existing signs warn of “certain death” if trespassers enter the canal. If the Boulder Feeder Canal is used as a trail, at least the following safety mitigation measures must be employed.
Escape ramps at intervals along the canal (allowing someone to float to such a ramp and then escape -- canal walls are too steep and too unstable for many to escape).
“Offside” surface enhancements, including additional roadbase, drainage improvements, creation of a level trail surface wide enough (minumum 8 feet) for trail users to be able to pass each other without generating user conflicts
Additional structures to avoid or go over existing obstacles such as concrete ditch drains, siphons, etc.
Escape ladders along the banks and chains at the siphons
Educational signage
Emergency phones
Consider separating bicycles (on-side) and pedestrian/equestrian use (off-side) to minimize user conflicts.
Consider keeping the trail open only November through March, closing it when filled with water to minimize danger.
Research other trails' solutions to find additional measures to protect public safety.
Adequately protect adjoining property owners and the surrounding community.
Erect permanent, dog-proof fencing on both sides of the trail to ensure that livestock does not escape and that dogs do not harrass livestock, pets, or residents.
Plant and maintain perennial landscape buffers, including evergreens, between the trail and nearby homes to establish some degree of privacy.
Prohibit parking except at trailheads and ensure adequate enforcement.
Enforce speed limits.
Install emergency phones
Establish pet rules requiring leashes, cleanup, and provide for enforcement.
Ensure a budget for enforcement of all protective measures.
Several potential problems face existing agricultural operations, including impacts of altering drainage away from the canal, pooling of drainage upslope, erosion of banks, harrassment of livestock, and trespass. The County's goal of retaining its existing rural character requires that it protects and enhances existing agricultural operations, not add new burdens for ranchers and farmers.
Provide fencing on both sides, high enough to keep out dogs, with pass-throughs for agricultural access.
Trail width must be a minimum of 8 feet plus shoulders (for agricultural vehicles and implements)
Post signs giving agricultural users the right-of-way and reminding trail users that “You are guests. Please do not harrass or feed livestock.”
If a trail is built along the Boulder Feeder Canal, engineer irrigation runoff for diversion away from the canal.
Provide ongoing compensation for damage, e.g., to livestock or crops, with an unburdensome process for filing claims.
Control weeds and trash along any trail. Weed control methods must be consistent with any adjacent organic farming operations.
Planners' first priority has been to ensure water quality for any trail built along the Boulder Feeder Canal. City of Boulder and Left Hand Water District users are potentially affected, if not by specific pollutants, at least by the costs of additional treatment necessary to remove them.
Engineer the trail first. One cannot know impacts until one knows alignments and engineering including trailheads, parking, landscaping, grading, diversions, etc. To do otherwise is irresponsible and unprofessional.
Establish user rules, provide enforcement, adequate budget, and authority.
Provide for trail trash cleanup, budget, and authority.
Require an independent review of baseline assumptions and projections used for any design efforts. We believe that current estimates of existing use by trespassers are substantially overstated, while current estimates of future use may be substantially understated in order to minimize neighborhood concerns.
Table Mountain Association members and other area residents are taxpayers and voters. As such, we deserve to know the real costs of any trail project and its ongoing maintenance.
Provide a capital and operating budget for any trail project before the trail is approved. Specify total costs, based on real engineering, with all ancillary and secondary costs. Enumerate them. Justify the budget, providing an independent review of projections. Specify sources of funds in the budget. Address any contingencies which may be created by TABOR.
Also, please explain why the City and the County plan to invest substantial amounts of money in a project along the Boulder Feeder Canal if the right to use the corridor can be revoked by the Northern Colorado Water Conservation District in 60 days “with cause” or 1 year without?
The City and the County should indemnify property owners against any liability associated with the construction and use of any trail and should willingly pay all legal costs.
Provide adequate compensation for negotiated land or easement acquired by negotiation and avoid the use of eminent domain. Provide adequate compensation for land uses and access eliminated.
Provide a mechanism for adjacent landowners to modify access, e.g., for changing agricultural operations.
There are a number of legal issues specific to the Boulder Feeder Canal corridor. If that corridor is used as a trail, these must be addressed.
Does the Northern Colorado Water Conservation District have the right to transfer use of the canal right-of-way?
Specify handling of easements and fee lands.
If ownership of the canal is transferred by the Federal government to the Conservation District, actions regarding the Boulder Feeder Canal will no longer be subject to the National Environmental Policy Act. Before building any trail, the City and the County must simulate a full NEPA review to NEPA standards. The so-called “Community Environmental Assessment Process” (CEAP) is no NEPA!
Contact for Table Mountain
Association:
Kevin Markey, 8853 N. 55th St., Longmont CO 80503,
klmarkey@comcast.net