Investment Program

Investment Strategy

The city's investment strategy focuses on first maintaining and operating the existing transportation system and then using the remaining available funds for capital improvements and investments in the city's multimodal corridors (six east-west and four north-south corridors). This strategy both protects the large public investment in the existing facilities and ensures that the system is operated in as safe a manner as possible. While there are three levels of investment, as discussed below, in all cases the largest segment of the planned spending remains in the operations, maintenance and safety area.

Visit the Transportation Funding page for an overview of the past and current funding of the Boulder's transportation system. 

The city's transportation investment strategy is based on implementing a balanced multimodal based transportation system. Funding is focused on:

• Adequately preserve the existing infrastructure;
• Strive to increase safety;
• Maximize the efficiency of our existing systems (pedestrian, bicycle, transit, and roadway); and
• Enhance mobility through investments in the completion of the alternative transportation system (pedestrian, bicycle, and transit).

Investment Packages

The TMP presents three transportation investment programs based on different levels of funding: Current Funding, the Action Plan and the Vision Plan. In addition, a Reduction Strategy has been developed in the event that the current funding levels are not realized and future reductions are necessary. The three investment programs represent a continuum in implementing the TMP policy direction at different funding levels, from:

• how to spend the revenue we expect to have from current funding sources, to
• how we would invest in the next steps of developing a multimodal transportation system with additional revenue to 2025, to
• the vision of a fully developed multimodal transportation system with completed systems for all the modes.

While the 1996 TMP outlined the vision for Boulder, that plan was not based on available transportation funds and resulted in the need to prioritize transportation spending in 2000.

In the 2003 TMP, transportation investment is prioritized (using the investment policies) through the three investment programs. In each of these investment programs, funding of transportation operation/maintenance and safety is the highest priority. The Action Plan and Vision include an enhanced service standard/practice for maintenance. The level of capital improvement investment is dependent on the funds remaining after these priorities are funded.

Compare the Three Investment Packages

The priorities mentioned above form the base for the funding allocation. Investment on enhancements (capital improvements) to the modal (bike, pedestrian, auto, bus) systems is focused in multimodal corridors. With limited resources, investments are focused on the highest priority corridor segments (see more detail on corridor prioritization).

The four policy focus areas that are emphasized throughout the 2003 TMP update are also used to organize the strategies reflected in the three investment programs (Current Funding, Action Plan, and Vision). The material below is summarized in a highly graphical format (pdfs) and compares the strategies for the three investment programs by the four policy focus areas and summarizes how the transportation system will perform based on the different investment programs:

• Key strategies and financial aspects of the investment programs, including the Funding policy focus area; and
  •  Investment and Funding
    
    
• Highlights of the investment activities proposed in each policy focus area; and
  •  Multimodal Corridors
  •  Regional Travel 
  •  TDM
    
    
• Summary comparisons of the system performance of the different investment programs.
  
  
  •  Performance
    

More details can be found on the specific web pages for each of the four policy focus areas ( Funding, Multimodal Corridors, Regional Travel, and TDM) and the "How are we doing?" (Performance) web page.

Last Updated on Tuesday, 26 February 2013 14:29