Comments on Dowdy Draw / Flatirons Vista Parking

Please consider this a formal comment on OSMP plans for reconstructing the Flatirons Visita and Dowdy Draw trailheads.

I very much support and appreciate your efforts to make these trailheads more attractive and easier to use. Still, the big issue is one of capacity, especially with respect to Dowdy Draw.

As you know, capacity of this area has been a serious problem for a long time with lots of visitors parking illegally and countless others turned away on virtually every attractive weekend or holiday. In addition to generalized frustration with OSMP, the inadequacy of current parking increasingly jams visitors into a few high traffic areas (such as Chautauqua). This, in turn, leads to a significant degradation of the visitor experience while also placing extraordinary ecological pressure on some of the system's most prized areas.

As one looks to a future of inevitable population growth, this can only get worse. So, at the very least, I believe that OSMP should incorporate into its plans the increased capacity needed to satisfy demand.

If you don't want to do this for ecological reasons, then you need to institute an open, public process for setting and justifying ecologically-based limits on the number of visitors. In setting limits, you should be able to demonstrate that the environmental benefits of visitation limits justify the adverse impacts of increased visitation in other parts of the system and reductions in the quality of the visitor experience. You also need to address the equity issues associated with the parking limits that favor "early birds" over "late comers" and may favor non-Boulder residents over Boulder residents. Giving the increased restrictions on off-trail visitor access associated with a new area management plan, I find it hard to believe that the area cannot withstand a 50% increase in available parking.

I also urge the Department to find some way to get around the problem of County limits on driveway traffic (75 in and out trips per day!). Since this limit implies one car in or out of every 10 minutes, I find it hard to believe that it's justified on traffic safety concerns. I strongly urge OSMP to find some way of getting around these limits, by either obtaining special permission from the County or, if necessary, constructing a second parking lot.

OSMP is in the process of substantially increasing the attractiveness of this area to potential visitors and you can expect a lot of hard feelings should these improvements be accompanied by parking facilities that turn away lots of visitors.

Guy Burgess