I am writing today to express my concern regarding the proposed road diet on Iris Avenue in Boulder. As a child growing up in Boulder, my community was children, sent outdoors to play, owning the backyards and the streets as we ran, played games, biked and laughed. We played tag and hide-and-seek, only rarely having to worry about people driving down our neighborhood streets.

Now I am someone who lives adjacent to Iris Avenue in Boulder, someone who, along with many others in our community, is concerned about the impact a road diet on Iris will have on our neighborhoods. We are concerned that a road diet will lead to increased traffic on local streets as impatient drivers look for faster cut-throughs. Those drivers are more likely to speed and not watch out for all the children, including young walkers and bicyclists going to and from Columbine Elementary or just having fun with their friends in the neighborhood.

As more cars are diverted through these streets as a result of a needless road diet on Iris, the safety of our local streets where children run about and play every day will be compromised, with the kids forced to go back inside, in front of their video game consoles and their televisions.

Many of us have raised these concerns with the city transportation department, which appears to be pushing the Iris road diet through. At “community presentations,” we have been dismissed out of hand, with our concerns pushed aside as invalid.

We have been told that the data says there won’t be any impacts in our neighborhoods, yet, to my knowledge, the city has not shared its data around auto and bike traffic so that we might better understand what we’re being told.

Further, we now know that the city plans to put traffic calming devices on Kalmia and Glenwood, both key neighborhood streets that run parallel to Iris. To me, this looks prima facie that the city knows there will be an increase in neighborhood traffic and that steps will have to be taken to lessen the risks for the many children moving about the streets for school and fun with their friends and families.

When we have raised our concerns with influencers and city transportation department staff, we have been dismissed, with assurances that we are overwrought without reason. Proponents of the road diet claim their efforts are intended to make transit safer for pedestrians and cyclists. We who live in the affected neighborhoods want to know: What about the safety and well-being of our children and of our neighborhood community?

Our very real concerns have fallen on the deaf ears of the apparently ideologically driven. Whether you already share our concerns or are just now becoming aware of them as a parent or community member, I urge you to write to your city council members to voice your concerns: bouldercolorado.gov/contact-city-council-and-staff.

Further, if we receive no meaningful response, I urge you to consider voting in future elections for people who value our voices and concerns, and not those of a relatively very small, ideologically-driven community within the City of Boulder.

Phil Smith is a lifelong Boulder resident.