City planners seek TAB feedback on 50‑year Boulder Valley comprehensive plan update

City planning staff presented an update on the Boulder Valley comprehensive plan (BVCP) major update at the Transportation Advisory Board meeting on Sept. 8 and asked TAB members to provide feedback on the draft policy direction and land-use framework.

Steven Rejo, the city’s transportation planning manager, introduced Sarah Horn and Tess Shorn from Planning and Development Services, who described the BVCP update as the first major reassessment in decades and said the project is now roughly midway through a multi‑phase public process. “The comprehensive plan is important to the work we do in transportation and mobility,” Rejo said, because it sets the highest-level community vision that transportation plans implement.

Staff outlined goals for the update: simplify and clarify policies, make them resilient to future change, integrate sustainability and equity objectives, and tighten links between the comp plan, the citywide strategic plan and departmental implementation. Tess Shorn described a proposed restructuring of future‑land‑use categories from 26 to 13, grouped into four classes — neighborhoods, hubs, networks and institutions — and said the team will map local-, community- and regional-scale “hubs” to guide where mixed uses and higher levels of multimodal access are expected.

TAB members focused questions on several topics. Members asked for clearer articulation of shared community values and measurable outcomes so the plan can be assessed over time; they urged the plan to be explicit that reallocating road space — for protected bike lanes, bus rapid transit or bus-only lanes — may slow car travel but improve safety, reliability and capacity for moving people. Michael (last name not provided), a TAB member, said the plan should “take a stand” on trade-offs and explain how the city will prioritize moving people rather than vehicles.

Several board members advocated for an accessibility-focused definition of mobility that centers people of all ages and abilities rather than vehicle throughput. Members suggested including measurable targets where appropriate (for example, transit sufficiency or school drop-off mode share) and said mobility hubs should be planned not just for retail centers but for schools, parks and recreation centers where many trips originate.

Staff indicated more detailed performance targets and implementation steps may sit in the citywide strategic plan and department-level plans rather than at the 30,000‑foot comp plan level; Valerie Watson, interim director of Transportation and Mobility, asked TAB to help articulate outcomes that are meaningful and measurable. Tess Shorn said community engagement will continue through mapping exercises, a mailed statistically valid survey and an online survey; staff plan to present policy and land-use recommendations to planning board and city council at a joint study session Dec. 11 and return to TAB in March with a public review draft.

Why it matters: The comp plan is the city’s long-term policy guide for land use and multimodal systems. Changes to the land-use framework and policy direction can influence where housing, mobility hubs and high‑frequency transit are allowed or encouraged and how the city prioritizes street space and capital investments.

Next steps: Staff will continue outreach (including a community workshop at Casey Middle School), refine policy language, produce a public-review draft in early 2026, and aim for final adoption in mid‑2026. TAB members who were absent were invited to submit written responses to the five discussion questions.

Provenance: - topicintro: transcript excerpt starting at 1099.33 — "So my name is Steven Rejo... I'm really excited to introduce our colleagues... who are here to present on the Boulder Valley comprehensive plan" (presentation introduction). - topicfinish: transcript excerpt ending at 6377.06 — "Thank you all." (close of presentation and Q&A).