Ryan Schuchard

Ryan Schuchard is running for Boulder City Council in 2023. If he wins a seat, he will earn a three-year term that will expire in 2026, but he would be able to run for re-election in 2026 if he so chooses.

Q – Why are you running?

Schuchard’s path to candidacy probably began more than 10 years ago, as he was working in environmental and sustainability fields and eventually became interested in relationships between transportation, land use, and climate (see more in Mini-Life Story below). After moving to Boulder, he was appointed to the city’s Transportation Advisory Board (TAB) in 2021 and decided that he would make climate action and transportation into election issues in 2023, but he wasn’t a candidate – yet.

“I thought I was going to write op-eds or show up to meetings, but as we got closer, and after talking to other people, the best way to do it was to get into the race. I wanted there to be a candidate who was making a campaign issue out of climate action, safe streets, transportation, and housing options, and the best way to do it was to run,” said Schuchard.

Mini-Life Story

Schuchard was born in the town of Roseburg, Oregon, located about an hour south of Eugene. He said his parents ran a small family-owned business, and he worked the cash register “from the time I had to stand on a barstool.” After high school, he went to Oregon State University, not knowing what he wanted to do, but with a small business background he was interested in using business and economic systems as a lens into the world. He joined the Peace Corps, and in about the year 2004, he said he had a realization that climate was “the problem, the thing we’re going to have to work on.”

He studied for his MBA at Thunderbird Global Management School, using the work of Dr. Greg Unruh as his frame. Unruh was the discoverer of “carbon lock-in,” in short an idea that humanity continues to entrench itself into the climate crisis in part because it’s not convenient for elected officials to make better decisions. From Thunderbird, Schuchard took a position with Business For Social Responsibility, working to “build the business case for climate action” with some of the world’s largest corporations, nationally and internationally.

Next up, Schuchard moved on to a policy advisor job with CALSTART, a nonprofit consortium working on what he called the “climate-transportation nexus,” and he took former Vice President Al Gore’s climate leadership training at around the same time. Schuchard moved to Boulder with his wife and children in 2019, saying they wanted to live somewhere that was “car-light and near the mountains.” Currently, he has his own company called More Mobility, which specializes in policy and program administration, and as mentioned earlier he is a member of TAB.

His campaign website is https://www.ryanforboulder.com/

Housing, Affordable and Otherwise

Schuchard opened with a general statement that about half of Boulder’s residents spend about half their income on housing and transportation – affordability problems leading to flat city population growth or even slight declines, and declining K-12 school enrollment in Boulder. With more to come on transportation in this piece, he supports measures to increase housing supply with an eye on managing affordability. He favors zoning reform to allow more “by-right” development and reduce minimum lot size requirements, reduce parking minimums at future developments, expand the types of allowable housing form options, and reduce what he called “administrative friction” including in his words “Planning Board’s veto power” to put more efficiency and certainty in the planning and development process.

He supported the state Senate Bill 23-213, a bill that would have created state housing-related land use standards that could have overridden local control, and said he “actively” worked in support of the bill as a resident, not as part of a professional organization. According to Schuchard, “local control is great for local problems,” but he said cities including Boulder haven’t solved housing issues on their own, so he believes regional and/or state action is necessary to solve a “system issue.” Beyond the strictly local dimensions of housing, he said Boulder is exporting its housing shortfalls to other towns, while the other towns are in turn exporting their traffic to Boulder.

“There is no way to look at this and say this is not a regional problem. The question is – do you think it’s a serious enough problem to solve?,” said Schuchard.

Regarding the possibility of eventually repurposing the Boulder Municipal Airport into housing, Schuchard said he is a TAB liaison to the airport process so he wanted to keep his cards close to his vest on what he would favor for the purposes of this interview. However, he did co-author a piece partially about future options for the airport, and said it was “one of the last developable spaces of land” on which to build a significant housing development in Boulder so he said the city should look at the pros and cons of potential options.

Crime and Policing

Schuchard said that property crime in Boulder is a “big problem,” notably bike theft in a city with a fair number of valuable bikes. He said he’s had parts stolen off of his bike in Boulder, and actually rescued a friend’s bike that had been stolen after he recognized the bike as belonging to his friend. He said there have been collaborative law enforcement successes in tackling organized bike theft, and recent numbers of thefts may be trending downward, but said plainly “we’ve got to get a handle on this.”

Unlike most candidates, part of his response to a question about crime was to discuss public safety in broader terms. He said for example that in Boulder County, the leading causes of death after natural causes are car crashes and suicides, while the area also faces environmental threats including severe wildfires. He favors moving toward a comprehensive “strategic approach to safety,” with information regarding safety issues and possible ways to minimize problems available to the community.

He said several times during this interview that the Police Chief should get the resources necessary to deal with crime from the city, but added that there are social issues such as desperation and poverty that can contribute to crime, and the city as a whole should look at these factors as it considers preventative measures or providing appropriate services.

Climate and Transportation

Schuchard has worked in the climate policy field for many years, and while much of his work was at national or international levels, he believes transportation and housing solutions – including more housing within city limits so people might not need to drive to work or school – can help the city reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

As a member of TAB, he helped work to establish plans and projects to upgrade the city’s system of bikeways through the Core Arterial Network (CAN) program. Interested readers might want to click the CAN link to see more in detail, but in short some of the CAN objectives include protected bike lanes, safer intersections, underpasses, and other multimodal improvements to help make Boulder transportation safer and more efficient, especially for people who walk and bike. Some CAN projects are currently ongoing.

Again as a member of TAB, Schuchard worked in the fall of 2022 on drafting a letter to Council saying federal money was available that could be used toward rebates residents could use to defray the cost of e-bikes. Fast forward, and the city’s second phase of its e-bike rebate program launched at about the same time as this late August interview.

Boulder certainly can’t solve global climate change by itself, and Schuchard has worked on national or international issues including cap-and-trade systems, electric automobile rebates, Clean Air Act standards, business sustainability practices, and more.

And at a much more micro-local level, he said he unofficially served as a “resident advocate” to share neighborhood traffic concerns with the city before he was appointed to TAB, and serves as “kind of a bike liaison” within the Boulder Valley School District – helping organize bike-to-school days and attempting to improve the biking culture.

“This is where we’re just going to make peoples’ lives better, if we can build more people-first, transit-rich, car-optional communities. Whether the climate is a problem or not, it will make our lives better,” said Schuchard.

Local Political Polarization

According to Schuchard, he feels local political polarization is a problem, but he isn’t certain if Boulder’s problems are completely unique compared to other locations. He said “I know enough to know there’s a sentiment like ‘it’s not how it used to be,’ but that’s also true in a lot of places.”

While perhaps not talking directly about polarization, he believes reducing car dependency can help people become friendlier, in part because they could spend more time face-to-face, not in a large metal box with frustrations around parking and accidents or close calls. He added that frequent, dependable transit could help more people get out of cars and experience less overall stress.

Homelessness

Schuchard said Boulder’s current situation with homelessness is “an untenable problem. We’ve got to fix it.” He said he and his daughters often ride on Boulder bikeways, and the kids have learned about “what world they’re inheriting” when it comes to unhoused people camping near the paths. But he added that moving people away from paths in one area often just makes them move to another area, so “the net problem isn’t getting any better.”

He spoke about three major areas of focus he’s like to address. First, he believes the Police Chief needs the resources and direction to do her job, relatively free of micromanagement. Second, he said it’s important to understand that people are falling into homelessness in some cases simply due to not being able to afford housing. And third, he would support making sure the city has adequate services for people who need help with mental illness or substance addiction, and places to go – like a day shelter and/or transitional housing – so fewer people might need to live in tents or on the streets.

Safe Zones (Question 302)

Schuchard opposes Ballot Question 302, the Safe Zones 4 Kids measure, saying in part that the city needs to focus on services for people experiencing homelessness and creating places for them to go. He also said the city has a “complex and emerging problem,” and should make sure the Police Chief has the resources and direction and authority to do her job

Sales Tax Extension with 50% of Revenue for Arts (Issue 2A)

Schuchard said he supports Ballot Issue 2A.