Lee Gilbert

The candidacy of Lee Gilbert, who is making his first run for public elected office by running for a seat on Boulder City Council in 2026, is unlike many recent candidacies for one basic reason. While some candidates speak in broader generalities and have opinions on many topics, Gilbert is almost completely running on one main and very focused issue – his dissatisfaction with the recent project to redevelop Baseline Road east of 30th Street.

People who haven’t lived in Boulder for a long time might not remember a Baseline without rows of bollards and concrete barriers. Just a few years ago, the city began redeveloping Baseline as part of its Core Arterial Network (CAN) project, which in part was intended to reduce accidents and increase safety for bicyclists along a number of Boulder transportation corridors.

Gilbert has lived near Baseline for decades, but said he wasn’t aware of the specific Baseline project until it started happening. He said he had read a bit about the CAN, but figured the word “Core” referred to core areas of the city like near Downtown Boulder. “I didn’t realize it would affect me directly,” he said.

With more to follow, he took notice about components of the Baseline project that he disagrees with, including what he calls confusing intersections, inefficient use of space, narrowed and reduced traffic lanes that contribute to congestion, and physical barriers applied in areas that haven’t had major quantities of accidents. “Running for City Council was not my first choice to get these problems solved,” he said, but he believes there have been and are issues that deserve wider publicity than one private citizen complaining to the city can provide.

“A vote for me is a vote of no confidence in Boulder’s planning and implementation of road projects,” he wrote on his website. He said more or less the same during this late September interview.

His campaign website is https://lee4boulder.com/

Initial Baseline Shock

Gilbert said he’s lived in Boulder since coming to CU, where he earned a degree in electrical engineering, and said he’s lived in a house one block from Baseline for about five decades. According to his website, he also has “experience in statistics, reliability, and failure analysis.” He primarily gets around by biking and walking, and he often rode along Baseline from near 33rd Street to the Meadows Shopping Center at Baseline and Foothills – a straight section of roadway. “I thought that Baseline had one of the safest bike lanes there was. The car lanes were wide, the bike lane was wide, and it was great visibility,” he said.

Baseline got resurfaced, which Gilbert thought was needed, but then he said he saw what he called “cryptic markings” at intersections, and soon bollards started going up. He decided to start looking into the Baseline project, and learned that city information said Baseline had a high accident rate and people didn’t feel safe riding there, which he felt was contrary to his experience. He looked at a city accident dashboard, and found that during seven years, there were only two accidents involving bikes on the straight section of Baseline between 32nd and Mohawk, not including Mohawk. One of the two accidents was classified as “property damage,” and the other said “possible injury.”

He noted that most of the accidents on or near Baseline were closer to 30th Street, which is the corner where Williams Village is located that has a fairly busy intersection with Baseline. He also learned that the city would be installing concrete barriers between bike lanes and traffic lanes to the east, but said “most accidents don’t occur on the straightaways,” and traffic lanes became narrower. He thought that he was witnessing a lot of bad ideas, and yes, he contacted people with the city about it.

Some of Gilbert’s Specific Issues

  • User confusion: People using a new section of roads or paths might not be familiar with changes, but there’s one major point about unfamiliarity in traffic – people are moving and have to make quick decisions. Gilbert said he was aware that some drivers didn’t know whether bike lanes were turn lanes, and certain intersections could have been confusing to both drivers and bikers. He contacted the city and said he was told that people would get used to the changes, but Gilbert saw problems with this assumption around learning curves. “Boulder has lots of visitors, and this year it had 9,000 new students. A learning curve only applies if you have the same people doing the same thing over and over again. That doesn’t apply to Boulder necessarily.

  • Perhaps not easy to see, but this image shows lower sections of curb, to the left of a higher section of curb with two bollards in the section.

    Too Tight Turns: Gilbert believes the new narrower intersections means cars are actually closer to him as a cyclist if he tries to turn onto Baseline. He said he’s witnessed cars unable to make U-turns because of narrower traffic lanes. He added that certain city intersections were designed to make right-turning autos slow down to 10 MPH. In some cases, the turns were so tight as to be difficult for large vehicles like buses, so there are higher and lower curbs at the intersection, and the large vehicles might actually need to drive over the lower curbs (see image actually from near 30th and Colorado, not Baseline).

  • Indented Bike Paths: At certain intersections, cyclists are expected to ride in “indented paths” where cyclists must avoid physical objects like curbs or bollards instead of going in a straight path through the intersection. “The idea is that somehow, it’s more important to have these bicycles go into an indented lane than it is for them to be actually looking around to see what’s going on around them. I think it’s actually made things less safe, not more safe,” he said.
  • Some Injuries Happened Anyway: Gilbert said the city completed two “fully protected intersections” several years ago, but there were accidents at both of them shortly after they were finished. He told the story of a cyclist who was injured at 30th and Mohawk, where there was also a speed bump to control auto turning speed. The cyclist reportedly confused the striping on the speed bump for markings for a crosswalk, fell, and suffered injuries including a concussion and broken sacrum. Gilbert also noted that another protected intersection at 30th and Colorado (not involving Baseline) had an accident involving a bicyclist shortly after completion.
  • Emergency Evacuations: While discussing public safety in general, Gilbert brought up that Baseline east of Foothills has been reduced from two lanes in each direction to one lane. While not specifically speaking about East Baseline, he said it’s vital that clogged arterial roads don’t make it too difficult for people to move in case of a mass evacuation. “Arterial roads are designed to move traffic efficiently, and by making it less efficient, what happens if there’s a wildfire?” he asked.

Road Projects To The Voters?

While Gilbert said he didn’t feel well-informed about the changes on Baseline until they started happening, he recalled that there was a public meeting held about a year after the project started, and it was very well-attended. “And usually when public meetings are very well-attended, it’s not because people are saying, gosh, you’re really doing a great job,” he said.

According to Gilbert, one solution to not having advance notice or buy-in could be referring transportation projects to City of Boulder voters for their approval or denial. During this late September interview, he didn’t have guidelines as to the dollar amount or scope of the type of project that would trigger an election, but he said the Baseline project was a “drastic rethinking of the road” that cost millions of dollars. To him, the Baseline project is an example of “the major projects that I think they should bring up… Basically, if you’re going to redesign things so that people can’t even recognize it anymore, it should go to a public vote.”

He also referenced a controversial 2015 “right-sizing” project on Folsom south of Pearl that included bike lanes protected by bollards, although he didn’t directly say this should have gone to a vote. The project had supporters and detractors, but after a significant number of complaints from some area businesses and drivers experiencing congestion, the city took those bollards down.

(Editor’s note: In trying to keep posts somewhat close to the same length among candidates, there were a lot of issues Gilbert brought up during this interview that aren’t covered here. His campaign website has many pages of issue descriptions, statistics, and images, for those who want more information.)

While most of this interview was about Baseline or a few other transportation projects, Gilbert did offer opinions on a few non-transportation issues.

Q – City Bond Measure and Debt Limit?

According to Gilbert, he’s opposed the the $400 million bond issue that’s on the 2026 ballot, basically because he believes “it’s not specific in what it will do, and it’s not clear that their money is being well spent.” He said it’s concerning in part because the measure involves a large dollar amount, and while noting that he’s learning about the issue while on the campaign trail, he said a number of his fellow candidates are saying the city needs to be more cautious with its spending. He added that certain candidates are also calling for an independent city auditor, in part to evaluate what sort of results the city’s getting from its expenditures. There’s an associated ballot measure that would increase the city’s debt limit, and Gilbert said he did not have a “yes/no” opinion yet but had some suspicion because it was associated with the large amount of debt associated with the bond measure.

Q – Does Boulder Need to Continue Pushing for More Housing?

Gilbert said he might be interested in looking into using the city’s “Area III” land near 28th and Jay as a location for housing. He also spoke about Mark Wallach, a Council member who recently resigned, and his opinion that the city should not take federal money in connection with the Boulder Municipal Airport because it means the airport would operate in perpetuity, and the city would not be able to at some point use the Airport land for housing. Gilbert said “Mark was probably right on that.” Gilbert also believes it’s “reasonable” to allow more Accessory Dwelling Units (ADU).

Q – Boulder’s Economic Status and Ideas?

Gilbert said he is concerned about Boulder’s economy, in part because there are a lot of commercial vacancies in the Downtown Boulder and University Hill business districts. Like many candidates, he is interested in permitting reform in part to help make sure starting a business isn’t needlessly complex and time-consuming. He added that some of the problems facing businesses in these districts are matters of costs, including that rent tends to be very high.