News briefs

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Fighting to fight coal

As two Boulder residents prepare to defend their civil rights in a federal court after being arrested while protesting Peabody Energy Corp. in Wyoming, the company’s stock plummeted after it was revealed they may owe millions to support former employees’ health claims.

Thomas Asprey and Leslie Glustrom first filed suit in April, claiming they had their constitutional rights violated after being arrested for unfurling a banner at the Peabody Energy Corp.’s annual meeting at the Northern Wyoming Community College in 2013. Asprey and Glustrom claim that the company pressured college officers to wrangle protesters and suppress their messages. The suit includes the college and the arresting officer.

Asprey and Glustrom claim they were only allowed to protest in a caged area far from the shareholders meeting, and that officials told them they could only use a banner that read, “Peabody Abandons Miners.” They say they were arrested when miners at the protest began taking photos of it.

But that isn’t the only trouble for Peabody. It was revealed this week that the St. Louis coal mining company would likely be responsible for funding the debts of Patriot Coal, a company spun off from Peabody in 2007 that announced bankruptcy earlier this year. About $150 million would need to be paid to former Patriot employees for black lung claims, payments that need to be paid each year. Peabody’s stock fell 8 percent the day the obligations were announced.

Boulder removes car lanes to reduce congestion and support biking

Boulder citizens met with the city’s Transportation Advisory Board in a public meeting last week to discuss the “right-sizing program,” a trial transportation project that will temporarily remove car lanes from some highly travelled roads in the city and replace them with bike-only lanes. Citizen comments to the program were understandably mixed.

The program is the product of Boulder’s Living Laboratory, a group started by the city in 2013 to facilitate public transport and support cyclists and pedestrians. The roads that will be condensed from four to two lanes this summer are: 55th Avenue from Baseline to Pearl; Folsom from Arapahoe to Valmont; Iris from Broadway to Folsom; and 63rd Street from Gunbarrel Avenue to Lookout Road.

During the pilot programs, the city will collect technical data on travel volume and times for cars and bikes; observe data on who is using the new lanes; and seek community input on how this whole experiment is going through surveys, pop-up events and asking cyclists and pedestrians.

Part of the impetus for selecting these roads is based on past troubles for cyclists. For instance, Folsom was selected for the trial because the city says there is not much room for cyclists in the shoulder and because there are often long queues of cyclists at streetlights. 

The proposed solution for many of these roadways (and what could be more in Boulder) is reducing some four-lane arterial roads to two lanes, and implementing one central two-way turn lane for cars. That would enable wider bike lanes for cyclists.