Politics |

Denver takes aim at traffic deaths on two major streets, hoping to slow down speeding drivers

Denver Mayor Mike Johnston is trying new strategies to curb traffic fatalities on his city’s streets in a pilot program aimed at slowing down drivers who speed along major thoroughfares.

Denver has recorded 27 traffic deaths so far this year, with the latest occurring last week on June 17. Last year, 83 people died, according to the city, despite officials launching the Vision Zero initiative several years ago, setting a goal of reaching zero traffic deaths by 2030.

On Monday, Johnston announced the rollout of new approaches — initially along stretches of Federal Boulevard and Alameda Avenue — that include investing in more speed limit and speed feedback signs, expanded signal timing to give pedestrians extra moments to cross the street and more speed enforcement, such as ticketing.

The city aims to cut the number of traffic fatalities by half over two years. The focus will be on two stretches of roads with records of high injuries: on Federal, from 52nd Avenue to Floyd Avenue in south Denver, and on Alameda, from Sheridan Boulevard on the west to Havana Street.

“The right strategy moving forward to really achieve success is gonna be to focus on all of these strategies that we know work,” Johnston said. “Each of these strategies alone can account for 20, 30, 40% reductions in death and fatalities.”

The speed enforcement will be carried out by radar cameras in vans and automated cameras that issue tickets to speeding drivers, he added. The move bucks a 15-year trend of Denver Police Department officers issuing fewer traffic citations, with cops focusing on serious crime in the wake of short staffing.

Car crashes causing traffic fatalities have largely risen since 2012, remaining at a high of more than 80 each year for the past three years, according to city data.

One of the new initiative’s approaches is to reprogram the timing on traffic signals to align with the street’s speed limit.

“That means if you are going faster than the speed limit, you are going to naturally hit red lights,” Johnston said. “We actually want to time those lights to make sure you are going at the speed limit or below.”

He’s also implementing a policy for traffic lights to default to red during late night hours, until a vehicle approaches, to discourage racing and speeding.

“More than half of the deaths and serious injuries that happen at our roadways right now happen at night,” Johnston said. “It reduces the risk of someone who is walking at night … getting hit by someone who can’t see them.”

Changes on each corridor will cost an estimated $1 million, said Amy Ford, executive director of Denver’s Department of Transportation and Infrastructure. As an example, the signal light retiming along Federal will cost $400,000 to $600,000.

The pilot program will be paid for through DOTI’s budget.

The city began working on Vision Zero in 2015 under former Mayor Michael Hancock, with the action plan developed in 2017. Now, nearly a year after Johnston was sworn into office, he’s in the position of figuring out how to make traffic safer in Denver.

“Today represents our first major step in what we see as the next chapter of Vision Zero,” Johnston said.

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