Public Works Committee - Regular Meeting

Denver, it's time for this biweekly meeting of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee of Denver City Council. Join us for the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee starting now.

Okay. This party started. That's right. Good afternoon. My name is Chantel Lewis. I chair the transportation and infrastructure committee, and I'm happy to do so. I represent the constituents in District 8, and we can start with a round of introductions. And we can start with you, councilman Heinz.

Good afternoon, Denver. Chris Hines, Denver's Perfect Ten.

Kevin Flynn, Southwest Denver's District 2, and I have saw a few guests here who are journalism students at metro metro state with their professor.

Hi. Welcome. I

am not a professor nor do I play one on TV. Paul Cashman represents South Denver District 6.

Laura Vidres, lucky District 7.

Great. We don't have anyone online yet, but I do know that some folks will be joining us online. I wanted to start with a few things, with a few announcements. Excuse me. Well, maybe not because my computer just went to the wrong screen.

Alrighty. I wanted to start with a few announcements because a few things have come up. I wanted to start with the Alameda Lane red lane reduction, and I wanted to apologize on the mayor's behalf for calling people in opposition to the changes on Alameda Trumpian. Councilwoman Alvederes, you did an incredible job on Monday addressing this during our council. But I just wanted to mention that the times that the folks have come into our committee, they've been respectful.

They have been thoughtful. They have brought signs and quietly protested. I mean, they've never created a a disturbance in my committee, not once. And they've been good partners, quite frankly, even when questions were not answered, even when questions were answered incorrectly, or even when their core requests were have gone unanswered. And so I just wanted to start there because I thought it was important.

The second thing I wanted to address is I wanted to thank you, director Ford, for your response to our letter for 13th And 14th Avenue. So for those of you that do not know, councilman Hines, councilwoman Sawyer, councilwoman Perity, and councilwoman Gonzalez Gutierrez and I sent a letter to Dottie regarding the rollout of the thirteenth and fourteenth conversions. And while I'm not gonna read the entire response here, I did wanna show my appreciation for the responsibility that you took, one, in that letter, but also in the r and o meeting that we had briefly after the rollout. And you started with an apology, and so I thank you for that. And you started with the recognition that DOTI did not have the communication in place to let residents know what was going on with the project.

And then you went on further to talk about what were some of the things that you all were committed to doing in the future as we look at not just this project, but projects throughout our entire city. And some of those was an enhanced chain of command approval process before any project hits the street that includes a review of stakeholder engagement and communication checklist. The second is we will immediately review projects that directly impact residents that are pending in the near and medium term to ensure that we provide sufficient public notification prior to proceeding. This will include a review of when and to whom the engagement and notification occurs. And then third, a call for staff to pause implementation of any project found to have inadequate notification or engagement in order to complete that process prior to proceeding.

And I know those things came directly from Dottie, but also from the interactions that we had with our constituents, and so I wanted to thank you for that as well. I did wanna offer a correction, and you provided this in writing as well. It's that in the letter, it said that you all reached out to my office in early February to let us know of the the change and provided a flyer for distant dissemination, which was untrue. We did have we and we do have regular meetings. We had a meeting in January in which you let us know that the change would be happening and that you would send us over the flyer.

However, the flyer never came into the office, and thus we were not informed when the change was actually happen happening. Dottie did send over a response to a constituent service aid from an inquiry that we had heard from a constituent about thirteenth And fourteenth, but it was retroactive in nature and not proactive. It wasn't a proactive nature proactive message, excuse me, that it that could have been used. Had the information been provided to us, we would have absolutely informed communities in real time to make sure that they knew right away. So when I found out, that is when I let them know.

The final thing is for the members of this committee. I know we received the presentation pretty late this round, and so I wanted to have this one request of Dottie, which is to submit your presentations on time so that staff and council members have time to prepare ahead of committee. And I understand that new information comes to light or more clarity is thought is necessary, but the agent by the agencies, but delays make it harder for us to be able to do our job. So if you all can commit to making sure that your presentations are in on Thursday, I would appreciate it. With that, I am done talking. We have one briefing. I'll let you all introduce yourselves, and then you can get into the presentation. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Sure. Councilman Nines. I'm sorry.

Thank you, committee chair, and and thank you for being here. I wanna thank you. You are the chair of the committee. You can run the committee however you'd like. I I know that it has been, you know, it's subject to the discretion of the chair. When I was chair, if if a presentation wasn't filed by Thursday at noon, which is the so that it's posted on Legistar, we would bump that that that item to a date where it could be presented in advance. So thank you for your flexibility and willingness to allow Dottie to present today.

Thank you. Appreciate that, councilman Hines. Great. With that, you have a floor. Thank you.

I'm Amy Ford. I'm the executive director at DOTI and joined here by my team, John Johnson. Rolf. Rolf, I realize that I always butcher your last name, so I'll let you introduce yourself. Eisinger. Rolf now. Eisinger. There we go. Light up your order. And so we are joined today, and I wanna thank the councilwoman.

As she has been chairing this committee, we have discussed creating a cadence of presentations in which we sort of talk about transportation one zero one. And it's not meant to be elementary in that regard. What it is meant to be is actually set the stage for talking about our approach, our vision, how we are approaching different elements of transportation, and sort of the and and and being able to engage with you all in that higher level discussion so that as we come to you with different things like individual projects, individual contracts, and others, you have a framework around which to put those items. And so that's the intent. We have sort of a cadence of several that we are coming up.

And with the indulgence of the chair, we shifted the topic today's to safety based on the conversation as I sat out of town and watched the last council briefing since Vision Zero and safety became a topic of conversation. We thought perhaps we should move that one up and have that discussion today. So we apologize that the presentation was a little bit late. There was a request that we made to shift that. But I'll give you the sense of the four topics.

So vision zero and safety, neighborhood streets, what I'm going to call main streets slash sort of arterials and sort of our bigger streets, and transit. And so we want to talk with you about sort of those frameworks over the course of the next few months, and that's just what we've chatted with councilwoman and the chair about doing that, again, for that contextual side of it. So today we wanted to talk about Vision Zero, but more specifically our safety programs. And so as we go through this presentation, and I recognize that you all are sitting and looking at it. You received it yesterday afternoon.

And so please feel free, and I know this is not as typical in your process, but feel free to ask clarifying questions as we're going through that. I know that obviously we report the questions through to you. But please feel free to ask questions and clarifying notes. What we wanted to do is we wanted to sit and talk sort of in three measures, if you will. What is Vision Zero? What does it mean as a philosophy and an approach? What has happened in 2025? And then what are the programs and other things that we are doing, especially especially in this year so that you can see the cadence and flow of different construction projects and others? So we wanted to give you more specifics and details about that. And then let me last then preface this with this.

This year was devastating in regards to last year, in regards to fatalities on our roadways. We had ninety three fatalities, people who died in Denver on the roadways, whether they were pedestrians, people who were driving, scooter riders, people who were on the interstate, people on our local streets, ninety three people. You'll see some stats when we first started talking about Vision Zero in a whole. We were in the fifty six number. Across the state this year, there was a definite rise in fatalities around the entire state as well, and we were no different in that.

And for us as a team and as a DOTI and the people who responsible for our roads and ensuring that you safely get home and you safely get to your job and that you return from here to there, this stat and this information is sort of devastating to us, actually, in a way, as we work so incredibly hard to try to think about what it is in our role and our peace and our place to try to help bring that number down. And so you're going to hear today a little bit about that, and then I'm going to close out with some stuff that we are doing a little bit differently to this year in light of what we saw last year and some response and others that we're asking the team to do to say, are we doing everything we possibly can? So we'll sit and talk a little bit about that. But so let me turn it over to the team so you guys can go through. And, again, please feel free to engage as we go through this.

I know that's atypical, but happy to do so given the timing of how we sent this over. So, Tim.

Are you all seeing the slides? Yeah. It's up now. Oh, there. Okay. Great. Alright. I'll look away. And okay. Yeah.

So this is slide number four. So wanted to share briefly for those who are unfamiliar with Vision Zero, it is an international movement that started in Sweden in the nineties to reduce traffic fatalities to zero. Adopting since adopting Vision Zero, they have reduced their fatalities by fifty percent. Now here in The United States, we have also had success like the cities of Hoboken, New Jersey that have reached zero for the past nine years. Denver has adopted Vision Zero in 2016 with a plan in 2017 that was released committing to ending traffic related fatalities and serious injuries by 2030.

By using the safe system approach that designed streets to protect people even when mistakes happen. Because of this commitment, safety is very much embedded across DOTI and our projects, procedures, programs. Next slide, please. The Denver Moves Everyone plan that I believe you are all familiar with is our long term strategic transportation plan and in the development of this plan. Community reaffirmed that zero is our goal and reaffirmed vision zero for Denver.

The plan helps prioritize projects which are implemented through a programmatic approach that can be seen through these programs and asset classes such as, as you see on the screen, major multimodal, pedestrian crossing, bikeways, transit, signal, multimodal bridges, and neighborhood traffic calming. And these all work to implement the safe system approach, which is our road map for reaching zero. On the next slide, you know, we're talking about the safe system approach. One of the elements of the safe system approach is speed. And we know as speed increases, stopping distance increases and reaction time increases.

And I should say the reaction time speed doubles, reaction time doubles, but stopping distance actually quadruples. So what does that mean in terms of, let's say, a roadway that's 35 miles an hour? Segments such as, you know, along Federal Boulevard or Alameda Avenue, that means it would take about 200 feet to stop in order to possibly avoid a crash. Also, looking at speed, particularly in the lens of physics and understanding the kinetic energy that is created as speeds increase and, you know, as it relates to how much energy a human body can absorb before a serious injury occurs. So by applying that safe safe system approach, it very much works to manage that kinetic energy to avoid serious injury outcomes.

Next slide. And these are examples of applying that safe system approach and what it looks like. I really like to think of it as a Swiss cheese approach that the more layers of safety interventions that you implement as part of a project or along a roadway, the less likely a serious injury or fatality will occur. So that's what's showing up on the slide. And what does that look like for our streets?

So when we design for modes, we're using I'm sorry. When when we are designing for modes, they are more predictable in their movement. So, for example, safe road users, on the screen, you can see in terms of installing sidewalks and transit lanes and bike lanes, better able to predict the movements of road users. When we think of the safe system approach, we think about another element, which is safe roads, which can include, you know, protected left turns, crosswalks, sidewalks. These all help also address another element of the safe system approach which is speed that we just talked about in terms of the number of lanes and the widths and other things that help manage a safe speed in our roadways.

Next slide. Other safe system elements include safe road users such as acumen protection and education and encouragement by use of wearing seat belts, how best to use a booster seat or car seat. Also, vehicle design, particularly our direct vision vehicles that make it much easier for operators to see other roadway users on the street. And then the final element that we consider post crash care is viewed as our rapid response program. So after each traffic fatality occurs on our street, we do implement a rapid response in terms of reviewing and possibly even going out to that site with a multidisciplinary team to better understand what led to that fatal crash.

So the next section of our presentation today, John and are I gonna tag team this a little bit and talk about our 2025 safety overview. But next slide. As executive director For mentioned earlier in the presentation today, you know, looking at our at our data today, there's no greater need than ever for Vision Zero. Last year, we did hit a recent all time record high number of transportation fatalities ending the year with ninety three lives lost. We did see a decrease with our serious bodily injuries, which is a promising trend, but not zero. And as you heard me mention before, zero is our goal, and we still have work to do. Next slide, John.

Thank you, Rolf. And what we wanted to encapsulate with this slide is a five year look back at a split of modes of travel. So those who were killed while traveling on Denver's roadways and what mode they were using. So these are statistics that we are tracking internally as we understand kind of what are the things from a design perspective that we need to think about with bikeways and how electric stand up scooters are used with those bikeways, particularly protected bikeways, and even on our neighborhood roadways and streets. Two things that we want to call out, here are the trends that, we do see most impacted are those people who are walking and those people who are driving in cars.

We'll dive into a little bit more of this information on the following slides, but first want to go back to the Vision high injury network and our safety focus areas, which Rolf will cover.

Yeah. As part of our re up of the Vision Zero action plan, we updated the high injury network, and we created two tiers of high energy networks. So tier one has a serious bodily injury and traffic fatality rate of over 20 per mile, whereas tier two is much lower at just over three per mile. Now tier one really helps us prioritize the segments within the high energy network, but tier two acts as an early warning system as we're watching those areas since our crashes crash data may be delayed. But we definitely want to focus on those tier one.

Hopefully, they'll drop all the way off the Hundra network, if not just down to tier one. But, yeah, those tier two are a bit of a canary in the coal mine areas that we are watching and wanna make sure that they don't bump up to that tier one. In addition to our high energy network, similar to our high high energy network along a corridor, we have established these safety focus areas. So instead of looking at a corridor, we're looking at more of an area, so like downtown, for example, or maybe along a high engine network, a couple blocks off that high engine network where we continue to see that high crash rate occurring, particularly with our vulnerable roadway users. So we have that map that you can see on the left.

Now with that, with twenty twenty five traffic fatality data, when we remove the interstate traffic fatalities, we are still seeing fifty percent of our traffic fatalities occurring on our high injury network that make up only five percent of our roadways. So just highlighting the continued need of where where to focus our efforts, where do we see the highest number, the percent of fatalities happening on just a small segment of our or small percent of percentage of our roadway network. Excellent.

Thanks, Rolf. And wanted to also highlight on top of modes, we look at various different data points as it relates to fatal traffic crashes that occur in Denver. So, here we'll talk a little bit about kind of where and why and what you see on the screen is a breakdown by roadway classification, so that's the type of roadway that we're seeing fatalities occurring on. And the link here to the high injury network is that we are still seeing roadways with higher traffic volumes, higher posted speed limits, where we're seeing a significant, count of traffic fatalities occurring, which continues to align with Denver's vision zero approach for the safe systems approach of safe roadways and safe speeds on those roadways. On the right side of the slide, you also see an approximate causal factors that DPD, the Denver Police, have put together related to the ninety three traffic fatalities that occurred in 2025 on Denver's roadways.

These causal factors are approximate. They may shift. I don't wanna present these as if they are final numbers. For example, the impairment related, there is typically a lag time for us to understand if there was any, impairment related as a contributing factor to a crash. There's a partnership that occurs with DDPHE, the Denver Department of Public Health and Environment, and their medical medical examiner's office as they do those investigations.

So don't wanna present these as final numbers in any way, shape, or form, but DPD has pulled this together so that we can understand what are some of those contributing factors to fatal crashes that are occurring on Denver's roadways. The last flag that I wanna make with this chart is, anybody quickly doing math here can add up that there are more than 93 counts on this pie chart. There are sometimes multiple contributing factors that can contribute to a fatal incident occurring on Denver's roadways.

You tell us what in Council members, feel free to just have a conversation because this is a learning opportune opportunity. Can you tell us what vigilance related I was just gonna ask him to say Okay. Okay.

So vigilance related, Great question, council chair committee chair, pardon me, is related to somebody not seen something. Could have been an opportunity where they didn't see a pedestrian as they were making a left turn and the pedestrian was crossing the roadway. That's what it gets to related to vigilance.

Okay. Would distracted driving be included in that, or would that I would have

to follow-up with DPD on that just to make sure that yes or no to that question. Director Ford.

And I know councilwoman Aldidresi had a question as well as councilman Bynes. Do wanna ask now?

No. I'll wait for the end. Yeah. Okay. Go ahead.

Thank you. And then the other data that DPD was kind enough to provide to us is just a simple high level review of where we're seeing high rates of traffic crashes occurring. Want to flag that this these two maps presented, present what is known as a traffic unit one, traffic unit two. So, those are generally speaking, most crashes are two party incidents that occur, and just seeing where those crashes are highest. Also wanna flag that these maps presented do not hone in on just serious crashes. They include all crashes throughout the city and county of Denver.

Could you explain what one and two means just so people understand that?

Generally speaking, traffic unit one is the where we see, not always, where we see a movement that caused a interaction to occur. And then traffic unit two ends up being who that person or or or who was involved that that action impacted. Yeah. Well mhmm. And then Raul's gonna talk just a little bit about some of those additional contributing factors that we have from our Denver Moves Everyone plan.

Yeah. And also our Visions Your Action Plan in terms of, you know, in addition to the to those that John just mentioned, yeah, there are several contributing factors such as driving under the influence, speed, and occupant protection. And these are all, as John just mentioned, you know, contributing factors that do continue to pop up in our crash data. So this is kind of an overview of those over several years and using not only national statistics but also Colorado related stats. Okay.

Next, we're going to dive a little bit more into seeing where we're focusing safety in Denver through our different programs. So next slide, please. I wanted to highlight the work of the team in developing a a public map where folks can go online and pull this down. This is the Denver Moves Everyone map that help helps track all of our projects in motion at DOTTI. Whether they are in plan design or in the construction phases, you can see this roll up of projects at the tie here on the right hand side and and also a breakout of those types of projects on the left hand side. Next slide.

Just to note, that map, and we can sit and talk with you all, is searchable by council district, by what's in construction, by what's in plan. It includes every single project we have from a signal light to a major corridor to traffic improvements to paving activities, etcetera. So I think it will be an opportunity for us to continue to do that deep dive with that. There's also a back end database that might be also easier to see exactly sort of how those projects play out across each of your council districts. Thanks for letting me interrupt.

Yep. Did wanna highlight the speed program and how it has worked to manage speed, particularly on our high injury network where it's focused on currently, which is Federal Boulevard in Alameda and currently moving on to Colorado. The speed program includes, on the right hand side, increased speed limit sign density. So we wanna set motors up with success on sharing what the speed limit is on the roadway. So increasing the frequency of the speed limit signs, has been completed.

In addition to that, installing driver feedback signs. So if they are going over the speed limit, it'll flash their speed back at them to just as a reminder of of the speed that they are going. In addition to the driver feedback signs, the team has worked to retime the traffic signals, particularly at night where we have shorter cycle lengths that help facilitate that speed going through because before, there were longer green times which would accommodate faster speeds. And with the shorter cycle length, it helps reduce that tendency to want speed. You see all the greens in speed, but if you do the speed limit, you'll be getting those green lights and moving through at the speed limit, which which is our goal.

And and, yes, adding LPIs, those pedestrian lead intervals for pedestrians along these corridors and enhancing and refreshing different pavement markings such as crosswalks and stop bars. Ensuring that the street lights are working. We had found that there are several segments of street lights that were not working. So working with our partners with Excel to to get those up and running also helps with visibility. And then the final part of the speed program is to implement speed safety cameras, which is a FHWA proven safety countermeasure to speeding.

In addition to the corridors, we also as you as I mentioned before about our safety focus areas, we were awarded a federal grant for downtown, our safer streets for all. All encumbering with local match on the federal grant is just around 8,000,000 in safety improvement dollars that would be implemented in the downtown area, which again is our say one of our safety focus areas. And we are working hard on finalizing that agreement with the feds, and hopefully that'll be starting here in a little bit. So alright. Next next slide.

Okay. Alright. So I wanted to talk a little bit about some preliminary results from the speed program. So along Federal Boulevard, we actually saw a 14 to 16% reduction in crashes during dark and late night hours. And then along Alameda.

We did not have a single traffic fatality on Alameda last year, and we did see a 21% decrease in late night crashes. And I think John may be getting to this, but highlighting we're seeing much more encouraging overall trends up until November. But November and December were some of the highest, I guess, traffic fatality numbers that we had seen in recent history. I believe CDOT had mentioned the last two months that they saw a 70% increase in traffic fatalities for the last two months. And we can get into some of those reasons later on, but we're trending much better than what we ended up, but we still ended up in some instances in a better spot than where we were.

And without those improvements, it very much could have been a lot worse in our opinion. So it is encouraging to see those those late night timing efforts that were installed are looking to show an increase or they already have and will hopefully continue in the in the future to see that decrease.

Okay. Great. Thanks for that overview on the speed program, Rolf. Wanted to take a moment and just think back to some past safety project examples, that, kind of embody the Vision Zero philosophy and a safe system approach. And, first one wanted to touch on was West Colfax Avenue.

And, as this committee knows, there is a major multimodal project that is ongoing, nearing completion. We have reached substantial completion on that project, on that corridor today. But this is really a story that has been a thread line for us at DOTI, at Vision Zero with this team for the last few years, and is a an example of that safe systems approach in action. We you see the statistics of serious crashes along that corridor from 2020 to 2025. There were fatal and serious bodily injury crashes occurring on West Colfax, particularly focused on the segments between Sheridan And Irving Streets or Sheridan Boulevard, Irving Street, pardon me.

And initially, Dottie rolled through and did the traffic signal timing to bring those progression speeds down to the posted speed limit. We saw positive, results from that effort similar to what we've done with the speed corridors. We then implemented, rapid implementation through, operations work orders through the department, to put in paint and post treatments at intersections where we were seeing high crash incidents and high crash rates, not necessarily always serious crashes, just a general crash picture to make sure that we were, particularly where it involved vulnerable roadway users to make sure that we were slowing down turning vehicles, that they had the time to see pedestrians. The signal timing was giving pedestrians the leading pedestrian intervals that they had. And then shortly thereafter that, we were successful in, an application for a safer, main streets application through the state that has federal funding that goes with it, that then implemented this full vision that DOTI has for West Colfax that is now reaching completion and is an excellent example of that layering approach of creating those redundant factors that help reduce overall crash pictures to where last year we saw no serious crashes along the West Colfax corridor during construction.

We will continue to evaluate West Colfax as construction completes. This is a new program that we have internally where we are evaluating these projects. But we wanted to take a moment to kinda step back before we move forward and show you what's ongoing and what the future holds for projects at Dottie. A couple other hits here, Park Avenue West pedestrian safety, I'll highlight very quickly. Again, another one of those instances where we deployed a work order along Park Avenue West, where we changed the roadway striping, along that roadway, saw safety benefits, created left turn pockets to address those left turn pictures and those rear end crash situations that were resulting in serious incidents, and then followed that up with pedestrian enhancements with pedestrian refuge islands to create those safe crossings along the corridor.

Broadway two way protected bikeway. Right? First was the the transit only lane for Broadway, then the two way bikeway with all of the new signal enhancements that came along the corridor. York Street, four to three conversion, I have one minor update on it. There is one serious crash that has occurred along York Street since this project has been completed.

We have also continued evaluation of this project in particular since completion of it and are expecting those results later this summer that we can share with this body as that, evaluation continues to move forward. To talk a little bit about what's going on currently, Rolf already alluded to some of this, but we do have our road safety audit program that was funded through the Safer Streets for All through the federal government where, we have nine road safety audits that are occurring throughout the city and county of Denver. That is a planning grant. So we are out in the field, walking up and down these corridors at all times of day. We're not, cherry picking, just rush hour or something along those lines.

We're out there early morning, afternoon, peak AM, peak PM, late night for those corridors that are really important to have those late night visits where we have a lot of night activity or nightlife. We also have a road safety audit project that is moving into final design here, in quarter two twenty twenty six that will shortly then move into construction fully funded for improvements along 20th Street downtown. And then as Rolf mentioned, we have almost 8,000,000 for downtown safety improvements that we're moving into final agreement with US DOT and FHWA currently right now. Want to pivot a little bit though and also talk about some of our kind of day to day operations that we have, which is resulting from the Rapid Response Program. Rolf alluded to this as part of our post crash care, as a part of that safe systems approach.

And want to just, make make sure it's known and aware that we do do this work. Every time a traffic fatality occurs on Denver's roadway, we pull together a multidisciplinary team between, members of DOTI and the Denver Police Department, and we review the specific circumstances that led, to that traffic crash occurrence, that serious fatal traffic crash occurrence. Through that initial office review, we will flag locations and we will go out and conduct field visits to be in the field, put boots on the ground, see the situation for what it is, walk the corridor, feel the same feelings that members of our communities feel when they walk Denver Streets. We also work along project managers if there is an active project ongoing where we can lean in and say, hey, we think that this project scope is mixing mixing x, y, and z. Is there any opportunity to work with your contractor to do this?

We have a few examples where those situations have resulted in safety improvements for active projects. So a really meaningful opportunity there that we do with these traffic crashes. I wanna recap 2025 though. Of the ninety three, fatal persons that were killed in traffic crashes last year, we did have 30 field visits that we conducted. Want to flag that 32 of the locations were not feasible for field visits.

Typically, that means is that they occurred along an interstate roadway, system. We do, however, I wanna highlight, partner with the Colorado Department of Transportation in making sure that they are aware of what occurred with each of those crash incidents so that they too can be informed and where opportunities present themselves, such as the northbound I 25 and 20th Street on ramp where we can partner together to make improvements, where those opportunities exist. We've even flagged things where we continue to see a crash picture that CDOT has been a collaborative partner with us on where they have implemented improvements along the interstate system too. So even though we may not own or have the ability to make changes on those roadways ourselves as DOTI, we can influence and work alongside collaboratively with our partners. And that is a highlight of those 45 fatal crashes that we reviewed alongside CDOT.

CDOT is in the field with us at those locations along state highway locations, along our high injury network. We also do have, sometimes members from doctor Cog, our Denver Regional Council Of Governments, with us in the field or even members of the public with us additionally too. And just to highlight of the 70 crash sites that Dottie could influence change at in 2025, you know, picked a couple of these, but we had 10 sign or specialty marketing work orders that were installed through our internal teams. That's our engineering teams writing those work orders, sending those over to our operations crews, and then having those work orders installed. So a spot example with the picture that we have here, on the screen is at Federal Boulevard and Howard Place and 14th Avenue where we partnered with CDOT and they provided the work zone establishment, the traffic control management of that while our crews went in and were able to install in lane speed limit signs.

We installed rumble strips along those roadways. We changed the signage along the off ramps at the location. We changed the striping and removed the double left turn off of Howard Place onto southbound Federal Boulevard at the location. So great example of collaboration alongside CDOT. We also identified opportunities for system wide changes along MLK Boulevard where there was a wrong way fatal crash that had occurred, last year.

Just as one example at West 38th Ave at Tejon Street, since, traffic fatality occurred there involving a, person riding a bicycle and a person driving a car, we changed the traffic signal timing. Highlight here is that we do have similar to our speed program, the opportunity to, change the entire traffic signal timing along that corridor, but we advanced a spot treatment at this one location to address a significant concern that we heard from residents and community members, who were in the field with us when we made that field visit at that fatal crash site. I already spoke to the 20th Street at Northbound I 25 on ramp, but just to give an example of that collaboration and partnership, DOTI internally changed our signs and markings out on that on off ramp or on ramp, pardon me, to I Northbound I 25. CDOT, as a result of this, has engaged in a study to review that on ramp and with an external consultant to have recommendations made to them about how they can make that intersection where it's their jurisdiction safer for all roadway users. And then for those projects that maybe did not result in a site visit or a sign and specialty marketing work order, We're flagging opportunities where we see that there could be, an application through the Highway Safety Improvement Program through the Colorado Department of Transportation where we can apply for grant dollars for traffic signal improvements at a location that meet our criteria for uncontrolled pedestrian crossing guidelines, or even for opportunities with our safer streets for all opportunities that come through the federal government additionally too.

We'll also pivot real quick and talk about safer routes to school in 2026. These are slides that just, you know, very high level, but wanted to make sure that we also talked about Safe Routes to School. It is part of our safety program at DOTI. It is under the umbrella of Vision Zero. And in 2026, we will complete a contract that we have for travel plan studies.

That contract encapsulates 12 schools. We have completed travel plan studies for nine of those school locations. Three of those school locations are left and will be wrapped up by June 2026 this year. When that contract concludes in June year, there will be about 30 schools that have completed travel plan studies that work alongside community to understand concerns, develop recommendations, and then program those recommendations through our capital programs at DOTI and is a really great example of completing our prioritization process in the Safe Routes to School Action Plan. We'll continue to partner alongside CDOT for school zones along state highways.

We've heard from, members of the community and city council that there are concerns about, state highway schools adjacent to state highways such as Federal Boulevard, Sheridan, where school zones do not exist. I'm happy to report that we have submitted applications to CDOT. They have a process to review those school zone applications. Typically, it is on the schools to make those applications, submit those to the Colorado Department of Transportation, but we have stepped in and said, no. That is not the correct course for business.

DOTI will step in here. We will put those applications together, and we will advance those among our partners at CDOT in order to drive those results and those safety improvements at and around schools. We do have the first round of those applications back from CDOT. We have their guidance and their approval to move forward with school zone adjustments along some of those schools. We will continue to file those applications on behalf of schools, and work with our partners at, CDOT to keep those moving forward.

With Safe Routes of School, we do have two grants that we were approved for in 2025 that will move forward final contracts with. One of those is going to release for education and encouragement opportunities to continue in school bike ped safety education curriculum that is through our Office of Community and Business Engagement. Those teams have been running that program for the last five years or so through this grant program that CDOT provides, and they will continue to move that program forward in 2026. The second grant that we were awarded from CDOT and moving into final agreements with between the state and the city, will be to install a pedestrian hybrid beacon, a pedestrian beacon for Stanley British Primary School at the intersection of Quebec And East 4th Avenue, where there has been a documented concern through our three one one process. As noted, we'll continue three one one support for school related requests.

We continue to provide funding, to partner with Denver Public Schools on the crossing guard contract, and then we have it in our work plan to also take a look at our Safe Routes to School action plan that, completes well, the work never completes, but the action plan, finalizes, on December 31 this year. So we wanna make sure that we're getting ahead of that action plan completion and moving that forward to re envision what the next long range plan for Safe Routes to School will look like with everything that we've learned over the last five years. Just to highlight a couple other things for delivering Safe Routes to School, flashing beacons in school zone updates. We had noticed to proceed on a contract to redesign 30 or to do design work for 30 school zone beacons that we will advance into construction as funding allows. That contract also includes 20 locations for school zone updates.

So what that means is four locations that we've identified that are appropriate for those school zone flashing beacons. We'll get those designs done for the school zone updates. We'll be going through and doing a refresh. We'll be working alongside those schools to make sure we understand what their loading zone needs are, where their school bus loading is, where crosswalk markings might need to be refreshed, where the school zone signs themselves need to be refreshed to make sure that our partners in DPD can enforce those school zones because that is a partnership between our two agencies and teams. For pedestrian crossings, we continue to work within our teams to develop 15 locations that are in design and we'll continue to move those forward into construction in 2026 and beyond.

For traffic signals, I've already highlighted the Stanley British traffic signal there through the grant program that we have with CDOT. We also have Mill 22, Councilman Cashman, there at Asbury Elementary. There will be a mid block improvement to that traffic signal that will go in this year. Notice to proceed has been issued to that contractor. We should see groundbreaking imminently for that project.

We will also construct a pedestrian signal at 56 And Beeler Street. That is for the Northfield campus. In District 8, we have heard, both from residents and council that, that is a priority area. It is a significant safety, location that Dottie needs to lean in on here. So we will be building that pedestrian signal there as we have wrapped that funding into our bond program.

So substantial completion needs to be obtained, I think by the end of this year for that bond program. I'm seeing Amy shake her head in affirmative. Bikeways, this is how we create connections for kids to use active transportation to get to and from school. So West Kentucky Ave, we'll be targeting some bikeway enhancements for the Kepner Beacon Campus, which also ties into the Rocky Mountain Prep Southwest. And Castro Elementary was consolidated last year, but there is a new school at that location on the west side of that corridor, West 7th Avenue at Gals Middle School, High School, Teller Elementary with a neighborhood bikeway on East 12th Ave. So lots coming in 2026 for safe routes to school. And then here, I think I pivot over to Rolf where we talk about some other efforts that the Vision Zero program is working on.

Thank you, John. Yes. So in addition to the projects, we also have other outreach and education opportunities. I want to highlight, as John mentioned, you know, we don't actually do work as part of our rapid response program on the interstates, but we did flag a significant increase number of pedestrian fatalities on our interstates this past year. I believe that number is eight.

There were eight pedestrians that were killed on an interstates this past year, and that it was up significantly from previous years. And with that, we took the opportunity to partner with CDOT, partnered with RTD, partnered with DPD, and we acknowledged pedestrian safety awareness month at the at CDOT's headquarters and acknowledged acknowledge that there are services that CDOT does provide if your car breaks down, if something falls off your car, if you run out of gas or have a flat tire, that you can call this number and seek support. They will come and help so you are not out your out of your car on the interstate in a high risk area. So anyways, just wanting to share about using the rapid response program, highlighting some education, encouragement opportunities out of that as well. And these are ways that we have implemented this past year with executive director Ford leading that effort with with the press event with our partners.

In addition to that, we did launch last year the for the Love of Safety pledge and campaign along Federal And Alameda for mining folks. So this was not a standalone effort. It was in conjunction with all of the speed related activities I just mentioned, and it was a way to tie them together through a digital marketing and education opportunity. And that happened this past spring. In addition to that, we partnered with some sports marketing messaging around safety with folks who are participating or going to different sporting events.

And, yeah, I just wanted to overall highlight additional education opportunities that our office of community business engagement does, either it be through the teen safe driving program or the occupant protection with the seat belt booster seat program and other outreach efforts in promoting the speed program and education. So it's just not the the projects, but we're tying the projects to the education and the encouragement opportunities as well. So and that picture in the bottom right is a picture of one of the billboards that was up on Federal And Alameda during that time. All right. John?

And I think with this,

we actually

so here, we want to just high level pull together a list of capital programs that we have at the department to just highlight that there's $19,000,000 worth of safety investments in the 2026 capital budget alone, of safety improvements across pedestrian crossing, safe routes to school, neighborhood transportation, and traffic calming. And this isn't including any of the maintenance or upkeep to maintain a good state of the system that we have for our roadways, our paving programs, our bridges, any of our mode shift, our downtown opportunities. This is just a small snippet of what we have in motion in 2026. And I think with that highlight, I wanted to turn it over to Director Ford to close us out with some next Close

it out. Just you know, a quick note about some of those stats because we often deal with this in our budget sessions. You ask, where's the money going for safety? And so that's why we wanted to show you that breakdown so you could see the how it plays itself across multiple fields. But I use the traffic signals as an example. Whenever we go in and we replace a traffic signal, we're replacing them with a big border around the traffic signal. You've probably seen that. It's reflective. It's big. It's large.

And the increased visibility of that traffic signal has proven what we call crash reduction factors of about 15% or so. I think to date, we've replaced 700 of the signals around the city. And so just to give you a sense, like when you see things like that, a traffic signal, and you're like, oh, why is that considered safety? Because we're doing additional things on top of that. So as we close it out then, I mentioned that I wanted to talk about, so what's next?

So we had a terrible year, and so what? When you see a terrible year, you see the incredible amount of effort and thought and detail that we put in to how we think about this system and how we drive safety and what's our approach. But what we asked and what I've asked is that we actually do a safety stand out with all of DOTI. And what does that mean? So coming here in January and others, as we were watching what happened this year, was to say, let's peel apart and take apart and look at everything that we are doing to see if it is the highest and best use evaluations, application of our dollars, review when we saw our numbers and our trends going in ways that we didn't want to do.

And are we making the right investments? Are we doing the right things? Are we answering the right questions? Are we addressing the right spots? Are we looking in the right way?

And so we're going to be doing a lot of that here through February and then specifically March. I know a lot of people are focusing at keying in on March here, even next week, and talking about safety as a whole to sort of say it's important for us to be continuing to focus on Vision Zero. What you're going to see for us is we've already started a transportation deep dive where we pulled our team members in and done a whole analysis on all of those crashes that happened in last year. We're going probably expand that to all of transportation, not just if you're sitting in our planning and our design group, but we are going to expand it actually to all of DOTI. So our inspectors who are in the field, our solid waste drivers who are out, our team members who come and go to work, we are going be talking with them and asking them, because they are in their system, they are our eyes and ears in this system to help us think critically and creatively in looking at what they see.

If I am a solid waste driver and I am going by my same route every day and I see people sitting in an RTD bus shelter who are not sitting at the shelter but that are standing in the street as they wait for the stop, flag it for If I see people who are constantly doing a mid block crossing in a certain area because they're trying to access a store or otherwise, flag it for us. So these are the things that we're going be doing starting here coming into this month and continuing through the year. But it's just a continued effort for us to be able to stop calls. Sometimes these programs can just take on a life of their own, to come back and pull ourselves back and reevaluate with all of the eyes and ears of Dottie. And so this is where we're sending her out.

So thank you. Again, the intent of these is to provide the big, big context, so as we go into budget, as we go into the rest, you guys have the framework and the understanding. When we come to you with a safety contract, for instance, like Mississippi, be a good example in the last meeting, you know, so you understand how it fits into the larger construct of what we're doing. Now with that, stop. So thank you.

Thank you so much. Really appreciate the presentation. I would like to welcome council president Sandoval and pro tem Romero Campbell, both online. We have everyone in the queue. That's a good sign. So we will start with councilwoman Alvedrez, and then kick it to you, councilman Flynn.

Thank you, committee chair. And if it's okay, I'd like to start with a moment of silence for the 93 individuals Thank that lost their

you.

Thank you for that. Thank you. Looking at that number is very sad. I think about if one of those per people was my family member, this wall would not be good enough for me. And so I can't imagine losing a family member to something that's preventable.

And I it's really saddening to see the numbers go up as I've been elected in my district and having a lot of the high injury network. So I just wanna ground in those 93 families that lost someone that was the whole world to them. I am I do have some questions about the speed program in Alameda and federal area in general. I know cameras are part of that. I also know this is a low income community of color. And how are we thinking about having speed cameras in that area and it disproportionately affecting a low income community in that way?

This is a great question. And I'll ask Elena to chime in, as Moralph and others. So we're going to be coming to you all here soon to talk about the implementation of the automated speed camera program. We have spent the last year and a half to plus with some critique, I might add, from safety advocates and others in taking our time to think about how we implement an automated speed program. Much of the consideration of the automated speed program has been ensuring that we have wraparound programming that includes other mitigation measures that we are putting into corridors like Federal and Alameda in addition to how we look at sort of automated speed cameras and still working to try to drive down crashes and fatalities as as we go.

We have spent the last year plus doing focus groups and engagement with communities of Federal and Alameda and along with our partners with OSCI to talk about the speed program as a whole, to talk about automated speed program, to talk about what we see as potential mitigation measures that might be put in place as we implement an automated speed program so that we don't disproportionately have impact to community members who may be more vulnerable in regards to sort of income and otherwise. So we actually are gonna be coming and talking with you all about some of those mitigation measures that we're looking at putting into place, such as things like waiving tickets and affordability program and some other measures that the community shared with us they felt was important as we looked at how we would implement this program. Not all cities in the state have been doing some of that, as they have been implementing these programs that you've been putting out, as you know, across the state. So we've been very deliberate in that process. So in addition to that, a lot of consideration has gone into where we locate those cameras and where we go and being data driven and data analysis and sort of looking on the federal side about where we see pockets of speeding still at.

So for us, that'll probably be somewhere in the Central federal area as we go. In Alameda, actually, we are proposing that those speed cameras actually be put on the East Side Of Alameda. So when I mean East, I mean East East as in the Lowry area there on that particular high entry network. But what you'll see come in front of you here probably in the next month or so is an ordinance language that includes what is required by state law that authorized automated speed cameras, ordinance language that would authorize the the use of automated speed cameras in all of the high entry networks in Denver, as well as a companion with the the particular program and contracts about how we would do it and implement it along with the information that we're talking about here about how we propose to roll out the program, the mitigations, and otherwise. But I could go into great, great detail, but I'll sort of leave it at that.

It's been some deep thought.

Appreciate that. You said community concern. Did you do outreach about this program?

Yes, we did. So we've done a combination. So our OCBE team has been in the community for the last year and a half plus talking about the SPREC program, sharing information and details, fact sheets, community events, and others. And if I had Kayla and team here, they could sort of rattle off the hundreds of events they've been at. We also hosted several focus group sessions with do you have a list, actually, of the communities? It was Sun Sun

Valley. Valley. I'd have to double check. It was only full

can't remember.

I knew

it was Mount Vernon.

So we I think Westwood maybe, but I'll confirm.

Can get that information to you. So we did focus group sessions last late summer, and we're doing another round of those focus group sessions here actually this spring to share with them sort of what we're seeing and what we're thinking and to continue to gather some of that view. Great.

I am aware of Atmar Park wasn't included. They're one of the four neighborhoods on Alameda and Federal.

I will double check. If they were right there along Alameda and Federal, they should have been. Okay. But we will double check.

When I talk about that, I think about the neighborhood organization. And so they specifically reached out to me. So if somehow you did have something, I wasn't aware of it. And I don't know if the neighborhood organization was. So I We'll I appreciate that fall.

We'll flag that then for the additional focus group and follow-up if we can with that with that. Thank you, council.

And then just at the end there where you have this, like, $19,000,000 worth of projects, it would be helpful to see what that broken down by district. Yep. So we could see where those projects are being concentrated.

We can do that.

Great. For the Safe Routes to School, how far along are we in completing the Safe Routes to School plan?

There are various aspects to the Safe Routes Action Plan. So I I I don't know that there is a, like, full number that I can get. You know, there are 50 strategies with two overarching goals in the current Safe Routes School Action Plan. The two overarching goals are to make sure that there are no serious crashes that involve a person traveling to and from school, a child traveling to and from school, and to see mode shift, to increase the number of students, children traveling by an active mode to and from school from, I think, 13 to 30%. Those are the two overarching goals.

Can you repeat that and explain to me what shift you're talking about? Because I'm not

Yeah. Moving them from personal automobile to an active mode of transportation, you know, where feasible. I don't wanna pretend, you know

Active mode of transportation

Walk, bike, roll. Yeah. Yeah. And role can encompass many things. It can be accessibility focused with somebody in a wheelchair, making sure that we have dignified sidewalks and a walking a sidewalk for somebody to use to get to and from school. It can be skateboard, roller blades, kick scooter, not a electric stand up scooter provided by a live or bird. So, yeah, that's what we mean by active.

That's interesting to me because I see that the pedestrian deaths are more likely. So as a mom or child, why would I walk or bike when I'm more likely to die getting to school?

I think this comes down to and open to the team jumping in here, but we're looking at neighborhood trips. We're not talking about, you know, having somebody walk along any of our high injury network roadways or anything along those lines. I have two elementary schools

just outside of District 71 in District 7 on Alameda. And so, yeah, I just see some incongruency there. I do worry. I did the celebrity cross guard at Valverde two years ago, And a lot of the people are walking and finding their way across, but it is still very scary for them. And so I don't know how them doing that makes them safer, I guess, is where I'm confused. And so it seems like there's a more need for infrastructure than necessarily mode shift that and I don't know what the strategy is to get the mode shift.

There's also ways that you can think about encouraging and educating and thinking about alternative modes of train. So carpool is always an option. I like to think about the concept of park a grade away. So as child you know, if you must drive to school, you can park one block away for your first grader, two blocks away for your second, and so on and so forth. That way, you're kind of decoupling some of the challenges that occur when, you know, you have a 100 families all trying to access one parcel of land at a fifteen minute window both in the morning and the afternoon.

There are ways that you can kind of disperse some of that tension that we can think about that don't always necessarily mean that you have to travel across a major roadway or a high injury network roadway. The core

focus of the Safe Routes to Schools program is infrastructure safety so that you can facilitate people walking Yes. Biking, as well as driving to the schools. So it's safe movement management, and much of what John was talking about were those improvements on how we

do that,

lights, sidewalks, crossings, etcetera, and then education.

Okay. That's helpful to know. If speed seems to be such a problem, why are we not aggressively lowering speeds on the high injury corridors? So we've got

a combination of things. And, Rahul, feel free to to to add into this. So we are in in many. So as you know, citywide, we have lowered speed limits to 20 on all neighborhood streets other than those what we call collectors or arterials. Those collectors and arterials, we also collaborate with.

In many cases, as you're aware, they are also state highways. And so we collaborate with our partners at CDOT and others, you know, on how we can make requests to think about how we lower down speed limits. You have speed limits in a space that is about safe speeds and the travel of safe speeds. As you know, we do speed studies on what is the average speed in those corridors and then how you appropriately set the speeds there, and then how you monitor and let people know when they are speeding, which is why you have reflective speed signs and others. And so those are things that we are exploring, and I don't know if we have instances of high injury networks where we Alameda is a coming example where we will be lowering the speed limit along Alameda in our favorite area where we've been talking about for the last few months.

So that speed will be coming down in that particular corridor. And actually, you probably could list some others where we have been doing it.

We have a few others that we can provide you that list. And particularly, we're very much interested in those excessive speeders doing 10 or more mile an hour over the posted speed limit and bringing those down. But, yeah, we can get you a list of

I might add just real quickly on this question of automated speed cameras, which is always this delicate balance of how we think about it and the impacts of community and where we go and what it is in a crash reduction factor. And as you know, the state carefully the legislation to allow it. It is for excessive speeders, so it's basically 11 and over for those excessive speeders. You have these proven crash reduction factors when it comes to speed, and there's a pretty significant factor of, you know, upwards of 45 to 50%. You see some dramatic impact in cities and others. We've been following San Francisco's recently as they've been just implementing theirs. You're seeing speed reductions in these corridors by upwards of 70%. I mean, it's been very high. Why do we care about speed? I mean, use the example of, let's say, a federal.

It just happened. We had a young man who was crossing on a scooter and crossed federal and was hit and killed. Similarly, when with 38th and Tejon, speed was a factor potentially in both of those. And let's say that there is a mistake that is made in how people are traveling as they go. The speed does not allow you the chance to respond to a mistake.

And that is why we care so much about speed because it reduces the human factor for us to be able to respond, to adapt to something that maybe is happening in the corridor that that we could otherwise prevent. And that's why we care. That's why we care as much as we do about speed. And and that's why one of the reasons that we'll be focusing again on these automated speed cameras too. And we are seeing we just nationally and otherwise, we are seeing the effect of those and what it does to have people start caring about how they drive in the behavior and about how it cares for the people around.

I appreciate that. My last question, and then I'll hand it over to committee chair, is just I know you talked about researching fatal crashes. I've asked for the reports on the fatal crashes in my district. I have never gotten them or gotten briefed on them. Is there a report at the end of this investigation, and are there changes made? And I think including us in that conversation would be very helpful.

Absolutely. We could do that, and we can provide that report. We can we can provide that report and that summary report. We will do that. Just just awareness, it takes some time sometimes for us as we go through that process. We absolutely we can

do that.

Yeah. Like, how long? Because I've been asking for reports for years, and I don't know if they're not done yet. Like, how long does it take to complete one of these?

Gotcha. On how we do rapid response?

Oh, you're talking about the rapid response Yes. Report. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. It sometimes it it depends. If it is a hit and run, we're still waiting for our DPD is waiting for evidence, for example, and then we're dependent on their timeline and their analysis. And then we bring in kind of our experts and work with them on determining that. But if I guess it sounds like you have been waiting for The

2023 when I was first elected was the first death in my district on Santa Fe and Mississippi, and I never got the The records. The records on the way.

Let us work on that.

We'll get

back to you. We can we can absolutely do that with the transfer. Yeah.

Great. Thank you, ma'am. You so much. Really appreciate it. Just a quick time check. We have about twenty minutes. We have councilman Flynn. You're good. Councilman Flynn in the queue, and then I have councilman Kaufman after.

Thank you, madam chair. I'll be as concise as as I always am. Thank you for mentioning speed, by the way, because lowering the speed limit doesn't result in lower traffic speeds. In fact, sometimes raising speed limits lower speeds. Right. You might remember this on on highways because at T Rex, that segment through the tech center and on 6th Avenue when CDOT raised the speed limit on 6th Avenue to 65, it literally lowered the average speed Yep. Because the lower speed limit was causing backups that people were speeding around. So you had excessive speeds. It brought in the the margins. So, anyway excuse me.

On slide the 28 data information request, so you don't need to answer here because you probably don't have the answer here. I have been asking for consideration of crosswalk at some a couple locations and beacons at Saban Elementary on Dartmouth. There's a mid block traffic signal there, and there's a static signage on either end, school zone seven to nine, two to four, whatever it is. The parents there have been asking me for years, why don't we have the beacon? Dartmouth is pretty major.

I don't know if it's classified as an arterial or a collector. It might just be a collector. But on Florida, and I think on Jewel, Johnson Elementary, Gust, I think Gust has one, and Force Elementary on Florida all have the flashing beacons. And the folks at Saban would like to join the club. So the could you could you find out, Elena, maybe if that's where is that? Is it like, oh, Flynn Ashford, you know, or Southwest Denver? We don't care.

We can we can have John go through that. And I suspect and I don't mean this flippantly by any stretch. Anticipate that all council members have exactly what you just said.

They always per statement element.

There is a there is a school, a district, a location where they say where you all have said, I need a light here. I need a crossing here. Yeah. And we need a such and such there. And and we take those, as you know, put them into the pool, into the queue, analyze it, say, yes. It could be a value, etcetera. But we will absolutely follow-up. For me then.

Also, like, in one of my in my briefing, Elijah, I'm just trying to move along. So Yeah. Denison Montessori, DPS charter, at Yates And Jewel, significant issue there is the offset of Yates between the Marley Subdivision and Harvey Park. But there is an opportunity to do kind of a weird crosswalk there. Maybe weird crosswalk isn't a good thing to say.

But for the kids who try the parents who try to walk their kids across Jewel there, there's an opportunity to do a different kind of crosswalk that would go from the I think it would go from the Southwest Corner of Yates And Jewell to the Northeast Corner. Right? Something responsive. On Evans, there's a mid block mid block signal there on Evans that I've never really seen utilized. But here where kids are trying to cross Jewell to get to the school that's right there. So please let me know where that where that is. And then maybe just generally tell us where the pedestrian crossings are that are in design, the 15 locations. Maybe the one at Jewel And Yates is is one of them.

We will absolutely send you that breakdown list.

Two quick questions just to clarify for my my own edification, not for anyone else's. On the slide 16, deeper dive where and why, you've broken out the KSI events twenty four and twenty five by the type of roadway. Tell me, state highway, is that all state highways in Denver or are some state highways in the arterial category? Because Federal Boulevard is a state highway. You know, Wadsworth is a state highway. Sheridan in my district, federal. So

You wanna

is state highway exclude all does that include all state designated highways like Colfax?

To the best of my knowledge at this time, and I'll go back and triple check this for you, councilman, includes all state highways

Okay.

In the city and county agenda Okay. Which I I believe are functionally classified as arterials, but any one of those that is owned and maintained by CDOT.

Are our are our relations with CDOT friendly right now?

Yes.

Because I found them really hard to deal with on some issues. It's signal. I don't know how you can reset retime a signal on a state highway as quickly as you say because when we tried to change the protected and prohibited versus protected and permissive left signals at Yale and Sheridan, It took months because we they said, well, once we made one adjustment, we had to do another and then we had to wait and blah blah blah. So I'm hoping that things are better. It's good to hear that.

We're working on it. And so so we manage some of the signals like on federal as an example. You know people at the same time. Yeah. I'll put my old seat off hat on. Yeah.

Last question on slide 14. In every year where it's fatalities by mode, I'm really curious about twenty twenty five at the very top of it. It says to other. So we have people walking, people biking, motorcycles, bicycles, scooters. And then at the top, in 2025 only, there it is. Thank you. There's a category of two. I'm wondering, but I don't see that in any other year. What what is do we know what that is?

I'll triple check for you, but I believe this involves two crash incidents that resulted in fatality. One of them that occurred at Denver International Airport involving load vehicles that were being operated by two different individuals, two different vehicles involved. And I believe the other one is a crash incident that involves a person who was operating an ATV with a snow plow attachment on the front of it, tried to go up a curb cut, and was ejected from that vehicle.

I'm glad that that didn't happen in any other year. Thank you. That's all, madam chair.

Thank you. Just a reminder, keep a concise. Councilman Cashman, and then I have council president Sandoval.

Thank you, madam chair. Is your weird sidewalk just for weird people? Or so one of your slides talked about 56% of the fatalities, people were tested positive for at least one drug. I'm guessing the vast majority of those were alcohol. I'd I'd love to know that.

Okay? You mentioned when you were talking about West Colfax work that the and what what I wrote, you said a new program would be evaluating these projects. Wouldn't need a new program. I would assume we always evaluate the projects we put in place.

Do you want to Go go ahead, John. We do have an evaluation initiative. We do always go back and, of course, take a look at our projects after they have, been completed. What I would say is we've pivoted to be, a lot more data focused on what our value evaluation initiative will do moving forward. So we've always gone back and evaluated projects for the goals that we set, whether it was safety or mode shift or capacity opportunities or transit opportunities along corridors.

But our evaluation initiative that we've now annually funded through the programs, we'll go back and look at speed cushions. Not just from a quantitative way, I think maybe the flag here is that we're also looking at qualitative. So we're doing surveys. We're asking members of the community, you know, did this make you feel did for for both maybe a bicyclist and a driver in a car, did these speed cushions make you feel safer? Do you do you feel that the roadways, are harder to navigate as a result of x, y, or z?

Yeah. That probably wouldn't work in District 6 as we don't have any speed cushions, but that's another discussion we need to have. We really as as a city, we've we've got to look at our budget. You know, I am not a defender of our safety budget, but what's more valuable? How much are we spending to be sure that our bicycles are safe in our garage when we obviously need money for Safe Routes to School and all your other programs.

What what is the Safe Routes to School budget?

For 2026? Yeah.

I can go back and pull up your notes that you sent me when I had to answer that question before.

I think it's extra 1,600,000.0. Approximately, I I I think it's about 2,500,000.0 approximately.

We just and I voted for it. We voted and what I'm referring to is $70,000,000 of capital funds for for a soccer stadium. I can justify that vote, but we gotta figure out when we make these investments where such other critical areas are not being funded, let's take some of that money that's supposedly coming back from the economic dollar generation projects like the soccer stadium are gonna generate and make sure it goes into these critical areas that are not being adequately funded. Two point something for Safe Routes to School is ludicrous when you compare it to the need. And the need is obviously in the hundreds of millions of dollars.

So there Expensive.

Just to give you clarity, it is $2,000,000. 1.3 of it was from city sources. 1.1 of it was what so grants we've secured from the state. And then you all additionally added 1,600,000.0 into that. So we're at a total of 3.67 right now for this year.

And that does so little when we're talking sidewalks and widening things and all that. So I guess my my last question, probably most important, where is the failure? Why did those numbers go up? And this is coffee table. Yeah. You know, like, what what are we missing? Are we not spending enough on speed cushions? Should we be narrowing roadways? What the heck?

That's what we're gonna be sitting and also doing some additional thought and analysis on why we do these rapid responses. So, you know, there's there's three elements, I think, when we sit and we look at this. There's behavior, the behavior of the people traveling in the system who are driving it, walking it, riding it, etcetera, and sort of impairments, distracted driving, etcetera, and sort of those behaviors and how those fit together. There is the infrastructure that we could and should be doing, and how do we change the infrastructure to make it as safe as we possibly can. I use Hoboken as I'm there quite a bit.

My son's in New Jersey, so I'm in Hoboken a lot. They have it's an old community, very old, very narrow, very packed with cars, very very close parking. So people cannot speed. They cannot walk. They have to keep their eyes peeled when when you see people around walking, riding, biking, and they are not going fast. And so even if you have an incident where a pedestrian crosses in front of a vehicle, that that vehicle might be going 20 or less in a corridor, which enhances the survivability. I'm just gonna say it like that. It's very blunt. So so how we continue to address our infrastructure questions from crossings to protected environments to how we reduce speeds and corridors, etcetera, are all part of our approach in when we do this. And the last piece is actually services and how those fit.

Not one person died riding an RTD bus from a mobility choice perspective. I'll just mention that. When we talk about things like low choice and otherwise, you know, so there are other elements that you think about, about how people travel or how they get from point A to point B and how we think about how we improve safety. This last year, you sit and you look. We had an increase in our scooters by a significant amount.

We also know that the ridership has gone up significantly in Denver, as you are aware. Actually, proportionally, our fatalities are still down, and our injuries are down because of the the increased amount of ridership that we have. So proportionally, it's down. But nonetheless, it was a number that went up, and it was uncomfortable. This question of the eight eight pedestrians on the interstates was shocking in many ways and shocking that you had that many pedestrians dying on an interstate and what are people doing on that interstate and how do you treat that? It's a behavioral piece on it, frankly, on that.

The one other statistic that I'd appreciate seeing is we know I appreciate the chart. The number is going up on people we've lost, but I'd like to see that per thousand residents Yes. Because our our population changes, and I'm wondering I'd just love to see that if if

you can together. We can absolutely provide.

Thank you

very much. That's all, madam chair.

Thank you

so much. I appreciate it. Council president Sandoval?

Thank you, madam chair. Good discussion. So some questions for Dottie. When we're looking at the safe routes and all not it's not safe routes for school. Sorry. When we're looking at all of the data, you keep referencing DPD. Do you reach out to fire, Denver Fire as well to see what their what their analysis is?

Usually, we focus on DPD, and we can focus, you know, we can include Denver fire as well as part of the rapid response. John, do you can you remind me, sometimes with our road safety audits, our first responders will include fire?

Have to go back and look

at the invite list for those. Yeah. Yeah. Usually with the rapid response, particularly, it is the investigating officer that participates in in those field visits and has the latest information, you from first responders, so consolidate.

And I don't necessarily mean that. I mean number slide 15. Oftentimes, our fire department is first on scene because they have a requirement according to what we our fire standard. They have to be there within four minutes. So it's usually within four, maybe five, six minutes.

And they're often the ones taking the first initial responses and are actually looking at what happened and getting testimony first. And then oftentimes, it's the police that show up second. So I I I wish that it was more of a holistic approach with fire. They're so essential. They not saying that police officers don't ride around, but they our fire departments ride around in bigger rigs.

And so they see things in a very different from a very different vantage point. So I would if you could please, I've I've done an analysis when I've looked at 32nd Avenue. I've gotten data from DPD, and I've gotten separate data from fire, and they don't match up. And fire has a very different look at things. And so when I put the information together and then parsed it out, it tells a very different story.

So for the fatality on 38th in Tejon, it was two blocks away from a fire station. They were right there. They literally got in their rig and were right there. So to not have fire part of the analysis is concerning. I think also along Federal, I know I have a fire station in my council district. Councilman Albedriz, I can't remember if one

of He did. 23.

Yeah. 20 Threes, and that's a really busy station major. So to not have them have an analysis and say, hey. What do you all see along 26th And Federal just in your life of living in a fire station for twenty four hours, I think is a miss. So if you could start including the fire department, I would really appreciate that.

Appreciate it, doctor. Thank you.

The next question I have is some of these Denver Moves Everyone on Slide 20. We were looking at major pedestrian intersection projects, slow safe, slow networks, bikeways Along 41st And Lowell, I have a protected bikeway or a bikeway. It's like one of the bikeway streets of 41st, and it has a rapid fire beacon, a a flashing beacon. And a young gentleman got hit going to Skinner on his bike. And then on 41st on Federal, a young person got hit going to Centennial on their bike.

And so we're pushing these bikes onto 41st, which is working, but we're not looking at the other intersections like Federal and Irving and Lowell. And those speed limits on Lowell are so fast. And what's interesting about my council district is I-seventy has an off ramp. I've talked to the director Ford about this. And people get off on I 70 to circumvent Federal or Sheridan, and they just speed.

So I would really I have a registered neighborhood organization who and the advocate in Northwest Denver who's been asking for a response. I'm looking at Lowell, and I don't see it on the map. So I would just love if that could be updated and add Lowell. And then another just thought I have is when we do these improvements, such as 29th Avenue bike lane, it has pushed traffic onto 20 to 32nd and to 26th. And I keep telling my residents that's because that's what we want.

We want 29th Avenue to be safe for the bikes to go on there. That's the infrastructure that we pushed out onto. But it takes so long to do an analysis of the other impacts. I just don't have an answer for that. So I don't that's like a longer conversation.

But how do we do the analysis of the impacts that the intended impact of pushing traffic onto 32nd And 26th? Because we have schools on 26th Avenue, and we have Sloan's Lake. So that's just a a problem we're gonna have to put for another day because it it we're late, and I already know that we're running out of time. And then for for the rapid fire beacons, which are the flashing beacons, I in the 2021 bond, I went to Dottie, and I said, how do you need me to support you? Where should I put money?

And I got money for beacons in my neighborhood, and it's 2026, and they're not even installed. So it's like part of The U part of it, it's like, oh, we don't have the money, and we don't have the resources. And then when I got you the money, they're like, oh, well, now we need to redo analysis, and we don't we haven't put them in. And one of them isn't going in that I got on 26th and Tennyson for Sloan's Lake. And I no one's telling me where it's gonna go in replacement for the one that I got on twenty sixth.

And I all I did was use Dottie's analysis. I just I literally went to Dottie in the 2021 bond and said, where should we put these? Like, if you have a list of places that need this infrastructure, give it to me, and I'll get in the bond. And I did. And now it's saying that they need to reevaluate things, and we need to redo work.

So I guess I don't understand how that works is when I'm using the information that you all provide me. I'm going off of your list, and then I get you the resources. And now it's not I don't even have an update for one any of them. And then one of them on 26 is totally being moved because we're reevaluating that intersection at Sloan's Lake, and we're gonna make it better. I do believe we're gonna make it better.

But then that beacon should go somewhere else in Council District 1 because we have such high need that I work diligently to get that. And it so I I know that you all in the city are doing more with less, and I realize that we all in the city are doing more with less. I don't think one city council person here and their aid are not doing more with less. I just wanna make sure that that as you all have lost a lot of employees, the communication I've I've talked to you about this, Amy. The communication is it's a little like it's so changed because you got all changed the structure of who's communicating and who's not.

So I just hope that we can get some of these answers because in my career, being at the city since 2012, I've never had so many complaints about DOTI. And I feel disappointed because you have a lot of really dedicated, hardworking employees who work for that agency who are not getting the recognition they deserve because of some of the miscommunication and some of the noncoordination that we're experiencing. So if you could follow-up with me on those issues, I don't we don't have time for a response right now. But those are just things. And thank you, madam chair, for bringing this.

This slide deck is really important. And maybe we could even have, in, a couple months, a follow-up with a little bit more time to or maybe an early start time to have this necessary conversation. Thank you.

Thank you, Councilwoman.

We will do that follow-up. And when we do our next one zero one on maybe neighborhood streets, we can pull some of these details back into

that

discussion as well. Wonderful.

Thank you so much. We have council pro tem Romero Campbell and the new councilman Hines.

Thank you, madam chair, and thank you for this presentation. Really appreciate it as the data pulled in all the different ways is so incredibly helpful to be able to, you know, to see what we're thinking about for this larger network. I have a few questions, and I know that we're up against time.

So I'm just going to

go real quickly through my questions, and then hopefully we can follow-up. But I was interested on the slide for the schools that are part of the travel plan for the Safe Routes to School. And is this an ongoing program? And, you know, kind of what are the schools that are participating? And is this something that more schools will participate in the future?

I'm also concerned about, you know, Hampton Avenue is a high injury network, or high injury corridor. And I hear a lot from students and families going to Thomas Jefferson High School, the kids who are waiting on Hampton and Monaco. It's very unsafe. And then also, they're waiting for the bus. Oftentimes, if the bus is late or they miss it or whatever the case may be, they will walk down Hampton over 25 and go up to TJ, and it's incredibly safe.

But for those who are driving on Hampton, making a left hand turn on Holly and Ivanhoe, We get constantly complaints about the turn light, and I know that this is kind of a dotty, c dot conversation, but I'm hoping that we can work on that together. Also, we have a number of scooters and high speed electric bikes. We're seeing them more and more in bike lanes and sidewalks, residential streets, on the paths. And I don't know if there's a study that's been conducted or looking at do we have a policy? Do we, you know, what is the incidence?

Because I also, in my district, get a lot of concerns of people of scooters and bikes that are on trails and then go on the parks. They'll go up and down the grass, and it's just there's that's why we need a skate park. That's why we're going to get a skate park is we need a place for young people to go and to be able to have that recreation. But they are just very high speed up and down a lot of the streets, and it's becoming a hazard for a number of like, I'm worried about the kids, but I'm also I'm worried about the young people, but I'm also really worried about some of the residents, the cars, and what kind of situation that's creating. And then just finally, the Beacon Lights.

I, too, was so excited as a community member and resident. That was something that my predecessor, Councilwoman Black, had advocated for as well. But those flashing beacon lights on the High Line Canal, on Yale, between Monaco and Quebec, I've heard that those have gone out to bid a number of times and that we weren't able to find a vendor to be able to do it, but it is such a high need, high use area. And there are, you know, I've seen people, like, near misses almost daily when I go through there. But I'm just really would like to see what we can do to get those installed.

And if it has to be bundled or what the case may be. What's a little disappointing is that there's another area on Quebec that we share the border with unincorporated Arapahoe County. And Arapahoe County started talking about this with the High Line Canal about a year and a half ago, and it's already been installed. And it's beautiful. And it's, you know, it's something that on the same trail. But I just wanted to ask about those four things, and we can hopefully follow-up after this meeting. I don't know if we have time to if you have time to answer any of those questions now.

We'll pull all that information so that we can start pushing on all of those and give you guys updates about those, if they are or not on this, etcetera. And the new class bikes that you're seeing come in called eMotos, which are a little different than e bikes, and you all are seeing them. They're very popular right now for young people too. I think

we will come back. Maybe we can just do in the portion of the announcements just to be able to answer some of these questions. Yeah. And then you can also send the answers to the entire committee as well in writing. Councilman Hines?

Thank you, committee chair. Thank you for, to everyone here and, to channel eight for being, over time. I have notes, so I'll be as efficient as I can. Thank you for the presentation. Your vision zero slide, which was slide four, you might have said this verbally.

In my opinion, the text of the slide misses the most important part of vision zero. It says crashes the the slide says crashes have predictable and preventable causes. Vision zero, if you go to vision0.org, it says, the road system and related policies should be designed to ensure those inevitable mistakes do not result in severe injuries or fatalities. So the the mode shift is it's not an accident. A driver just didn't have, you know, like, have a brain fart and it ended up in a the the idea is that the system and policies can be changed, that the street can be designed in a different way.

So I would encourage at least the text to be massaged to talk I think that is the crux of the the mode shift. Slide 14, you talk about people walking. There are people in wheelchairs who are are also vision zero statistics, so I'd suggest pedestrians instead of people walking. Slide 15 shows that District 10 is basically a high energy network, the entire district. And in council member Alvedre at this point, we have many, many constituents who don't own cars at all.

You know, a third of households in Cattill, a third of households in Uptown, 37% of City Park West residents don't own cars at all, they have to be a pedestrian. Safety, adjacents to schools, safe routes to schools. You mentioned Teller Elementary, so great to hear. The the slide talks about a bike lane. I had before you started, I had asked Adi to fund a traffic study around Teller.

It didn't happen, so I funded a traffic study around Teller. There are some suggestions that that they recommended that haven't been implemented. So as you're considering Teller, we already have used a vendor that DOTI is has as an on call vendor. And so, you know, we we we used a tried and true DOTI vendor.

Back in.

Yeah. Great. The speed program, I wanna make an offer. I wanna understand how I can help you achieve your your Vision Zero statistics. And I think director Ford in the budget conversation for the 2025 budget, you said you wanted a 50% reduction in Vision Zero by the 2026.

On those quarters. Yes. I

heard so I see on slide 22 that you had a 50% reduction on two streets. It maybe I misheard. I thought your commitment was 50% division zero. So but either way, it's a 100% reduction by 2030. And with our current direction, we're moving in the in the wrong direction. So if there's anything that I can do to help you do that, I'd I'd I'd love to do that. And you mentioned a map of DOTI safety data and construction plans. I'd love to have that. If if it if that's part of open data, Denver open data, I'd love to have that too because I'd like to make sure that that's democratized and

Yeah. The the link that is on the the the PowerPoint that shows that map, that map is not inclusive of safety data, just so we're clear. It's inclusive of all planning, construction, and design projects that are all underway in all across the city. And it also includes future six year plans, CIP plans as well. And so that's and that link is on that website, so that is available right Finally,

I would encourage cameras that watch bike lanes Mhmm. Where vehicles never should be, that by occupying a bike lane, they are inherently making the the system less safe. We already have sample cameras in front of Union Station and other areas downtown. All we need to do is allow the city to to mail in stationary parking citations, and I would love to help you do that.

We are ready to talk to you about that. Thank you. Modernization of our enforcement process. Great. Thank you, madam. Thank you.

A few questions. Don't answer them. You can bring them back with the report. So regarding the criteria that is applied to the Denver Moves, everyone, you mentioned program delivery approach is considered. If you can let me know what that means, and is it related to the type of contractor that we have selected or the type of contract. In addition to that, what's the diff what difference would it make in terms of applying program delivery? You also mentioned at the top of the presentation that internationally that folks have seen a 5050% reduction as it pertains to vision zero. And so I'm curious as the strategies that you all employ with the strategies that they might be employing. You have something? Okay.

No. That's not a nationally, the numbers have been going up. So but there are certain areas in politics. Internationally. Yes. Internationally.

And yes. Nationally. I have internationally in my notes, but I still said nationally. Yeah. So thank you. And then I was curious. I I think we could probably assume that 2021, when you saw the numbers drop, was related to COVID. But I'm curious as to 2022 to 2025, why what is what has changed in the city to see that increase in the in the number of deaths. And then in terms of your rapid response program with CDOT, those reports, how are the field visits decided? So you said there were 30 reviews, and then there were 32 when which you were unable to go.

And so I'm curious as the additional 31, what's the story with those with those? And then one of the things that was missing from this presentation was bike lanes. And so I'm just curious of how many miles of new protected bike lanes or bike lanes in general are you all building or planning for? So come back with the report. And I love that council members enjoyed this, so thank you for taking the

time Yeah.

To witness this. Next one zero one.

We'd love to talk bike lanes, but short answer is 18 miles in last year, another 20 20 in the last year, another 18 to come in this year, 26. But we will come back with a lot more detail on that. Beautiful.

Thank you

for your time. Thank you. Thank you very much, council members.

We have five items on consent. Nine. I just made a number up. We hoped it would work out. We have nine items on consent. No one has pulled anything off. And with that,

we