Hey Denver, it's time for this bi-weekly meeting of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee of Denver City Council.

Join us for the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee starting now.

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It was to maintain the safety and access for drivers, to reduce crashes along the corridor,

to enhance safety and comfort for pedestrians and cyclists, to support transit services,

and to support business access and activity.

So this is a messy roll plot graphic of the partial lane repurposing, which is the design we have right now.

And then below is the full lane repurposing.

And I have a slide after this that kind of goes into more details.

But just so you know, from a higher level, the partial lane repurposing has two lanes in the eastbound direction.

This just shows one intersection and then one lane going westbound.

And it also provides middle turnpockets.

And why we decided to kind of change it to the two lanes and the eastbound while one lane keeping the reduction westbound is because our data showed that that was where the problem was.

That was where the crashes were, mostly left turn crashes, side swipes, things like that.

So the full lane repurposing was the original design.

and you can see it's one lane in each direction with the middle having turned pockets.

So what does that all mean?

Here's more details into the project elements, what we're talking about, and where there's changes.

So I want to highlight that a lot of the pedestrian safety improvements have been kept,

no matter if we're talking about the partial lane repurposing or the full lane repurposing here.

And that's important because we certainly don't want to, we want to, one of our goals is that pedestrian safety, certainly.

Where you can see the difference, again, is that we would have to do some signal upgrades because of the, just the way the partial has the signals overhanging.

And then those signal upgrades would cause reconstruction and ADA ramp upgrades at Emerson Street specifically.

And then the partial lane repurposing also pulled out signal timing and protected left turns on Virginia and Downing to mitigate side street diversion.

And let me explain kind of why that is.

So the full repurposing, the original design that was published in March 2024, 2025, I'll get to our timeline, was really looking at Alameda specifically.

And with Alameda, we felt that the full lane repurposing was the way to go to, again, address the crash picture, the turn crashes, and the side swipes.

But then when the partial repurposing really dives into looking at the neighborhood from a more holistic point of view, because that full lane repurposing causes congestion along Alameda.

And now that may not seem like an issue. And honestly, it's not until we look at what that causes. So the congestion causes side street diversion. And most of our side streets throughout the city can handle diversion, right?

I think in this situation, when we're looking at Alameda, First Ave can handle it.

We're not worried about Cedar was brought up, not worried about that.

When we look and dive in, and we'll go into this, about where we are worried about the problem, it's specifically along Virginia Avenue.

And that's the street that butts up against Wash Park, where we already have a lot of cyclists, a lot of pedestrians.

We have some crashes that involve pedestrians and cyclists already there.

And we really think the partial lane repurposing would not push cars onto Virginia, therefore not exacerbate, basically create another problem on a side street and would be better for the neighborhood as a whole.

All right. I'm going to go into community engagement now because I think this has been a process that has forced us to evaluate how we do engagement.

And I just want to explain, you know, in a perfect world how we see this happening.

Often our world is not perfect, and I'll kind of use Alameda to talk through this.

So, you know, at first we ask people to identify the problem.

not the solution. And I think I've talked to all the council members I work with normally hear me

say this because we want to know what the problem is and get at the root of that. There are things,

not everyone clearly is an engineer, and so sometimes there's things in our toolbox that

the public doesn't know about, which is why we ask it to be framed that way. And how we identify

problems varies, right? We work with you all. We work with R&Os, the mayor's office, and 311 is

still a very useful resource for us to identify problems. And then once a problem is identified,

we will do further data collection, right? We look at the crash history, the vehicle volumes,

look at historical engagement in the area, what's going on with our partners in CPD or what their plans have to say about the area, and again, that 311 history.

If it gets elevated to the point of, you know what, yeah, engineering can find a solution here and be a solution, we then identify those solutions.

And we do do that through community engagement often, where we have, and in the instance of Alameda, this was definitely the route we took. We have public meetings. This hopefully happens through the design and concept development phase.

We do traffic analysis and traffic modeling, which also happened with Alameda.

And then oftentimes we do bring a consultant on board to help us with that modeling, with the safety analysis, with the existing conditions, which also happens with Alameda.

So once we come up with a solution, there really is sometimes a lag time between coming up with a design, which is our solution here, and then implementing it.

And in Alameda specifically, the lag time was because of funding, it often is, as well as COVID.

So if you look back at a webinar that we did about Alameda in 2021, where we first unveiled lane repurposing, our engineer and our team really thought this was going to be in the ground in 2022.

That obviously did not happen.

So, you know, I think that's where some of our communication, miscommunication happens, because then we have a gap, right?

This design really sat there for quite a bit of time before myself and colleagues and the project team went back out to the community saying, okay, we're ready now.

We have funding.

We're going to move forward.

And it's always a question of when people pay attention, right?

We're always trying to reach people better, more effectively where they are.

You can see some of our tools and tactics to get us there, which are using you all and

your newsletters and social media, our own flyering, email blast, et cetera.

So then, again, in a perfect world, by the time we get to implementation, people have

heard about the project.

We have already had perhaps some hard conversations.

And then when implementation happens, you can also see what, you know, variable message boards, again, flyering.

And we do typically do evaluation of projects after a year to help us with best practices and things like that.

So just to dive a little bit deeper into how we view engagement at DOTI, there is a difference between engaging the public and informing the public.

And I think this has, again, it comes up a lot in all our projects, but very much so when we look at Alameda Lane repurposing.

During the design and planning phase, we really try and engage the public.

There are many things that, you know, we sit here and can do our modeling and can come up with what the national standards and our own standards and our plans say.

But until we go to the community, we miss some things.

We want to know the lived experience.

We don't live in all the neighborhoods, right?

And so here we did do engagements at the beginning.

And then when we went to go actually do the construction and do our flyering, at that point, we thought we were informing, which is still really important.

And, you know, to let people know there's construction outside their home or what's going on in their neighborhood.

and I will say in recent months

and Alameda I think is one of the projects

that have caused us to look at how we do this

and so we have had an internal reorganization

my position is this

where I have been brought under the internal external affairs team

before I was on project implementation

within DOTI and it's really so we can better communicate

So we can break down silos and all be like one communications team and really try and work together a lot more in informing the public of the projects coming down the pipeline.

And then the other thing we're doing, which I think is important and feeds into engagement, is we're working on R&O engagement and a strategy there to just better inform them, better engage them, and I think be transparent, more transparent in some of these projects.

so this is a slide just I'm going to keep it broad we can dive into these projects if you want but

really you know I would say Dottie has a rich history especially lately that we are listening

to the public even after that engagement phase so to speak when we're ready to implement and

And I think we do miss things sometimes.

I don't know if that's because, I mean, I think we all know that sometimes people do not pay attention until the excavator is literally outside their door, right?

Until the project is messing up their daily commute.

No matter how much we think our strategies are working in that engagement piece, we know we're missing people.

So we are committed to, I think, staying nimble, even though it's not always the most efficient way to go.

And I think all these projects up here show how we have done that, how we have taken a pause and listened to community and reacted in a way that provides better design and better feedback.

So I'm going to go again very quickly, just highlighting a few things.

we've really tried to do our due diligence by laying out all the timeline here and what we've

done and when it started. And so there's just a couple spots I want to highlight knowing we can

dig into any of this during questions. But really, we had a virtual open house in 2020.

And then I think the community didn't hear from us for a while. And you can see that was because

in 2022, we worked with a consultant to do an existing conditions and model collaboration memo.

I wrote it down because that is a hand, a mouthful. But it really kind of looked back at the crash

history along Alameda and, you know, said lane repurposing would be a good way forward on this

corridor. And so then, as I said, you know, flash forward to 2024, where we actually

got funding and were able to have a public meeting. That public meeting that we had in 2024,

I was unclear on dates in my head, but had about 50 residents. And I was there. I know Councilman

Cashman was there. People were very split. The conversation was lively. It was not, you know,

One, it was not everyone supported it or everyone opposed it at that point.

So we were, after the public meeting, I mean, that's typical sometimes for our projects where people are split.

So we moved forward with the meeting, or with that, sorry, we moved forward with the project,

and we're intending to move forward with that and did get a request to have a neighborhood meeting.

I want to be very clear on this point is that, you know, my position is here in DOTI because we have meetings with everyone.

The mayor's office also has people who have meetings with everyone.

That is my job.

I will admit that sometimes, you know, someone has to ping me twice.

But I certainly don't shy away from having some hard conversations, saying no when we have to.

But always, I think that is part of the transparency of our agency and government work is we have meetings.

And so when we got asked to have a meeting with some Wash Park East neighbors, we certainly did.

And it was shortly after that where we did get a petition opposing the project and citing some concerns.

And that was not just one person.

It was signed by 300 people.

Shortly thereafter, we got a similar petition from a group called Safer Alameda saying they supported the project.

And that was about 175 signatures at that time.

So both those petitions and the time, again, the time from when we had the design to when we were implementing it did cause us to relook at some of the data, especially because we had only had the data at that point, I think, through 2021.

And so now in 2024, we were looking at that gap between 2021 and 2024.

What does that give us a different picture?

And so this just continues to go over like what we had looked at, what we had seen.

And I will say, so let me talk about the change and what happens there.

Because when we did relook at the data, we saw that there were 50 some, we have a slide on it later, crashes on Virginia.

And that that congestion, again, would do side street diversion that caused us to be concerned that we were just moving up a problem elsewhere in the neighborhood.

So this is, I also want to be clear, I put this slide up here because it's really talking, it says community concerns.

This was the original petition that we received from the 300 signatories.

They outlined seven different points.

Um, now I've highlighted the top three that we thought, um, that caused us to relook at the data

because we felt that four, five, six, and seven, um, the project was not of concern to us, um,

for this project that, you know, the design would, um, would address those issues. But the top three,

We were like, maybe, you know, that 2022 data could be updated.

And let's see if they're right in us to be concerned, if their concerns are valid.

And now I'm going to turn it over to Amy.

So obviously, I think many of you have seen some of this, and it really concludes some

of what Molly already sat and talked about in regards to the project.

So when we did that additional analysis and we came back, we've shared this with the public,

as you saw, and we shared some of this information before.

But we went through this analysis thinking about diversion impacts to pedestrian safety, to the design itself, to what it meant for safety at unsignalized intersections and others.

And I'm not going to go through all of the details in here, but this was some of what fed our analysis as we were looking through.

And that thinking that the partial redesign was something that we thought could mitigate some of the impacts that we were seeing with the diversion of the side streets,

not have a fundamental impact in regards to the safety elements that we saw on the main line of

Alameda, which at the core of it, what addresses the crash picture on Alameda is the left-hand

turns. So that is the primary area where we wanted to continue to focus and what we retained as we

were going through some of this in the design. But as we move forward, I think that that's the

last piece that we wanted to chat about and then really use the rest of the time for discussions

and questions, and if we could just look to the next slide. So we've sat, and as you talked and

as you saw, as it came through that public engagement process, and as people are sitting

here and others, people have a lot of feelings about this, a lot of feelings about what we did,

our analysis, they have questions about the analysis, they have thoughts about our conclusions,

people who are pro, people who are against, I get emails for and against, we have people reaching

out and calling us and talking to us and all of this. And so as we moved through the engagement

process and as we were sitting and talking at our RNO meetings and as we indicated, for instance,

in our letter to you all, we had a commitment to continue to engage in that public engagement

as well as to continue the safety analysis as we move through to move to our final design.

So I wanted to talk a little bit about, well, what does that mean and what are we going to do?

So as we indicated before, we have already done a very detailed safety analysis. And that detailed

safety analysis, just to be clear, and we shared it as well, was an individual crash reduction

mitigation analysis. So we have bigger picture analyses that we use, things like LOSS analyses,

which are big planning tool analyses that point across the board at a particular area and say,

hey, here are the crashes in the area. Here are areas where we think that we can sit and focus on

and pay attention to. An LOSS is not something that goes in and does a comparative about different

designs, one to the other, that kind of thing. What we did is then you do that at the secondary

level. And that individual crash where we looked at every single crash in the area, and we said,

we believe these are the areas that can mitigate those crashes. And so that's some of what we've

shared to the public and others. But as we go through this, I wanted to talk about then what

was next. So we said that we were going to do an additional safety review. So what does that mean?

What we will be doing with the additional safety review is we actually would like to do a demonstration of the projects.

And you say, what does that mean?

Well, what that means is what we would like to do is take ourselves, where we take the additional data that we had coming from our scenarios and our plans and our others, and we would like to put them onto the roof.

It's one thing for us to continue to go back and to look at those scenarios and continue to analyze and continue to do that as we move into our final design.

But actually, Councilman Cashman, you thought of it when we were sitting and talking and we were having some discussion.

We have done this in the past where we do essentially demonstration deployments.

We did this on Broadway with the bike lane, actually, where we were showing this and showing what the impacts were of a bike lane, what it meant, what it looked like, how it works in design, how it feels when it comes to the impact on the street and to the road, to the pedestrians, to cyclists, to vehicles and others who are using it.

We're about to do something very similar actually coming up with a program where we're looking at how do we slow and reduce traffic on our neighborhood streets to enhance pedestrian and cyclist safety with a diverter program that you'll see coming here and a little bit later.

And so what we're actually proposing to do is, as we move to our final design, is that we will do a temporary demonstration deployments here over the next several months, where we will then work and analyze and validate the data that we see and that we were assessing and then actually do it on the road and in the street.

We'd like to engage the public as we do that.

So we'll sit down, meet with the public and others, community working groups and others,

sit, talk about what our metrics for success are, how we do analysis of congestion, diversion,

safety and crashes, comfort, pedestrian safety, and others, and sit and continue to do that

analysis over the next several months as we move through.

As we come back around then in this process is not only will we be doing this on the demonstration

deployment. What we would also like to do is continue to move forward on some of the installation

and some of the permanent safety pieces that were part of all of these projects, which we've

already shared. So whether that's the flashing beacons that we're planning on

doing at Franklin, as well as the improvements

that we added onto this project as we were working through the partial design

there at Virginia and Downing, because that was an area that was already flagging

for us in a safety consideration. So we'll continue to move forward with those.

So that would also be happening in 2026.

So I think, you know, as we close this out and the cost for this is, you know, the cost for us to do that analysis, those demo deployments, as we also continue to work on the design, very much carry through with what the public is what we're doing and where we intend to go.

And I think that, again, our focus is primarily and always the safety of the corridor and how best to deploy that, the engagement with the public, the sharing and the transparency of our information and our data.

And then again, how we continue to do what's right as we move forward and achieve those goals that Molly talked about at the very beginning of this, which is how do we reduce crashes on Alameda?

How do we think about the impact of safety across the entire area?

And as we finish all of this, I think that that continued engagement about where we apply our best practices and our best vision is something that we want to continue to focus on.

So we'll just stop there.

Let's turn it over to questions, concerns, other options, and happy to have a conversation.

Thank you so much.

Really appreciate your time and the presentation.

So we have everyone in the queue, as you might not be surprised about.

And because of that, I'd like to ask us to limit our first set of questions to three.

I'm going to defer to Councilman Cashman and Councilwoman Alvedris.

Councilwoman Alvedris first.

I'm in the queue and then kick it over to Catherine.

Thank you so much, committee chair.

Thank you for coming to committee and having this conversation.

I know it's been a tough conversation for you all.

I do want to start and just emphasize, yes, our outreach system is broken.

I think the interesting part of this is this predates you.

it predates me. And that's a challenging thing that I had to wrap my head around when I was first

told about this project and realizing how long it had been worked on. And there's so many projects

in my district, including Division Zero in Mississippi on the west side of my district,

that is supposed to have happened since I was elected. That still hasn't happened.

And so I do think that the length of time that we're taking is absolutely ridiculous. And I know

you agree with that. And it causes a lot of these problems. I do want to, you know, emphasize that

we were very supportive of this project. We didn't have a conversation before we were told

that in a press release, like, this is being changed. So that was very disappointing to hear

because I knew, like, had we talked, I could have said, like, the day that you had that outreach,

I also got many emails from communities saying we're so supportive.

We couldn't make it.

We've been working on this.

We really appreciate that road diet and being able to cross the street safely.

I think what does it for me more than anything is I have to go to bed at night with the fear of gunshots near my home.

These people have to go to bed at night with the fear of a car running into their home, and that's terrifying.

And I also lost a family member that way once upon a time.

And so drunk drivers are a real thing, and they drive into these homes, and there's no barrier, and it's homes right there.

And so I get all the pro-con emails, but we have to weigh them.

And I think that's the biggest concern here is what emails are we weighing?

Is it the person that's home got ran into, or is it the person who's getting inconvenienced by a few minutes?

And so that's my biggest concern.

And as a council person, I think about when that does happen, because it will, that feels like it's on me now.

It feels like it's on you now.

It feels like it's on us now because of this decision.

And so I want to emphasize that.

I appreciate the demonstration.

I think that was something we also talked about.

I know one of my constituents, Albie Stopper, has even done them in his neighborhood in West Wash Park.

And I think it's a great way to get feedback because as soon as you start spray painting, we get the complaints or the emails and the upsetness.

And I think that helps us move faster.

So I'm curious about this demonstration.

Is it going to be on which design, the original design or on the secondary design?

Great.

I'll start backwards and then move to the front part of that.

So we're in the process of actually sitting and developing what we think that demonstration could be and what it would look like

and actually want to reach out and engage with you all as we do that.

So say, hey, here's how we think that we'd like to run the demonstration.

We think that it needs to be in place for several months so we can gather data input back as we go through that process and then say, hey, here's what we're measuring when we look at that.

You know, going back to your previous comment, we're very data driven when we do our analyses.

And so, no, just because, you know, hey, there were five more emails that I got on one side versus the other, those aren't going to be driving some of our thoughts.

I think that what we really do when we do these analyses and when we sit and we look is we use our best engineering judgment.

We pull in the best data that we have.

We look at the best solutions that we have available.

And then we make some measured decisions on how we think that we can best achieve the goals of a project.

And that was the process that we went in the original parts of this as well as then as we sat and did the relook.

And in the end, you know, with that relook, as we've chatted about the questions about the diversion,

We very much knew that diversion was happening when we did the original design.

What we had not yet really looked at was the so what of that.

So we divert to things like Virginia.

So does that matter?

Does that have an impact?

And that was the additional analysis that we did that then started driving some of that data piece.

But going back again to the demo, we're going to sit and work on it.

And we want to come back to you all, engage, and sit and talk about how we want to run that demo.

And whether we do it as the full first and then maybe the partial or we do the reverse.

That's something that we're working through, trying to think how we would do it in what particular area where we would run that.

Do we do it along the full length of a corridor? Do we do it along a portion of the corridor?

So those are some of the details that we're working to finalize and would like to engage with you all as we do that.

That's great. I hope we will engage in with community.

I think we definitely want to see the original design and full.

I think that would be ideal to really see how much safer it could make the area.

And I'm just looking at the slides and want to ground the decision.

I've been getting emails that there's like a 40% diversion, which that's nowhere near what you're showing here, which is only a 5% difference in diversion.

Which my question is, okay, diversion is one thing, but what about the safety of people?

What is the rate of people that might get injured because of that 5% difference?

And so that is the number that I would like to see.

Yeah, and I think that's an important piece to look at as we do that.

You know, what does it mean when you add that much more traffic, 5% or 10% over onto Virginia, based on the modeling that we assumed?

Maybe it's more, maybe it's less.

That, I think, is one thing that you would assess if you're going into a demo and that kind of thing.

Equally so, then, on the mainline parts of it, you know, the safety on the mainline, I think, is the other question.

When you make a change between a one-lane configuration versus a two-lane configuration, and what does that mean?

And we had done analysis on that, too, about what changes we thought that we're having.

Fairly conservative.

We said, gosh, we think that all of the crashes that would be in that one-to-one, i.e., what that would have been reduced, we thought that it would reduce that when we switched to the two-lane to about 3% to 5%.

And so that was where you saw those differences where we were very conscientious.

If it's shown something like 40% or 50%, I think those would have been changes that we would not have made, right?

So that's, I think, why we sat and looked at all of that.

And then one of my last questions, and maybe I'll get back in the queue, is just the crash data from Virginia shows 58 total crashes over four years with two nonfatal injury crashes.

How does that compare to Alameda's crash severity?

So the crash severity on Alameda is mostly vehicular crashes, mostly rear end side swipes.

We have very little fatalities on Alameda.

The severity of serious bodily injury, I don't have that right at my fingertips.

I don't have it either.

we can look at that, but Virginia, the concerning thing was the pedestrian and cyclist crashes,

which currently aren't on Alameda. Now, is that because people don't feel safe traveling along

Alameda, you know, chicken egg situation, but again, we don't want to cause a problem elsewhere

by fixing. Yeah. So just to clarify again, the crash picture on Alameda is mostly cars

for the most part. So pedestrian cyclists and that kind of thing is much, much less just pure

cat, just the numbers, just the data. It's the Virginia street because of access with

wash park and all of that, you've got a lot of interaction, pedestrians, cyclists. So,

so there was a different, it's a different kind of crash picture. And so that's what we were

assessing. I appreciate that. And I'll just say that diversion is caused by car accidents. So

that's something important to know thank you committee chair

houseman cashman thank you committee chair um molly can you put the engagement slide back

up sure there's a few of them so we'll find the right one okay this is the first one we can start

there okay um i was at a um in person meeting at lincoln elementary before 2024 way before that yeah

This is incomplete. I'm having a real hard time on the cut through traffic stuff.

That first it was, well, we haven't looked at cut through, then direct forages.

And we looked at cut through, but we're going to look at the so what.

I have too much respect for engineers to believe they're doing that kind of job

or that we would in 2025 or 2026 even be thinking about building a safety project without having looked already at more recent data.

So I'm really having a hard time buying that.

Let's see, there's another slide with a timeline where you showed briefings of myself.

Yeah, I love Cashman.

Being from Jersey, we always use last names.

I'd have loved to see councilmen up there.

Apologies.

I don't usually care.

Apologies.

That's my fault.

Do you remember what I told you my position was?

You've been consistent in your position.

What has that been?

That you support the full lane reduction.

But you've also said you are not a traffic engineer, but do support the full lane reduction.

Yeah, and the reason I support the full lane reduction is because it was crafted over time with multiple opportunities for community input.

And so to, at this point, be looking at the new plan that was stimulated by a resident who could afford to hire a lobbyist to promote this, I don't think there's any way to gain community trust.

I think the only way to do it is to put the full repurposing in play and analyze.

We may find out it was a badly crafted plan.

I don't know.

But for me, that's the only way to regain full public trust, to use a hybrid plan.

I think you're calling the partial lane program repurposing.

There's always going to be that question of, you know, what the heck are we doing?

Let me see.

I think there was one more thing I wanted to talk about.

Oh, yeah.

an email I've been getting from the fans of the original plan saying that core information shows

that the decision to shift to the partial lane was done August 14th before any additional study

was done. Can you address that, please? Absolutely. Our team, following all of these engagements,

went back and said, should we start to analyze this project? And they did. So they went back in,

they started to analyze it. They reached out also to our consultants to ask July and August,

and started that analysis, and started that analysis, and then actually presented some of

that analysis to us, and to me, and to the leadership and otherwise, saying, this is what we see.

We started looking at some of the impacts, and we think that actually to address some of these impacts related to diversion, that we should move to a partial lane.

And so that was what was seen.

That was what was shared.

It was shared in an email, as you saw.

The decision, however, was not finally made at that point in time because there was additional analysis that needed to continue.

They needed to do additional analysis and looking at Virginia, what some of the crash impacts were on Virginia, to continue to do sort of a deeper dive on that, assess sort of the overall of the impact of what they thought with Marshall and others.

And so they continued on that process as we go past August, as we go, mostly with internal analysis, using our own team to do internal analysis, as many saw on those cores.

We reached out to our consultant and said, hey, maybe you could do that safety analysis to the tune of quite a bit of money.

We were like, no, we're going to do it all in-house.

And so that process went through pretty much to about mid-October when we finalized some of that and said, okay, this is now what we really think.

This is the thought and this is the recommendation.

And as we did that, then that's when we turned on sort of coming back out to the folks after we'd gone back and said, this is what we think.

Thank you for the answer.

I'll put you back in the queue, Madam Chair, please.

Thank you, committee chair.

Thank you for the presentation and for the opportunity to have the conversation.

I want to, as we've talked about Vision Zero, I want to just read what the Vision Zero philosophy is.

So the Vision Zero philosophy puts the onus on city officials to make the transportation system safer,

primarily through street reductions that encourage slower speeds,

speeds whereas the pre-vision zero philosophy was blaming drivers for crashes. Is that okay?

Well, I'm not going to make that one of my questions. So with that said, I'm in a wheelchair

today because I was on a bike and got hit by a car. So I'm personally very interested in

helping Dottie achieve Vision Zero. A year ago, Director Ford committed to a 50% reduction in

and Vision Zero statistics in two years.

How can we achieve that Vision Zero reduction goal

if we continue to scale back pedestrian

and cyclist improvements?

So we are 100% committed to Vision Zero

and rapid reduction as quickly as we can

to the fatalities on our roadways.

This project is a good example of that.

This project and how we start to look at the configuration

of our infrastructure, the improvements

that we can continue to make to reduce crashes

to improve pedestrian safety, to improve how we are looking at this corridor, is exactly

the kind of project that fits in the business scenario.

And I think that as we continue to do this, and as we continue to look at the analysis,

and we continue to look at the design, the question of safety as it related to the side

streets was a question that we felt that we needed to continue to explore.

And had our team not seen and said that we now have some concerns about what that means

and what that means along Virginia, we would have continued in thinking about how we looked

at that full lane reduction. So I think that one of the things is that we absolutely have a shared

vision about safety. We absolutely have a continued focus on what we are going to do.

We are not trying to propose projects that we think would change or reduce the safety that we

are trying to implement. And so that, you know, as we say this, is our commitment to that.

We've seen some progress in some of the projects that we've been able to do on the overall. Maybe

we can sit down in another session. We can talk overall about Vision Zero and safety as we go and

some of what we've done with our speed program and some of the others. And I guess just I'll

just reiterate our absolute commitment to that. And this project falls very much in line with that.

I'm going to leave that answer for the interest of the committee. I'm going to leave that answer

there and not dig in. Question two, we asked a stakeholder group to volunteer their time for

months if not years. We always struggle to find vested and unbiased people to engage in these

stakeholder processes. The group met, the group recommended, and Dottie said, at least to the

stakeholder group at the end of the group, that we were moving forward with a recommendation

created by the stakeholder group. That group had a plan that included a full lane reduction,

and we start with the stakeholders thought.

Now I hear in this committee and elsewhere, but I've heard it in the committee,

you're saying you didn't finish there and you did some additional analysis.

You came up with some additional facts and data.

And then with that additional analysis, facts, and data,

you're moving forward despite what the stakeholders thought.

That really makes it difficult for us to have stakeholder processes in the future.

If we're going to come up with new analysis and new data, how can we commit to having true our plans are paid for by the people?

How can we have plans that are sourced from the people?

If we have stakeholder processes that we just say, oh, you know, we're going to do more analysis and go against the stakeholder recommendation.

Yeah. And I think if we go back and show the slide that we were talking about where we have a lot of stakeholder processes, I think this is one of the things that we're really carefully evaluating, too, is how do we continue to do a public engagement process that takes in that public input?

How do we pull that through from a data analysis?

How do we continue as we move forward?

We know that when we have some of these projects that have the lag that we do, we have things also shift and change.

Conditions change in the area.

I'll use an example. One of the letters that we got from a resident just recently said, hey, you did all of this planning before the soccer stadium was considered.

I think you should reevaluate everything because of what changes when the soccer stadium pulls in and how that impacts things and roads and others.

And so just using some examples of things, tools, new tools come into play for us in regards to some of these previous projects where we're working on our slow and safe streets.

in the preceding years from when we completed a finished design to then when we were starting

the construction, we started putting speed cushions in as a tool for us to be able to use.

So us thinking about how we continue to open and have an evaluative process, a reconsideration,

do we look at new things or conditions that have changed on the road or others, especially given

some of the duration sometimes that these projects go? How do we honestly also have that continued

public engagement and process on that. You know, you saw on that previous example, and we were just

using projects that had changes, sort of in a post-design process in the last year, year and a

half, from I-25 and Broadway to South Irving to how we looked at Kearney and Cremaria to how we

looked at the bike lanes that people were asking us questions about. So, and as Molly noted, we have

a commitment to sitting and engaging and listening. And then we take that information and we also go

back and assess about whether or not it has, I'm going to say, validity and something that we should

be considering and looking at as we work to try to achieve the goals of the project. And that is

always the focus in the analysis. And this outlines some of the process that we do with the public when

we engage in that. And so, but I think one of the things that we've seen from a lessons learned

perspective with all of this is how we actually have a public engagement process. And you saw it

up there. Molly didn't quite touch on it in the slide yet, but in between, especially with projects

that have these long durations, how we actually have a reengaged community process where we also

talk and say, hey, folks, this is the design. And our team does a continued look at that design and

how we continue to engage with the public as we do that before then we start going into the

construction side of it again. So we think that there's some opportunity to continue to improve

that. But we also think that it's important for us to continue to listen and engage with the public

as we go through all of these. And we've seen things and changes on this that some people love,

some people don't like, even in the projects in that post-design side where we continue to engage.

One more question. I'd love to be back in the queue to dig into that answer, too.

Third question that I have is, I hear when you say you're nimble.

You mentioned that earlier in this presentation.

Dottie oversees a lot of critical functions, street sweeping, snow plowing, street paving.

strategic projects like this, 5280 Trail 2, I can't avoid mentioning that.

Unfortunately, it's my experience that Dottie is not nimble, that is huge and

unfortunately not nimble at all. Is Dottie too big? Should we break it up?

No.

It's not expecting a one word answer, but I'm going to stay longer stick to the three questions.

So thank you. Thank you. I put you back in the queue. Councilman Parity, you're up next.

Yeah, so I have to start in an uncomfortable place here, which is pointing out some just

statements that have been made, including in writing to council. Amy, when you respond to a

I really whatever goes into that response just needs to be accurate. I just listened to you speaking to Council member Cashman saying that no decision had been made on August 14th.

I'm reading an email from Brett Bancor to the team, including the contractor saying we've been working with leadership to triage some high level community and leadership concerns with constructing the project and recently received clear direction on a path forward after evaluating different options for moving forward in light of community.

in light of community and leadership concerns, not a change to safety analysis or something like that,

we've decided to move forward with a partial lane reduction.

You can tell me that Mr. Von Korn was misinformed or something like that,

but at some point we have to get out of spin and into talking about the substantive safety issues,

which is actually why at least I want to talk to you on committee today.

I don't really care about the, I mean, I do. I care about Donnie's public engagement.

That's not what I'm here to care about today.

In the letter back to us, you wrote to us that half the community was supporting the project and the other half was sharing concerns about its impacts, including congestion on side streets.

That's also just not true.

The petition about side streets had 300 signatories.

12% of them were from the nearby neighborhoods.

A bunch of them were from elsewhere around the city.

And the petition that you've gotten with 1,100 signatories is overwhelming majority 70% from the neighborhood.

That's not close either.

So I'm not saying signatures should drive the outcome, safety analysis should drive the outcome.

I'm saying we have to be accurate.

If there is one value that I'm concerned about in 2026, it is people trusting government.

So I do not like having to confront government agencies and have this kind of conversation.

We're at crisis levels with public trust in government.

So I just, these own goals need to stop.

The other thing, well, again, I'm not even going to keep going with the inaccuracies.

We are here about substantive safety outcomes.

We are here to use public resources as objectively as possible to reach the best outcome for human beings.

Not a predetermined outcome, not a compromise, which is what the mayor has been calling this to the media.

I really object to that.

There are tools we can use here to figure out how to keep people safe.

That's what we should be using.

Not saying these people don't want more traffic on their street.

These people don't want 255 serious accidents every five years.

How do we compromise?

That's not what we're here to do.

That is triangulation, and that is nonsense politics.

So, first question, again, Virginia, you point out in your letter that Virginia has a concerning crash record, 58 crashes over a period in which 58 total crashes, in which Alameda had 255 severe crashes.

And then on this chart, I have such a problem with this evaluation of this chart.

I don't know the slide number.

I can bring it up.

I think I know where you're talking about.

I think it's slide four because this is not objective analysis.

Pedestrian safety, we're framing a partial lane reduction as good pedestrian safety

because it adds protections for pedestrians along Virginia.

And a full lane reduction is only moderate because it adds more risk on Virginia.

But that's not the only way you can draw a conclusion about which of those is good and

which those is moderate is to compare the level of risk to pedestrians on both of those roads.

Like, and it's far higher on Alameda, far higher. I also live on a corner where there are severe

traffic accidents and I've gone out and pulled toddlers out of a car who were not breathing.

I don't wish that on anyone. I know these neighbors have had those experiences. So this isn't, um,

this isn't an area for compromise. This is an area to do our job, which is to protect

human safety from serious risk. 255 serious accidents in a five-year period, if you live

along that corridor, that's traumatic. And we control that. So the chart, the good versus

moderate, I absolutely reject that. I do not think that is an accurate or fair analysis.

And the fact that you're putting it up there tells me that you're trying to reach a predetermined

outcome, which is also what the goal of events tells me. So we've got to get out of the spin

zone on this. My question about this is, where is the evidence that a plan without a lane reduction,

I understand we can improve safety to some degree by doing other things, right? I understand that

there's not no safety improvement from that. But there is so much evidence out there about

a lane reduction. There's a scholarly body of evidence about this. What can you point me to

that shows us that we can rely on the same safety increase without doing that?

Where is the body of evidence?

Where are the studies?

Well, I'll unpack some of that.

So the 50-50 analysis.

Actually, the question that I have is just about the evidence about partial land.

And there's other members in queue.

Yeah.

So 50-50 analysis was not referenced to the petitions.

It was referenced to the public meetings that happened in 2024 about sort of how people felt about the project.

The decision process was as I say it is and the email that came from Brett.

I've knowledge the email. I'm really not asking about it. Amy. I'm sorry. I know that council woman. I just want to address that real quick as we go back into then the safety pieces of this.

So the safety conditions on the corridor on Alameda on the main line, our vehicle crashes, very few pedestrian crashes.

The areas that we are putting in the pedestrian improvement.

I don't have that number in my hand. Do you have like 2 or 3? It was for cyclists and pedestrians.

Yeah, so that's that's the number. How many of those on Virginia?

Those I'm sorry, I maybe misunderstood the question. Those were on Virginia. We don't have any pedestrian or cyclists on Alameda crashes.

So no pedestrian cyclist crashes reported crashes on Alameda. I just want to say that as I know someone had referenced a child who had been hit.

So when we did the project and we did the planning for the project, the focus is how do we reduce the vehicular crashes?

And then when we looked at the pedestrian safety, the primary concerns for the pedestrian safety were in the pedestrian crossings across Alameda.

So the pedestrian crossings across Alameda, that was the primary focus for the project, which are the project elements that you see and continue and remain and will be implemented.

So it's the flashing beacon at Franklin. There's some other couple of other changes as we go as we continue the discussion as we know the one other area that we talked about that people want to reference pedestrian safety is the potential buffer on the roadway on.

So the difference between having a three line three lane straight road versus a four lane is just the available space.

We're not obviously changing the asphalt on the road, changing the lines.

So on the Alameda project in the full, there was a buffer of approximately three to five feet on either side, which, as we've noted, is back to your question about documented crash reduction.

So it is not a documented crash reduction factor for pedestrians to have a buffer.

But as you walk alongside Alameda, as you walk alongside Alameda, it absolutely adds a comfort.

So that's that and that's something that we've absolutely acknowledged and talked about and talked a little bit about the buffer side of it.

So that is that is the pedestrian safety elements, the documented pedestrian safety elements on Alameda.

It was the crossings and that's what we were also trying to address.

And again, zero reported crashes pedestrian on Alameda.

On the Virginia side, this is where then the question came to be.

There are pedestrians.

There's a higher rate of pedestrians.

There's a higher rate of in a sense of of of bicycle schools and others.

And when you added the more traffic, that was then when we started asking the questions and the concerns.

So that was how we assessed it.

That's the documentation side when it came to the pedestrian bicycle safety.

And you said four pedestrian or bike crashes on Virginia over the entire four-year period, is that right?

During that same time-year period as the one that we were considering.

And we're talking about a 10% increase of traffic on Virginia.

So, again, I just, it's very hard for me to accept that that meaningfully increases the risk of pedestrian or bike crashes on Virginia.

When we're talking about this level of serious accidents, severe accidents in Alameda and the vehicular crashes, I have to think, same question, where is the evidence of a partial lane reduction compared to a full lane reduction for those?

So the real underlying question here again, you addressed why not do a loss analysis and I didn't really understand your answer. So can you answer that again?

So let me just address the first part of that question. And that's why Councilwoman, we'd like to do a demonstration.

Of the partial lane reduction.

We're in the process of determining how we'll do this actually, whether we choose to do the full or the partial.

And so we're in the process of making that decision and it may be the full. We're going to have to sit and put that together.

We'd like to be actually to do a demonstration deployment on this.

We think it's important in this particular instance to get ourselves out of the realm of the scenarios and the planning and the assessment of 10% versus 5% or 3 and 5% on reduction here to the other.

And start to move ourselves into what we see on the roadway when we do this, the human behavior elements of it.

not. With us doing a demonstration deployment, that is something that actually we would sit and

we would assess over a number of months and be able to gather and analyze that data and that

information. I think some of the elements that we would want to analyze the diversion rates,

congestion rates, the crash rates, the risks rates, maybe there's some other things that we can sit

in with the public and others and engage, you know, pedestrian comfort and others. And so that's what

we want to sit and do and why we think it's important for that additional safety analysis

to be something that we pull into the realm of the real now and sit and do that.

And also to be very frank, as we monitor that and we monitor this and if we see that we've exacerbated issues.

So let's say we've exacerbated issues on Virginia or likewise on Alameda that how we change and then pull that demonstration out and then start to implement something different.

Okay. And have the pedestrian safety improvements that you've already made on Virginia, so far as anyone can tell, had an impact because we've done things on.

Which ones are you? Since the four crashes from 21 to 24, I know you've been doing some work there,

four-way stops, that kind of thing. Yeah, we've done some on the four-way stops. We've done

little bits at Virginia and Downing, and so we've taken all into account. I think we just got recent

crash data coming even after 21, and I pulled that number up. We still, we wanted to do comparative

to comparative from 20 to 21, so we just got also new crash data. So we still have obviously issues

along Virginia. It's a fairly significant corridor that we're seeing some of these crashes and stuff.

So, yeah, we still think it's important for us to look at that.

Okay. The third question that I have is, is there a traffic engineer on the project here in the room?

We have our city transportation, our chief transportation officer here,

who is also a traffic engineer.

Okay. And I know that, I believe the chair had asked and she can confirm

if the actual project engineer could be here. Is that person here as well?

We asked Tychus to be here.

So that's not the project engineer.

We have a number of different people who are project engineers on this project.

So there are many.

So we asked Tychus to be here.

So I've been reading through these emails until my eyes bleed, which I would rather not be spending my time doing.

And I'm wondering, it really was eye-catching to me that the project engineer was changed on September 2nd from a more experienced to a less experienced project engineer.

First guy is still with the city as far as I can tell.

What's that about?

We have a number of project engineers who work on these projects, so we have a series of teams.

So there's from Brett to Steven to several others, so they're sort of a group project in that sense, so we have a number of them.

Okay, but why change the – so I'm looking at an email that went out that said that Mr. Howell would no longer be the lead who had been working on the project and that it would now be Mr. Murfutano.

I don't know. I'd have to ask on who?

Mr. Who?

Dallas. That was just as we shuffled projects from my understanding. We can confirm that, but it was just capacity stuff. Dallas was actually never really, Mr. Howell was never really on the project for, we switched it. We switched just juggling projects.

Thanks, thank you in preparation for this committee. We did.

Requests with specific engineers 3 to be a part of this.

You're up next a lot of this feels like deja vu all over again.

Crashes really don't care who supported or opposed to this or that.

They just are and 200 and some odd crashes over 5 years on Alameda. The last time the full lane repurposing is done in 2011, 2012 crashes increased.

They didn't decrease. So I have a serious concern about what are the differences between the full lane repurposing.

design today versus 2011 and 12. The traffic engineer who was in at the time,

who's retired, he's a constituent, and I had a discussion with him about this and

he did several of these road diets all across the city and this is the one that

failed. In my district he did Florida, he did Jewel, and he did Quincy and

and put in that middle lane, one lane on each side instead of four lanes.

And so why did they work and why did this not work?

I do know that when it was taken out and they put in the signal at Marion,

the December 2012 Bike Denver newsletter congratulated the West Wash Park neighborhood

advocates for asking that it be restored to four lanes because of all the crashes that the two lane,

with what I call a suicide lane in the middle had brought.

So, and we've talked about this before.

What I would like to see is hard data

because I don't care, as I said, who opposes

and who supports this one or that one.

What I care about is what actually reduces crashes

and increases safety.

And the evidence I have is that the original full lane repurposing,

when it was done before, increased crashes.

And that troubles me.

So I want to know what's different about this one.

And I know you said the average daily traffic on Alameda is lower now than it was in 2011.

I find that hard to believe.

So they must have all come to my district then on my streets.

Because I don't see anywhere in town the traffic is less than it was 12, 13 years ago.

So can we have that data also?

Yeah.

I do want to say that, and that's my only question,

But I do want to say that I appreciate doing a demonstration and phasing in.

And I have no, I'm agnostic.

I would support Councilman Cashman in saying, why don't we do the full one first and then try the partial?

Whichever way it is, I'm happy that you're able to do that.

And one thing I do appreciate about Dottie these days is your flexibility in listening to everybody in the community as you did on Irving.

Because with that Irving street project, the original design would have been a disaster.

For the neighborhood and somebody came in.

And have listened to all the people, including people who lived on Irving street and made modifications. I know we're still in process on that. And hopefully you'll reach a conclusion after I'm term limited out of here. So, no, I want me and complain about the result.

the result. Thank you for that. But I would like to see the data. Average daily traffic crashes in

2011 and 12. What caused them? How this is different? And why you think two lanes eastbound

and one lane westbound is better? Because I don't get that either. Yeah, we can provide that to you.

Yes, you are correct that the ADT, that average daily traffic changed by about 2,000 to 3,000 or

so. It was a little over 20,000 at the time in that 2011-2012 timeframe. It's dropped down now

to about between 15 and 17,000.

So that was one of the reasons I think folks thought

that some late reductions could work in that quarter

from a volumes perspective.

Do you want to talk to sort of the basic differences,

but then we can come back and provide more data with you.

But it is true that the crash has increased

in that particular model when it was done,

and that is why it was pulled.

Okay, thank you.

I wouldn't want to see a decision made based on who supports what

and how many support what, but what actually achieves safety.

Yeah, and it didn't, the corridor didn't have those turn restrictions that we see now to, like on Corona that we did or the turn pockets.

It was more, from my understanding, it was more head to head, the turn.

Like we are having turned pockets down the center lane.

And I don't think it was as clear.

That one was a little more center line turn.

So a little bit more, I won't repeat your comment here, the way you called it and defined that lane.

But yeah, there was a little bit more of that than individual turn pockets.

And then we also have a number of different restrictions, left-hand turn restrictions in certain areas and stuff now because of volumes in areas like a downing and some of that.

What Brian told me at the time was that it was the left turners that were causing the spike in patches.

Absolutely.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

We can provide some more.

McGill-Mirror.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you for the presentation.

And I really want to thank the community members who are here today and who have been so active.

It takes a certain amount of availability and resources to spend so much time on something like this.

And so I really have to applaud you all for all the work that you've done.

because I have to say it would be a great burden for people in my council district to take off from work,

to be at all the things that you've been at.

And so in that...

It's a burden for us, too. It's a burden for me.

I hear you. I hear you.

And I want to recognize that because it's unfortunate that Dottie is in this place right now

and the trust is gone.

There is no trust.

And especially when you have a lobbyist who used to work for DOTI that I have to say, I have some concerns about what was done in my council district when that person worked with the city.

And so your trust and integrity on this project is nil.

And it's troubling to me that sort of the talking down, I guess, a little bit to community around like, you know, there's a difference.

You have a whole slide on slide seven about engage and inform.

Who cares?

Like your argument is on ice because you're paid by the taxpayers.

I'm paid by the taxpayers.

So what if they want you to start all over, do it over, do it right, or put the entire thing in and see if it works?

But where there's emails, there's Quora's.

This is indicative of what I've been complaining about since probably about July 31st, 2023.

And now it's all coming around, all coming around.

And so I really appreciate because it's uncomfortable.

It's scary. It's not your norm to do this. And so I want to really give you props because you are changing the accountability and the transparency that even the auditor's office hasn't been able to get from this administration.

So keep it up. Don't let them gaslight you, talk down to you, make you think that you're not as smart as a traffic engineer.

Because I respect traffic engineers, but sometimes they can make mistakes.

And I was walking with some out in my district and telling them about an intersection.

Oh, no, no, Councilwoman. No, no, it doesn't.

Keybone right in front of us.

I'm like, okay, tell me how you explain that.

within two years it was quick for Dottie we got a traffic signal out there it's

right out by Costco in Montbello and so stay the course keep asking the good

questions you're doing exactly what you need to do thank you no okay thank you

we have a few more folks in the queue and again thank you all for so much for

being here and I do understand that it is a hardship for many folks to be here

Across our city and county of Denver, I do have a couple of questions from the presentation and I wanted to start with a request because I think a number of council members have asked for data have asked for follow up.

And I would like for us to come back and have a discussion and we'll follow up before we conclude with the committee of what that looks like because individual conversations I think are beneficial for Dottie.

But I think collective conversations are beneficial for the community and so I would love for us to have a collective conversation and make sure that we're all getting the same data and information and reports and things of that nature.

So, we don't have this world that I think we're in currently. And so regarding the topics that daddy said, where the basis for reconsidering their project, which included traffic congestion side.

street diversion and risk to Virginia Avenue and park adjacent areas.

These all seems like concerns that our residents are car driver based.

Why this focus, excuse me, for these folks over the concerns of pedestrians?

Particularly as Councilman Hines asked about Vision Zero and you stated your commitment to Vision Zero.

Thank you.

So happy to share additional data and, you know, produce that and, you know, talk through that.

And that, again, is also why the additional safety analysis that we want to do with the demonstration as we engage with the public, as we share that as we go, we think that's a very important element, too.

And why this?

The consideration actually was attached to how we look at both the vehicular safety, the pedestrian safety on the entire system.

And that Virginia piece of it, as we started to do the additional analysis, that is what pointed us in that direction, saying there could be some concerns here and that actually it could raise risks, especially for pedestrians and cyclists who are in the area.

There's so much interaction of vehicular pedestrian as well as bicycle traffic on Virginia and whether or not the addition of car traffic on that would be a concern.

It seems like the focus should be on pedestrians, though.

If you think about it, I think Councilman Hines gave a good example of being an individual on a bike who unfortunately was hit by a car.

And so if I'm in the car and I crash into another vehicle, I'm probably less likely to be severely injured than if I'm hit by that same car at the same speed.

And so if we're talking about pedestrian safety, it doesn't seem like there's a focus on pedestrian safety.

There's a focus on the car-centric aspect of this.

And when we're truly committed to Vision Zero, how do we turn that commitment into Vision Zero to that pedestrian safety aspect?

So you're talking about Alameda as a whole and the crashes that we have on Alameda.

And so it is a high crash corridor, as we've indicated, is a high injury network corridor.

The crashes and the data on that is related to the vehicular traffic.

And we've paid very close attention still to pedestrian safety.

Do you think it's important that pedestrian safety being much on some of the cross sides and the crossings of Alameda as we have people coming down and into the park area and others.

And so that's why you saw safety elements on this project that include crossings and improvements there. And so, so we are focused on that. We think we are continue to remain focused on that.

I wanted to chat with you. I wanted to chat a bit about the demonstration project because I wanted to better understand it and it sounds like that you all have attached a budget to the demonstration project in terms of costs.

Whether that's the old design of the new design on that you all have reached recently provided.

And so I wanted to see if you all could give me some numbers and that like, what are your projections when it comes to the demonstration project? Is it different for the old designer than what's now being done?

proposed? When are you all planning to return? And what role does community have in the design

of that demonstration project? Yeah. So what we'd like to do is our team is in the process right now

of sort of defining some of the details. We'd like to actually come out and work with a community

work group to share some of what we're thinking with the demonstration project, gather their input

and feedback, say, hey, this is, we think you're, this sounds good. Hey, maybe I ask you to consider

this. How would you look at an element here? And so what we'd like to do is we'd like to engage

with the community to do that.

And I'd say here within the next month or so

to be able to do that.

That'll also help us put some numbers

to the cost of the demonstration project.

We felt that this was the best way

to continue the safety analysis on the overall

and on the overall project, like I said,

to continue to gather data in real time.

And so we'd love to come to the community

and do that and engage with that.

And as you saw sort of on that slide,

and then also continue to report out

as that demonstration happens.

Okay.

And then my final one, and I'll get back in the queue

so I can stick to three.

I won't take the privilege of being the chair overboard.

I wanted to understand, as you all have this engage and informed strategy,

that at some point that you all were working with,

and I assume that it's coming from the IAP2 continuum of how you engage communities

where you're informing them and you're engaging them.

But in using that tool, you're up front with your communities

about at each step of the engagement process where you are engaging them

and when you are informing them.

And there's a continuum of that nature.

And one of the things that I heard in the presentation is that you all made an assumption

that folks knew that you had moved from engagement to informed.

And so I'm curious as to, as you all are designing your processes, how are you defining engaged?

How are you defining informed?

And at what step of this process did you go out to communities and say, hey, we've taken

your feedback and based on the feedback that you all have given me, it has led us to this

alternative project and pathway that we are going to be exploring because that is a big

piece that seems to be missing is that you didn't actually come back and tell community

we used your information in this way and this is how we've gotten here, which is how folks

have landed on, well, the lobbyist is the person or the individuals or individuals that

have informed this because there's no other evidence that you've provided to be able to

combat that narrative.

No, I hear you. And I think that what we've seen, and as we look through our engagement process and as we continue this, you know, we used this process sort of historically similar to some of what we had done, for instance, I-25 or Broadway or Kearney and Cromaria or, you know, a little different on South Irving as Councilman Flint leaves.

So we gather that feedback. We meet with the public. People are aware that we've met.

People are aware that there are issues. We then have historically gone back and taken that and

analyzed it and said, okay, what do we think? Or how do we look at this feedback? What do we think

about it? And then come back out and said, hey, you know, this is some of the analysis we've done.

We've decided that we're going to make changes on the design on the roadway stuff based on the

community feedback and a post-design process on I-25 and Broadway. Or even bigger yet, we chose

after a lot of engagement with petitions and community feedback and others on that particular

project to cancel an entire portion of the project. Amy, I don't mean to interrupt you,

but because we're limited on time, I just want to get to the specific question that I'm asking,

is at what point in this process did you go back to community and inform it to let them know,

we have moved from engagement, we are now informing you, and based on this specific data

or information, this is now the new project proposal that is on the table, and what we had

co-created with you is no longer on the table and here are the reasons why in

October and November tell me about that so if you look we came back we did we

met with people we invited others to attend in some of those meetings we

people were aware that this we were being talked to we got petitions we got

feedback from the public we shared with people that we were analyzing design I

shared in that that transportation advisory board meeting and we then came

back and told people in october this is what we've decided i think there's some disagreement

in that with your department the mayor's office and communities and the folks who tax dollars at

these projects fund and with that i'll go back to the coup councilwoman alvidris you're up next and

then i have councilman cashman next thank you i'll be brief i'll just say that i'm very sad at this

conversation today it's hard to sit here you know with a council member who's been injured and to

to Councilwoman Gilmore's point with the west side of my district where Alameda has more crashes than

your area and those people are not here and those kids that go to Valverde those kids that go to

Goldrick their families are not here and they're not even on the table because Alameda over there

is a highway and so I do want to thank the community for your activism for your chorus

because it is scary and I am scared and I'll share I'm scared that this project with Vision

zero Mississippi for the west side isn't going to happen because of retaliation.

I'm scared of what is what dotty projects that we're working on are going to

happen. I'm upset that West Rush Park is prioritized in your sidewalk plan above

the west side that has missing sidewalks and no sidewalks. And so the equity issue here is huge.

And it's not right that every news outlet in Denver is covering this piece of

Alameda which isn't even the most dangerous part of my district. And so

even when this first started it was hard for me to engage because I knew in my

heart what my community goes through crossing Federal, what they go through

crossing Alameda. But this is one of the safer areas in District 7 with several

highways, Santa Fe, Federal, I-25, all cutting around my district. And so I'm scared right now.

I'm scared for the future of our city, for the kiddos that need to walk around, for the people

that don't have a choice. And the line on Federal is one of the most used bus lines that there is.

And that means that people are running across to catch their bus every day.

And so I want to hold space for this conversation and emphasize that this isn't even the most dangerous part of our city.

And we really need you to be serious partners.

And what scares me most is that this is setting a precedent of the loudest, most powerful people continuing to influence our decisions.

the people that are literally in the most danger

not being in the room.

Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you for this discussion.

You know my position.

I stand by my position.

As my colleague, all my colleagues have said,

an underlined exclamation point from Councilman Alvedra.

Such an important process.

I want to apologize for an earlier throwaway comment

that was not needed in this discussion

about how my name was presented on a slide.

I want it to be clear, Molly,

you're an invaluable resource to my office

in matters that are important to my district.

So I didn't want that to not go on and said,

Thank you, Madam chair. Thank you committee chair. We only have a few minutes left. I want to reiterate what council member parity said about transparency and honesty in government.

So say we all thank you so much for lifting that up.

Council Member Parity, and I see that we have some serious trust issues that are here.

This isn't the only, you know, this is not an isolated event, unfortunately.

When we show slides, the one that says evaluation of the designs, and specifically the pedestrian

and safety column as council member parity pointed out where there's a value statement

that somehow pedestrian safety is better with a partial lane reduction than a full lane reduction

that undermines the comment of we need to rely on traffic engineers if our traffic engineers are

are making opinion statements and putting them on slides,

then we're not using traffic engineers for their knowledge.

We're using them to make gut,

shoot from the hip kind of decisions,

or we're making decisions,

they are making scientific analysis

that's not actually based in science.

So we should, if we're gonna talk about,

we should let the determination be given to traffic engineers

because they know the experts, they know the facts,

they know how to solve things based on data,

then let's have data as opposed to value statements

like that column.

Also similar about trust and transparency in government,

council member Gilmore mentioned a lobbyist

and former DOTI employee and their impact on district 11

I know that there was a stakeholder process for installations of protected bike lanes downtown.

And then a lobbyist, without any sort of stakeholder involvement, removed the protected bike lane in front of the SDK Steakhouse.

So this is unfortunately not the only time that has eroded my faith and trust in our traffic engineers or my faith and trust in the leadership of our commitment to Vision Zero.

Again, if we're removing pedestrian and cyclist improvements, how can we imagine that we're going to get better results with Vision Zero attainment?

attainment so um thank you so much i don't know if anyone else is in the queue thank you for the

comments yeah um are you sure i'm sure thank you um those are the folks who are in the queue i just

have one follow-up and i said i would circle back to this because i wanted a better understanding of

the demonstration project that you all talked about a timeline when you all could come back

to committee um to be able to present on that information i just got a quick message um to

to Melissa to look at the calendar so that we might be able to get that as well as the data

that was requested by several council members here. And so if we can just take a pause to see

maybe what's available and we can get that commitment so that we can continue to move

this conversation forward. And then I would be curious from you all, what are your,

as you all were preparing this presentation, what were your next steps in terms of

how you hope to be able to conclude this conversation?

So obviously we wanted to answer some of the questions that we had heard from you,

you know, address some of the questions that we'd heard in the letter and then talk with

you all about the next steps, our next step involvements with community and others, the

discussion about the demonstration deployment.

And we'd be happy to come back and report and engage with you all, obviously, as we

work with the council members also to gather your input and feedback as we move that forward

as we again go to that final design.

And I want to say that we very much are focused on transparency and honesty and using our best data and information.

We have the same goal.

We have the same priority, which is to protect our pedestrians, our cyclists, our vehicles, people who are driving in those vehicles, and to create the safest system that we possibly can.

And that is always and what is driving every piece of this.

And how we get there is where we are moving.

And so we're happy to come back and present that. Our goal is, like I said, to work on this demonstration deployment and work with the community to engage them in how we think we can do that, deploy that, and then use that as a barometer and others to continue to inform that final design.

So happy to come to you and do a regular report out, should you guys want that as well as we move this forward.

Thank you so much. So the dates that we have available for you are February 18th.

Does that give you all that might be enough time for us to be able to do that? We can present some high level stuff. We certainly want to be do the public engagement pieces of that. Let's see.

So, if you could, let's let's pencil that and then if we can ask for differences, should we should we not be able to get that public engagement in that process? Then we can.

Great, thank you. We'll put that on tentatively for you all to come back to this committee with that additional information. And then if you all do, do the demonstration, I'm speaking on behalf of myself. I'm not speaking on behalf of the team.

If you all do a demonstration, it should be of the full reduction lane. That would be my preference that you will do that just to give it a chance to see what is possible.

And then I did not get a chance to recognize Council President Sandoval.

And my apologies for not doing that earlier.

With that, we have five items on consent.

I don't think I missed anything.

And with that, we are adjourned.

Thank you.

Thank you.