DENVER — Denver announced Wednesday it has recommitted to its goal to eliminate all traffic-related deaths by 2030.
The plan, dubbed Vision Zero, was launched in 2017 and helped implement more than 137 miles of new bike lanes, 88 miles of sidewalks, additional safety signage, reduced speed limits along several dangerous stretches of road and more.
But, the plan has its critics, including John Riecke, co-founder of the Denver Bicycle Lobby.
"All you have to do is look at the numbers," Riekce said. "Deaths have gone up since 2017."
According to the city's crash data dashboard, the number of annual traffic deaths in Denver has increased each year since 2017, except during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.
Last year, 84 people died in a traffic incident, while 386 people were seriously injured in a crash. Both figures are the highest recorded in Denver in the last decade.
Now, there's an updated plan, which is anticipated to take six years to implement and includes prioritizing more infrastructure for pedestrians and bicyclists, greater safety improvements in areas where traffic incidents are most prevalent and reduced speed limits across more sections of the city.
To view the infographic below in fullscreen mode click here.
The implementation of those plans is going to highly depend on the next mayor of Denver and if they decide to prioritize funding for it. Denver7 interviewed mayoral candidates Kelly Brough and Mike Johnston Friday to learn more about their thoughts on the plan itself.
Below is a transcript from their conversation. Minor edits have been made for clarity.
Since 2017, we've seen more traffic related deaths, more serious injury collisions. Is visit zero failing right now?
Brough: "In Denver, it for sure is. Listen, you can look at other cities, and you'll see they're moving toward their Vision Zero. We got to really reassess what does it take to get to Vision Zero for us."
Johnston: "I think we're clearly not hitting the goals we had for ourselves, and we're probably heading the wrong directions as those number of deaths are increasing. And so, I think there have been some laudable attempts to make new changes and investments and improvements. But clearly, we're not doing enough. And we're not doing in the ways we want to to be able to actually drive those numbers down toward zero, which has to be our long-term goal."
What would you add and what would you change [to the plan]?
Brough: "I think what's key here is to learn what other cities are doing that are really working. And in particular, I'm somebody who, I've commuted on my bike for 30 years. I intend to commute as your mayor as well, if I get there. But this is where I think for people to change their driving behaviors and to drive less also requires that they're confident that they'll be safe. So we have to look at, you know, what are the major intersections? What are the hard places to cross? How do we make those safer for pedestrians and cyclists as well? Because that's going to help us get to Vision Zero."
Johnston: "I think there are three things we have to continue doing and expanding if we're gonna get this right. One is we ought to look at where the most dangerous intersections are. We know there are a small number of intersections that continue to have the largest numbers of deaths, and we have to really focus our resources on making those intersections much safer. I think places where we can reduce speed limits and slow down the flow of traffic is also a really critical and important one. And the third is just on bike lanes, not just that we have bike lanes, but that we move towards what we call high comfort bike lanes, which are bike lanes that are not just a painted lane on the street where you're right next to cars going 50 miles an hour on places — where you have either medians that protect those lanes, where you have either the sticks that protect them or where you have even elevated lanes that bikes can be on. So I think the more protections we can provide for a network of bikes around the city."
Would you prioritize funding for the updated version of Vision Zero? Or does it need to be revised first?
Brough: "What other cities have done is they know some of the worst intersections in their city are where you need to prioritize that funding. That's just what I would do. Prioritize the funding where we know the accidents are happening, where the problems are, where you have traffic moving way too fast for the kind of street you're on. Those are the things I prioritize. And absolutely, I'd start it on day one."
Johnston: "I think you always want to look back at what have you learned from the last four years — what's working on our strategy and what isn't. I don't know that we have to rewrite the whole thing, but we should update where are the places where we've learned certain strategies have really worked and certain others, which ones we want to double down on, which ones we made we want to spend less money on, something. We want to use that data for the last five years to inform it. I think we have a good framework to begin with."
