Pictured above: The newly installed arch on the eastbound Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) station platform at East Colfax Avenue and Franklin Street. The Colfax BRT received funding in Denver’s 2017 GO Bond.
The City of Denver is gearing up to put a general obligation (GO) bond measure on this November’s ballot that would raise around $800 million for major capital improvement projects. To decide which projects are included in the bond package, the City asked community members to submit ideas, which were then reviewed by five different community-led Subcommittees that each focused on a specific area (e.g., Connectivity, Arts and Cultural Venues, etc.). An Executive Committee will combine the recommendations from each Subcommittee into a final project list that they will forward to City Council for final consideration and referral to the ballot.
The public still has a chance to weigh in as the Executive Committee deliberates between now and June 13, by either submitting a comment online or signing up to speak at a meeting. If you want to raise your voice to support funding for pedestrian, bike, transit, and street safety improvements check out our comment guide!
One of the big decisions the Executive Committee will have to make is how much of the bond funding to allocate to each subarea. The Connectivity Subcommittee, which our very own DSP Executive Director Jill Locantore chaired, recommended that approximately half of the funding (i.e., at least $400 million) should be allocated to transportation projects. Transportation intersects virtually every aspect of residents’ daily lives. Improving transportation options will help Denver achieve a wide range of benefits, including reducing greenhouse gas emissions, improving air quality and public health outcomes, eliminating traffic fatalities and serious injuries, increasing affordability and livability of our neighborhoods, creating economic opportunity for all Denver residents, and connecting people of all ages, incomes, and abilities to their daily needs.
The list of worthy transportation projects in need of funding is long. The Connectivity Subcommittee considered a total of 65 different projects, which added up to more than $3 billion. Key criteria the Subcommittee used to evaluate these projects included the following:
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- Denver’s commitment to Vision Zero and eliminating traffic fatalities and serious injuries (e.g., is the project on Denver’s High Injury Network?)
- Completing the multimodal networks and reducing the percent of people driving alone (e.g., is the project on a transit priority street in the Denver Moves Transit Plan or a bicycle priority street in the Denver Moves Bikes Plan?)
- Equity and impact on historically marginalized racial and ethnic communities (e.g., is the project in a NEST neighborhood?)
Based on this criteria, the Connectivity Subcommittee recommended 22 projects, adding up to about $1 billion, as a high priority for further consideration by the Executive Committee. This “Tier 1” list of projects fell into several different categories:
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- Citywide programs to build neighborhood streets with bikeways, pedestrian crossings, traffic calming, and bike/scooter corrals. The Subcommittee recommended that 30% of the overall funding for transportation should be allocated to these programs.
- Major multimodal transformations of big arterial streets that are part of the High Injury Network and priority transit routes (or parallel to these routes), including Federal Boulevard, West Alameda Avenue, West 38th Avenue, 13th/14th Avenues, 17th/18th Avenues, Sheridan Boulevard, Evans Avenue, and York/Josephine
- Major upgrades to the bike network, including extending the Broadway bikeway from Speer Boulevard into downtown, and widening the Cherry Creek bike path along 1st Avenue between Downing and University
- Community-championed projects including the 5280 Trail, Westwood Via Verde, two-way conversion of Stout Street, and a new connection across three different railroads from the GES neighborhoods to the RTD N Line station
- Projects focused on major barriers or pinch points in the multimodal network, including the 38th Street underpass at Blake Street, the Mississippi Avenue bridge over the South Platte River, and the 8th Avenue viaduct in the La Alma Lincoln Park neighborhood.
You can view the full list of projects considered [PDF] by the Connectivity Subcommittee, and the Committee’s rankings of the projects as high, medium, or low priority, on the Vibrant Denver GO Bond website. Use our comment guide to champion the projects you’d most like to see in the final bond package!