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Denver residents seek renewed focus on ending traffic deaths: ‘Lives are at stake’

Denver’s “Vision Zero” plan aims to eliminate traffic deaths and serious injuries by 2030

By Hannah Metzger, Colorado Politics

Since Mayor Michael Hancock committed to eliminating traffic deaths seven years ago, Denver’s roads have only gotten deadlier. As Mayor-elect Mike Johnston prepares to take the city’s reins, Denverites are asking for change.

More than 100 Denver residents squeezed into a packed rec room on Thursday evening for the chance to tell Johnston how he should improve the city’s Department of Transportation and Infrastructure. This was the latest of Johnston’s 28 public forums aimed at collecting community feedback to develop the priorities for his first 100 days in office.

During the public forum, the weight of the more than 400 people who have died on Denver roads since Hancock’s “Vision Zero” plan was announced in 2016 weighed heavily on the room.

“We tend to talk about those fatalities as private or very personal tragedies … but it’s a communal tragedy,” said Jill Locantore, co-chair of Johnston’s Transportation and Infrastructure Committee and executive director of the Denver Streets Partnership. “It is the result of communal decisions that we have made about our transportation system.”

“We can make different decisions going forward,” she added.

Skills

Posted on

July 20, 2023

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