A rendering of a potential redesign of the dangerous, highway-style cloverleaf interchange of Colfax Avenue and Federal Boulevard. This is one of several Denver projects at risk from Federal funding cuts.
Under the Trump Administration, Federal funding for transportation projects is facing uncertainty, delays, and outright cuts to obligated funding. According to an analysis by Transportation for America, more than $20 billion for projects currently underway across the country might be eliminated. Two recent memos from USDOT Secretary Sean Duffy outline plans to eliminate programs related “in any way” to “climate change, ‘greenhouse gas’ emissions, racial equity, gender identity, “diversity, equity, and inclusion” goals, and environmental justice.
As Ben Crowther from America Walks told Streetsblog USA, “If we don’t speak up for these sources of funding now, they could disappear entirely . . . Right now, Congress is getting tons of messages about all sorts of programs that are threatened at the federal level. When time comes for them to negotiate, if no one is speaking up for [sustainable transportation], these will programs will be the first to be cut.”
The Denver Streets Partnership has contacted our Federal representatives to inquire about the impact on critical transportation projects here in Denver, listed below. You can also contact your representatives — both America Walks and Transportation for America have set up simple, plug-and-play forms for this purpose.
-
$150 million Fixed Guideway Capital Investment Grants Allocation for East Colfax Bus Rapid Transit (BRT). Providing more and better transit is essential for Denver’s and Colorado’s goals for making our communities more affordable, healthy, safe, and sustainable, and improving the quality of life for millions of residents and visitors. East Colfax is the first BRT line to be constructed out of a dozen BRT routes envisioned in the Denver Moves Transit plan.
-
$6.8 million Safe Streets and Roads for All grant awarded to the City and County of Denver for much-needed safety improvements in the downtown area where 20% of fatal and serious injury crashes occur. Like cities across the country, Denver has seen an alarming increase in traffic fatalities, particularly for the most vulnerable people on our streets who are traveling by foot or bike. These deaths are preventable with the types of street design changes that will be funded by this grant.
-
$35.5 million Reconnecting Communities and Neighborhoods grant awarded to the City and County of Denver for bike, pedestrian, and green infrastructure improvements in the Globeville, Elyria, and Swansea neighborhoods. These neighborhoods are among the most polluted in the country, and have suffered from decades of redlining and disinvestment, as well as the impacts of I-70 dividing the neighborhoods.
-
$2 million Reconnecting Communities and Neighborhoods grant awarded to the Colorado Department of Transportation for redesigning the massive highway-style interchange at Colfax Avenue and Federal Boulevard. Colfax and Federal are two of the deadliest streets in Denver, with an average of 5 fatalities per year on each corridor, and the community has long been calling for the removal of the interchange as a major barrier that divides the neighborhood, makes it unsafe, and isn’t serving the community’s needs.