The Inter-Neighborhood Cooperation Transportation Committee will meet on Thursday, November 14th, 6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. at 1201 Williams Street, 19th Floor.

We have a positively packed agenda this month, with great speakers on some of the most important transportation topics in Denver today.

Thursday, November 14th, 6-8 p.m

1. Denver’s New Complete Street Design Guidelines & Standards – Riley LaMie, Senior City Planner in Public Works, and Kristofer Johnson, Principal City Planner in Community Planning and Development Denver has begun the process of developing new Complete Street Design Guidelines, as called for in Blueprint Denver. The guidelines will be the guiding principles for the city’s public right of way, detailing how we allocate space to move more people more effectively. After completing the Guidelines, this effort will continue with a formal update to Denver’s Transportation Standards and Details. We will learn about this process and opportunities for public engagement from core members of the team from Public Works and Community Planning and Development.
2. RTD Driver Shortage Response — Michael Ford, RTD’s Chief Operating OfficerThe news has been heavily reporting what riders have been experiencing: RTD has a severe driver/operator shortage, and because of this, routes throughout the system have been missing scheduled runs. What are the key reasons for the operator shortage, what is RTD doing about it, and what can be explored next? Is it time to adjust the scheduled runs to match what can be delivered, in order to increase rider confidence that they will get to their destinations on time? We’ll be joined by RTD’s Chief Operating Officer Michael Ford for a briefing on these topics that both RTD staff and the RTD Board are grappling with.
3. Short Break (with snacks!)
4. Reimagine RTD — Bill Sirois, Senior Manager, RTD & Reimagine RTD Study

RTD has just begun its Reimagine RTD effort — a two-year open, transparent study to understand and forecast the transportation needs of our region and create a System Optimization Plan focused on near term (next 2 to 5 years) bus and rail service and a long term (next 30 years) mobility plan for the future . Including a system optimization/redesign effort, Reimagine RTD will look at nearly every aspect of how the transit operations are provided to inform a potential redesign of RTD’s existing bus and rail network. Bill Sirois, an RTD Senior Manager and key staff member to this effort, will give us the overview of the scope of Reimagine RTD, and will let us know about the regional advisory committee and the public engagement opportunities.
Denver Moves: Downtown Update — Riley LaMie, Senior City Planner in Public Works & City Project Manager for Denver Moves: Downtown

The Denver Moves: Downtown project as just hit a milestone, with the introduction of a range of possible transformative projects to our region’s economic core. Just one week after the presentation to the project’s Community Task Force, we’re delighted to have Riley LaMie with Denver Public Works share with us some of the large and small changes being considered for near-term and long-term implementation building towards a new vision for the future of mobility in our city’s center.

As INC and many mobility advocacy groups called for, Blueprint Denver recommends that the city entirely revise its street design guidelines in order to move more people, and move them safely. The city is following through, having begun the creation of new Complete Street Design Guidelines in progress, to be followed by rules & regulations to turn these guidelines into specific standards.  This month we have two of the core members of this effort joining us, demonstrating the close connection between land use and transportation goals. There’s a map-based survey open to gather input on what’s working and what isn’t regarding Denver street design. Check it out and encourage your networks to participate!

RTD has been in the news regarding both near-term challenges and long-term vision, and we’re going to hear from key people in both areas. Michael Ford, RTD’s Chief Operating Officer, will tell us about the serious driver/operator shortage that has caused so much unreliability in service, and the staff and Board’s alternatives to respond. Please take their survey, open through Sunday, November 17th, and share your thoughts on how they can best respond to these challenges. Looking forward, we’re also happy to hear about the Reimagine RTD effort — a two-year study to completely reexamine RTD’s operations from Bill Sirois, Senior Manager at the agency closely involved in this work.

Finally, we’ll get an update on the Denver Moves: Downtown effort, which just introduced a large set of potential short- and near-term multimodal improvements that have the potential to truly transform our core. We’ll be among the first to hear about these draft proposals, which were just presented to the project’s task force this week.

We hope your neighborhood can send a representative to the committee as we discuss a range of transportation, transit, and streets topics, build connections with the agencies and organizations involved, and ensure that neighborhood input is included in plans at all levels! Attendees do not need to be INC delegates — all are welcome. Even if your neighborhood organization is not a member of INC, you are welcome to participate. Please pass this on to anyone who might be interested in joining the committee — they can use this form to be added to our growing e-mail list!