The Inter-Neighborhood Cooperation Transportation Committee will meet via Zoom on Thursday, September 8th from 6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.

Everyone is welcome! 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. You are welcome to participate even if your neighborhood organization is not a member of INC, or you are not active in a neighborhood group. Please pass on this invitation to anyone who might be interested in joining the committee — they can use this form to be added to our growing e-mail list!

I hope your Labor Day weekend has been relaxing!

This month brings one of the biggest collections of timely topics we’ve ever had — all packed into a two-hour with time for connection and Q&A with each of our guests.  Whether you’re representing a neighborhood organization, another group, or your own interest in our city’s evolving mobility, this is one to be sure to attend!  (The press is finding our meetings again as well: I was tickled to see a news story last month that was based on a presentation at our last meeting. Everyone is welcome!)

The full details for Thursday are below, but let me tell you why I’m excited about this agenda:

• For two major topics just announced and covered in the media — DRCOG changing its project list between now and 2050 away from highway widening and towards multimodal in support of state greenhouse gas standards, and CoPIRG launching the Alliance to Transform Transportation — we have the key leaders joining us right away to tell us about those efforts and share Q&A.
• From DOTI there’s great progress being made on East Colfax BRT and the timing for other Bus Rapid Transit corridors is coming into focus, and DOTI’s Director of Transit is the best person to hear about that from.
• We will get insights from Angie Rivera-Malpiede as she nears the end of several challenging years serving on the Board of Directors at RTD, and in addition to the successes she’s rightfully proud of, I also expect we’ll get some very clear-eyed thoughts about RTD’s next challenges and future.
• Finally, residents advocating for safe transportation are always key to making change, and we’re inviting back Allen Cowgill to talk about the disturbingly wide levels of safety on Denver’s recent “Neighborhood Bikeways“.

I hope you can join us, and please share this meeting notice with the people and groups interested in transportation topics in your area.

See you this Thursday at 6pm via Zoom!

— Joel

INC Transportation Committee – Thursday, September 8th, 6-8 p.m. via Zoom
Register at https://bit.ly/INCTransportationSeptember2022

• DRCOG 2050 Metro Vision Regional Transportation Plan – Doug Rex, Executive Director & Jacob Riger, Manager of Long-Range Transportation Planning, DRCOG
  The day before our meeting, the Denver Regional Council of Governments (DRCOG) will hold a public hearing on proposed updates to its 2050 Metro Vision Regional Transportation Plan. These changes are primarily in response to the state’s new Greenhouse Gas Planning Standard (known as the GHG Rule). The proposed GHG-related changes involve a framework of programmatic and project-specific changes to the plan, as well as other mitigation strategies that together further strengthen the plan’s multimodal investment priorities. Doug Rex, Executive Director, and Jacob Riger, Manager of Long-Range Transportation Planning, will give us the details and context of these important updates to the plan to address the state’s historic greenhouse gas emissions goals.
• Denver’s Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) Future is Getting Closer – David Krutsinger, DOTI Director of Transit
  Denver is moving with more clarity on implementing prioritized transit on our major arterials, as called for in Denver Moves: Transit. This month, we are grateful to hear from David Krutsinger, the head of DOTI’s transit work. With just a brief update on East Colfax BRT (and the prospect of getting it done years sooner than previously anticipated!), we’ll hear about the progress being made on other major corridors as DOTI starts sequencing project investments within its multi-year strategic transportation plan. We’ll also hear how these efforts align with RTD’s regional BRT planning, and how DOTI sees CDOT helping on those arterial streets owned by the state agency.  Transit isn’t just about the vehicle operations — the streets have to be transit-supportive as well if we’re going to make this option a viable choice for more of Denver residents’ trips.
• Reflections on an Eventful RTD Board Service & Future – RTD Board Member Angie Rivera-Malpiede
  As Director Angie Rivera-Malpiede nears the end of her final term on the RTD Board of Directors, we have invited her to share with us her thoughts on how RTD has faced the challenges of the last several years, and what she sees ahead for our regional transit agency.
• Advocacy for Better Neighborhood Bikeway Designs – Allen Cowgill, Denver Bicycle Lobby
  Among the variety of bike facilities in Denver, the “Neighborhood Bikeway” is considered by the City to be a high-comfort type that anyone of any age should feel comfortable riding on.  While some neighborhood bikeways are the type of quiet neighborhood streets where speedy cars aren’t present (and perhaps speed and cut-through traffic have been discouraged by strategic infrastructure  changes), many others are nothing more than “sharrows” on roads with threateningly fast traffic and no separation for bikes. What is a Neighborhood Bikeway — and why are we getting such a mixed implementation of comfortable and dangerous implementations?  Allen Cowgill and other Denver resident bike advocates are raising the question, and want better answers. 
• Alliance to Transform Transportation – Danny Katz, CoPIRG Executive Director
  On August 31st, CoPIRG and a coalition of partners announced the formation of the Alliance to Transform Transportation — a Denver metro-focused alliance to greatly expand sustainable funding for transit and the infrastructure that makes it possible by 2025. We’ll hear about the vision for reliable, fast, competitive service so good it can transform how Denverites move, and why so many environmental, transportation, social justice and other organizations have come together to launch this effort.