The INC Transportation Committee next meets on Thursday, March 9th 2017, 6 p.m. at 1201 Williams St.

If you would like to add someone from your neighborhood who is interested in transportation topics, please write to us or have them use the form at http://eepurl.com/Pvv6T

Tours of Denver’s Traffic Management Center
By special arrangement, the INC Transportation Committee will be touring Denver’s Traffic Management Center at the Wellington Webb Building, 201 W. Colfax. We have two tours lined up, each of which can accommodate 10 people (no children, please). Tour sign-up is first-come, first-served, and tour participants will need to be signed up to attend. Please write to transportation@denverinc.org with the subject “Tours of Denver’s Traffic Management Center”

Friday, April 7th at 6 p.m. or 
Wednesday, April 12th at 6 p.m.

We hope you can join us! Please keep sending in your ideas for transportation related tours!
Take the Denver Vision Zero Map-Based Survey
The City and County of Denver would like everyone’s feedback regarding the safety of streets, sidewalks, intersections and all transportation-related locations in Denver. Please encourage your neighbors to fill out a map-based survey to identify locations where you have serious safety concerns or locations where you think the design provides safe and easy access for all modes. Neighborhoods know our streets best — let’s tell them where the problem spots are, as we work together to eliminate traffic deaths and serious injuries!

Vision Zero is a proven, data-driven approach to reducing transportation-related injuries and saving lives. Vision Zero is a goal of working toward the only acceptable number of traffic deaths and serious injuries: zero. It originated in Sweden in 1997 and has since been adopted in countries across the globe. More recently, cities including New York, Chicago, Boston, San Francisco, Seattle, Portland, and San Diego, have adopted Vision Zero policies. With the urging of Inter-Neighborhood Cooperation and several partners in the Vision Zero Coalition, Denver has committed to this important goal, and we look forward to the upcoming action plan to make our streets safe for all!

Important Denveright Blueprint Denver Workshop!
How Should Blueprint Denver Address Growth In the Next 20 Years?
How will Denver address growth as our population continues to increase? Come be part of a Blueprint Denver workshop to help identify the best path forward for managing Denver’s growth.

At the April 25 scenario planning workshop, you can join a “Blueprint growth strategy game” that plays out the implications of different patterns of growth. What are the tradeoffs for different increases in population, employment and housing, and what are the tradeoffs associated with different growth strategies?

By creating priority transit corridors, exploring current and future growth patterns downtown and in mixed-use centers, and envisioning new mixed-use centers, you will have an opportunity to help shape how future growth may impact equity and affordability, mobility, and access to recreation and other daily needs.

• April 25, 2017
• 5:30 – 8 p.m.
• West Leadership Academy at Denver West High School
• 951 Elati St, Denver, CO 80204

Agenda and more details will be available at: denvergov.org/denveright.

Spanish language interpretation services, child care & food will be provided. Sign language interpreter or CART will be provided upon request. Contact SignLanguageServices@denvergov.org.

Share a flyer with your neighborhood in English and Spanish!
Meeting Minutes – March 9, 2017
We had a meeting so packed this month we overloaded the system and triggered a fire alarm! OK, we don’t know why the fire alarm went off, but we did have a large number of timely topics and an overflowing room of attendees. Thank you all for joining us! Special thanks to Joe Wilson with Another Rad Creation for providing the desserts! And we are indebted, as always, to Michael Henry for the great meeting space!

Our first presentation was from Stephen Rijo, Denver Public Works Transportation Transportation Demand Management program administrator. This very timely topic comes just as many discussions in neighborhoods and at City Council are turning towards how we can find ways to address congestion in our growing city (and our growing region, with a large number of trips coming in and out of Denver every day).

Transportation Demand Management, or TDM, is defined as various strategies that shift the how, when, and/or where of people’s travel behavior to increase system efficiency, reduce single occupancy vehicle (SOV) trips, and achieve specific planning goals.

Stephen presented his research on what other peer cities have been doing with their TDM programs, including Seattle, San Francisco, and Boulder. San Francisco’s model, just recently updated, includes a menu of options for all development to pick from in order to help manage the trip demand to and from their sites. Stephen was quick to emphasize that TDM is not a “one size fits all” program, but rather something that needs to be studied, adopted, and revised in each city based on goals and opportunities in that community.

When it comes to goals, Denver is already committed to reducing commute trips by single occupant vehicles to 60% of commute trips — right now we’re hovering in the mid-70s. It’s clear that “mode shift” isn’t happening by itself, and the time is right for us to make more intentional steps to make other modes more attractive and available.

Stephen’s work in Public Works currently is focused on implementing a TDM program for the City of Denver employee base, and he presented many ideas they are pursuing beyond providing EcoPass at a significant discount to employees. What he learns there, and in coordination with Transportation Management Associations in the area (such as Transportation Solutions, Northeast Transportation Connections, and Commuting Solutions), will provide significant insight to a citywide TDM program.

City Council, with leadership from Councilmembers Clark and Brooks, are calling for the development of a Denver TDM program, which is expected to take 18-24 months, which we will hear more about in the coming months.

Stephen has graciously made his slides available for inclusion in our notes. Thank you!

Our second presentation was a brief overview of the Sidewalk Working Group progress to date by Councilman Paul Kashmann who is leading that effort as part of an overall Mobility Working Group spearheaded by Councilman Jolon Clark. Finding a better, more effective, more equitable way to fund sidewalk installation and maintenance has been a priority for Denver neighborhoods for over a decade, as expressed in INC position statements and restated in 2015 in our Transportation Platform.

Councilman Kashmann shared with us his cautious optimism that the city can find a better way to manage sidewalk installation and maintenance. Although he was initially advised by long-time city participants to “not even try” to address sidewalks when he joined Council, today he finds unanimous support among his peers that we must find a better way — what we’re doing today isn’t working. In the last few months, the Mayor has convened a focused group including Councilman Kashmann, the budget office, Public Works, the City Attorney’s office, and others, to develop a recommendation on a funding source and approach by June 30th of this year. Their next meeting is in April, at which point they’ll have some initial thoughts on how the funding might work, which he will share with us.

Separately from the topic of ongoing funding, Councilman Kashmann is also asking for $80 million from the General Obligation bond package (which is expected to be $500 million – $600 million overall), which is the estimate to fill in missing gaps in the sidewalk network. This one-time money would be an excellent jump start and a real, tangible commitment to our pedestrian infrastructure.

So while the specifics of both the ongoing funding and one-time funding from the General Obligation bond package is still unknown, he is enthusiastic and optimistic, and he encourages all of us to “keep leaning in” on the bond process and on our City Council representatives and the Mayor to develop an effective, efficient, equitable program.

We were happy to meet James Waddell, the new BikeDenver Executive Director and a resident of the San Rafael neighborhood. James talked about the new focus at BikeDenver on advocacy and building their coalition, and will only focus on events that further advocacy and building up the coalition of “Angelic Troublemakers” at every opportunity.

Towards this end, rather than spending a tremendous amount of time each year reaching out to members to ask them to renew their $25 membership, BikeDenver has now dropped the cost of membership to $0 each year. While requests for funding will be made to support the nonprofit operations, building the membership and advocacy base is the top priority, so we can build out a safe bike network that works for those of all ages — from 8 to 80!

Unfortunately, Jill Locantore’s talk was preempted by a fire alarm. The very timely topic was to be the then-just-announced Colorado House Bill 1242, which proposes an increase in the statewide sales tax from 2.9 percent to 3.52 percent, while reducing vehicle registration fees, to fund both a statewide $3.5 billion bond package and to provide an ongoing funding source for city and county projects of all types. Jill highly recommends SWEEP’s blog post “Bipartisan Plan Could Solve Colorado’s Transportation Headaches” to get up to speed on the structure and promise of this proposal, which is still working its way through the legislature.
2017 Meeting Schedule
The INC Transportation Committee’s meetings throughout 2017 will be held at 1201 Williams St., 19th Floor from 6 p.m. – 8 p.m. Thank you to Michael Henry for the wonderful space!

• May 11, 2017
• July 13, 2017
• September 14, 2017
• November 9, 2017

Call for Topic Suggestions
Do you have a topic you’d like the INC Transportation Committee to consider or to find a speaker to discuss with us? Please send your ideas to Joel and Geneva at

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