Creating Safer Streets

Denver aims to offer safe and dependable mobility options to efficiently move more people around the city. To achieve this goal, the Department of Transportation and Infrastructure (DOTI)  is working on seven transit initiatives that establish programs and services to transform Denver into a transit-friendly city. One that prioritizes individuals using buses, trains, walking and cycling through efficient and safe street designs.

• Denver’s seven Transit Initiatives provide the infrastructure, services and programs to create a transit-friendly city.
• Explore our transit initiatives through this Interactive Transit Webmap displays planned network enhancements, existing networks, and active and completed projects.
• Denver Moves: Transit establishes our transit vision and guiding framework for improving the quality of transit options in our city – making transit more reliable, more frequent and more convenient for daily use.

Denver’s Pedestrian Program, plans and builds multi-modal improvements to our streets and in our neighborhoods. The goal is to ensure that walking is a safe and convenient mobility option.

Current Projects

• Denver Moves: Pedestrian & Trails
• Sidewalks
• Mobility Action Plan(PDF, 5MB)

Expanding Denver’s network of safe, comfortable and connected bikeways remains a top priority and is part of our community’s vision for a safer, healthier and more vibrant city. Currently, Denver offers nearly 400 miles of on-street bikeways and off-street trails.

Explore Active Bikeway Projects

Appropriately timed yellow change intervals on traffic signals can reduce red-light running improving overall intersection safety. Denver has focused on reducing red-light running by reviewing and updating its traffic signal timing policies and yellow change interval procedures.

Safety Benefits:

• 36-50% reduction in red-light running.
• 8-14% reduction in total crashes and 12% reduction in injury crashes.

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Denver’s Complete Streets efforts are to plan, develop and operate equitable streets and transportation systems that prioritize safety, comfort and connectivity to destinations for all street users.

Details on how Denver allocates space for transportation and other public infrastructure can be found in the Complete Street Design Guidelines.

Complete Streets Design Guidelines

Creating a network of bike lanes makes bicycling safer and more comfortable for most cyclists. This can also mitigate or prevent interactions, conflicts, and crashes between bicyclists and motor vehicles. Bike lanes align with the Safe System Approach principle of recognizing the vulnerability of cyclists—where separating users in space can enhance safety for all road users.

Safety Benefits:

• Converting traditional or flush-buffered bicycle lanes (Buffered bike lanes are conventional bicycle lanes paired with a designated buffer space separating the bicycle lane from the adjacent motor vehicle travel lane and/or parking lane.) to a separated bicycle lane with flexible delineator posts can reduce bicycle/vehicle crashes by up to 53%.
• Bicycle lane additions can reduce crashes up to 49% of total crashes on urban 4-lane undivided and local roads and 30% on urban 2-lane undivided and local roads.

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Three main crosswalk visibility enhancements help make crosswalk users, such as pedestrians, bicyclists, wheelchairs, and other mobility device users more visible to drivers. These include high-visibility crosswalks, lighting, and signing and pavement markings.

• High-visibility crosswalks use patterns, like a ladder that are visible to both the driver and pedestrian from farther away compared to traditional transverse line crosswalks.
• The goal of crosswalk lighting should be to illuminate without creating a silhouette or significant shadows, making it easier for a driver to visually identify people crossing.
• Enhanced signage and pavement markings, such as, “YIELD Here to Pedestrians” or “STOP Here for Pedestrians” signs 20 to 50 feet in advance of a crosswalk help indicate where a driver should stop or yield to pedestrians. To supplement the signage a STOP or YIELD bar pavement markings are often added (commonly referred to as “shark’s teeth”).

Safety Benefits:

• High-visibility crosswalks can reduce crosswalk user injury crashes by up to 40%. 
• Intersection lighting can reduce crashes up to 42%. 
• And advance yield or stop markings and signs can reduce crashes up to 25%.

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A road diet, also known as roadway reconfiguration, can enhance safety, reduce traffic congestion, improve mobility and accessibility for all road users. Typically, this involves converting a four-lane undivided road into a three-lane road with two through lanes and a two-way center left-turn lane.

Safety Benefits:

• 4-lane to 3-lane road diet conversions see a 19-47% reduction in total crashes.
• Reduction of rear-end and left-turn crashes due to the dedicated left-turn lane.
• Reduced right-angle crashes as side street motorists cross three versus four travel lanes.
• Fewer lanes for pedestrians to cross.
• Opportunity to install pedestrian refuge islands, bicycle lanes, on-street parking, or transit stops.
• Traffic calming and more consistent speeds.
• A more community-focused, Complete Streets environment that better accommodates the needs of all road users.

Source: 1. (CMF ID: 5554, 2841) Evaluation of Lane Reduction ”Road Diet“ Measures on Crashes, FHWA-HRT-10-053, (2010).

A pedestrian refuge island (or crossing area) is a median with a shielded area that is intended to help protect pedestrians who are crossing a road. To safely cross a roadway, pedestrians need to estimate vehicle speeds, decide on suitable gaps in traffic based on their walking speed, and anticipate vehicle paths. Installing a pedestrian refuge island can enhance safety by enabling pedestrians to cross one direction of traffic at a time.

Safety Benefits:

• A median with a marked crosswalk has 46% reduction in pedestrian crashes.
• A Pedestrian refuge island has a 56% reduction in pedestrian crashes.

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Speed humps are raised pavement structures that force motorists to slow down to a safe speed. They are generally located on residential streets or other low-speed roads.

Safety Benefits:

• Studies show speed humps can be effective at reducing speeds by nearly 10 mph.
• Enhances the pedestrian environment and crossings.

The nighttime fatality crash rate is three times the daytime rate even though only 25 percent of vehicle miles traveled occur at night. At nighttime, vehicles traveling at higher speeds often cannot stop once a hazard or change in the road ahead becomes visible by the headlights. Therefore, lighting can be applied continuously along segments and at spot locations such as intersections and pedestrian crossings to reduce the chances of a crash.

Safety Benefits:

• Lighting can reduce crashes by up to 42% for nighttime injury pedestrian crashes at intersections, 33-38% for nighttime crashes at rural and urban intersections and 28% for nighttime injury crashes on rural and urban highways.

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Reducing speed is one of the most important methods for decreasing fatalities and serious injuries. Speed is an especially important factor on roads where vehicles and vulnerable road users mix.

Safety Benefit Case Study:

Traffic fatalities in the City of Seattle decreased by 26% after the city implemented comprehensive, city-wide speed management strategies and countermeasures inspired by Vision Zero. This included setting speed limits on all local streets at 20 mph and 200 miles of arterial streets (a high-capacity urban road that sits below freeways/motorways on the road hierarchy in terms of traffic flow and speed) at 25 mph.
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