More than six years ago, city leaders committed to eliminating traffic deaths and serious injuries. Things have not gone well since then, with deaths reaching an all-time high in 2021…

That’s despite the city increasing its spending on things like bike lanes and safer intersections, she noted. So while work in those areas is continuing, Kniech and street safety advocates are turning their attention to another space: pushing for redesigns of Denver busiest — and deadliest — roads to prioritize buses over cars. And the city is preparing to oblige.

The vast majority of the Regional Transportation District’s decades-long, multi-billion dollar rail expansion program favored the suburbs and downtown Denver while avoiding the city’s neighborhoods.

So RTD and city planners have been dreaming up a complementary network of bus rapid transit corridors on busy arterial streets. Many of those roads — Colfax Avenue, Federal Boulevard, Colorado Boulevard, Broadway and others — also account for a disproportionate share of traffic fatalities.