Denver’s use of traffic circles at intersections grows fast in 2023

Chris Miller biked to work every day from his home in Denver’s Speer neighborhood for six months, passing through a new traffic circle along the way.

It’s one of dozens of tight rotary intersections that Denver has installed across the city this year, forcing vehicle traffic to go around center circles. Miller, 39, said the new configuration at South Grant Street and East Bayaud Avenue “dramatically lowered my blood pressure when I’m biking.”

Many Denverites agree that the circles — often replacing four-way stops on neighborhood bike routes — make them feel safer because they make it more likely drivers will follow the speed limit, or at least slow down and pay attention. The city has drastically ramped up installations of what it calls “mini” traffic circles: After converting five intersections to add circles within the existing pavement in recent years, Denver rolled out 45 new ones in 2023.

But the faster pace also inspired pushback over the designs, most vocally from the Denver Fire Department. DFD expressed worry that fire crews responding to emergencies could be delayed as they navigated the tighter turns and new center curbs in intersections. It put new construction on hold for several months, a pause that was lifted recently.

Cyclist John Erhardt, 51, agrees that there’s too little space to navigate.

“They’ve done nothing for my safety or my feeling of safety when riding my bike to the grocery store,” the Sloan’s Lake resident said. He contends that the circles should be expanded, since drivers often give him little room on the road, and he’s been “doored” — or hit by a door opened on a car as he passes on the street.

“Having a 2- to 4-ton hunk of metal, glass and plastic coming at you with only inches of room is not enjoyable,” he said. “Some drivers will move over, but many will not.”

On the other side of the car door, drivers in at least one location have asked the city to shrink the center rotary curbs down to prevent automobile damage.

In Alejandra Castañeda’s Berkeley neighborhood in northwest Denver, “a couple of drivers damaged their tires while navigating the originally installed traffic circle” at West 41st Avenue and Grove Street, she said.

“When drivers started complaining about the original size of the traffic circle, within a few weeks, the traffic circle was shrunk to a laughable size,” said Castañeda, 49, adding that she spoke with contractors who’d come to remeasure it.

Today, she feels its purpose is moot.

“Many drivers even avoid it altogether when driving west from Federal (Boulevard) and turning south on Grove,” Castañeda said.

Traffic-calming strategies are “a long time coming,” advocate says

The circles have been met by grumbles from some drivers and neighbors. Plans for a half-dozen new traffic circles along East Seventh Avenue in Capitol Hill and Country Club were among changes that prompted objections over the summer, with one resident telling The Denver Post that she thought they’d make intersections more dangerous for pedestrians, especially older people.

In the Sloan’s Lake neighborhood, Susan Knight, from the Sloan’s Lake Citizens’ Group, cited a neighbor who found herself with a flat tire after speeding through a nearby traffic circle.

But that’s the point, said Knight, 74, who’s lived in the neighborhood for about five decades.

Her community previously has pressed the city for traffic safety measures, so “it’s a long time coming,” she said in an interview. “Most people are happy about it.”

Traffic safety isn’t a theoretical problem in Denver and Colorado, where crashes involving drivers and pedestrians have risen sharply over more than a decade. In the last six months, pedestrians were struck and killed by drivers in Denver’s Rosedale, Globeville and Capitol Hill neighborhoods, and along both Federal and Colorado boulevards.

The last weekend of September saw four pedestrian fatalities across metro Denver.

Traffic circles have been lauded as “a safer alternative to traffic signals and stop signs” that largely prevent head-on collisions and other serious car crashes, reports the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. They aid traffic flow and promote pedestrian safety.

At least, when drivers use them correctly.

“Not everyone yields properly at roundabouts,” said Bryant Webb, 31, who counts himself as a fan of traffic circles, especially the ones installed west of Washington Park. “Disgruntled motorists don’t always respond to traffic-calming measures by reducing speed.”

Traffic circles in northwest, central and south Denver

The city’s first traffic circles were completed in 2018 on West 35th Avenue in West Highland, said Nancy Kuhn, a spokeswoman for the Denver Department of Transportation and Infrastructure.

This year, DOTI built 45 through the Community Transportation Networks initiative, which is “aimed at rapidly expanding safe and comfortable transportation options within three areas of Denver” — in the northwest, central and south. In those parts of town, the traffic circles are usually installed on neighborhood bikeways.

“These are streets that DOTI is prioritizing for biking and walking,” Kuhn said.

Here are the traffic circle counts so far, by neighborhood:

• Sloan’s Lake: 8
• West Highland: 7
• Sunnyside: 7
• Washington Park West: 6
• Five Points: 5
• Capitol Hill: 4
• Country Club: 3
• Highland: 3
• Jefferson Park: 2
• Berkeley: 2
• Westwood: 1
• Hale: 1
• Whittier: 1

The department is still finalizing its bike lane installation plan for next year. Kuhn said a list of locations for future traffic circles was not yet available while that work is underway.

The city is receiving feedback as it goes.

“Some of the smaller ones, like in my neighborhood, don’t have much effect and are not enforced,” said Meghann Perez-Darby, 36, a resident of Jefferson Park.

Even when she’s behind the wheel herself, she’s watched as drivers travel the wrong direction around circles.

“There is signage, but drivers seem less concerned with following the laws — and more concerned with doing whatever they like, to get where they are going as fast as they can,” Perez-Darby said.

Still, City Councilwoman Shontel Lewis, who represents some northeast neighborhoods, celebrates the “more permanent infrastructure” that largely has pushed drivers to pay better attention.

“Aggressive and careless driving in neighborhoods is one of the main concerns raised by constituents,” she said.

The next step for the city, Lewis added: “Ensure they match the character of the neighborhood and are more aesthetically integrated in to the community.”

Fire department works through concerns

The city’s fire department voiced its concerns about the new traffic circles in the early fall as its team tried to determine whether they potentially would delay response times for emergency vehicles.

“We have to be able to access every single address in the city,” Captain J.D. Chism said in an interview. “We were trying to identify if our fire trucks were going to be able to make it within our response time.”

He conceded that the new configurations were built with the intention that the driver of a large vehicle could roll the inside tires over the edges of the raised center.

“They were built to be driven over,” Chism said. “It’s just how they impact our travel.”

DFD put a moratorium in place on its approvals of traffic circles, which the transportation department learned about in September, Kuhn said. The fire department lifted its temporary delay earlier this month.

“We still haven’t completely gotten that information” about traffic circles’ effects on response times, Chism said. “However, we are going to continue to work with DOTI without the moratorium in place.”