Colorado intersections get improvements to decrease crashes with pedestrians, bikers, drivers
The City of Boulder is making improvements to eight of their intersections the city calls "high-risk crash areas."
These are areas that show a pattern involving injury and fatal crashes. This is part of the city's Vision Zero plan to eliminate as many crashes as they can.
The eight intersections receiving improvements include:
- Broadway and Regent Drive/20th Street
- Arapahoe Avenue and 15th Street
- Broadway and Balsam Avenue
- 28th Street and Kalmia Avenue
- Pearl Street and 26th Street
- Arapahoe Avenue and 48th Street
- Baseline Road and Manhattan Drive/Crescent Drive
- 30th Street and Aurora Avenue
At each intersection, the work is focused on signal upgrades to improve safety. This includes installing new signal poles, cabinets, detection, and controllers. These allow different types of left-turn phasing to operate throughout the day based on multimodal traffic conditions. This means certain intersections will prohibit left-turning vehicles while people are crossing the street.
The city says there are too many crashes happening across the city, and they need to bring this number down.
"Our goal is to eliminate fatal and serious injury crashes," Devin Joslin, Principal Traffic Engineer with the City Of Boulder said. "One way to do that is through improvements like this project that will make separate road users in time. It will prohibit left turners from turning while pedestrians and cyclists are crossing the street."
All eight intersections should be completed by mid-May. Each intersection takes the city about five days to complete.
The project cost $720,000, with about $435,000 coming from the Safer Main Street grant the city received.
During the duration of this project, there will be sidewalk and road closures. The full impacts can be found online at the City of Boulder's website.
