DENVER — Planned construction in Denver's Alamo Placita neighborhood has homeowners fired up.
Molly Williams reached out to Denver7, saying, "[The neighbors] are totally against the roundabouts and we are fighting the city because they want to go ahead and just do it without allowing or listening to any neighborhood input... We found out that whoever was responsible put the notices on the wrong street."
Denver 7's Danielle Kreutter met with Williams to learn more about her concerns. During our interview, two cars had a near miss in the intersection of 6th and Emerson.
Williams agrees that something needs to be done to help slow traffic in the neighborhood. However, she said she didn't realize anything was planned for the nearby block until she saw spray-painted lines on the asphalt indicating where crosswalks and a traffic circle would go.
As a resident of nearly 20 years and vice president of the Alamo Placita Neighborhood Association, Williams said she is often in the loop on any community happenings in their neighborhood.
"And my husband is the president," she added.
Several of their neighbors said they were caught off guard that construction was starting soon.
Nancy Kuhn with the Denver Department of Transportation and Infrastructure (DOTI) said the public input process started around 2020 and 2022 through community surveys. Neighbors for and against the project told Denver7 that they remember receiving the surveys and filling them out. According to Williams, there were no project updates after that.
"When you take a survey, you hope you find out what the survey proved and what people's answers were, a collection of what their answers were," Williams said. "We never heard anything."
Williams told Denver7 that flyers were handed out recently, announcing that construction would start soon. The flyers, meant for her street, were delivered to the wrong street.
"Emerson is Emerson. How could they mistake that?" said Williams.
DOTI acknowledged the mistake.
"There was a snafu," Kuhn acknowledged. "We did some incorrect flyering and had to correct that and put it on the right stretches."
Kuhn said the design that's planned for the area still reflects the feedback of 281 survey results.
"It is sort of just one of the challenges with public engagement and trying to get as many people involved in the process early on as you can," said Kuhn. "Our design really reflects what we heard from the people who live in this area, because we had the survey open and we gathered input from people who live in that area about these streets."
Kihn added, "We do have these neighborhood bikeways and traffic circles in other areas. They're working; they are slowing vehicle speeds. They're cutting down on volume so that it's a safer street."
"Better communication, that's all we ask for," said Williams. "I do think there's a need to do something. I would be for the [traffic circles] if they were smaller. They're just too big. And not only that, they're very ugly."
Other neighbors told Denver7 they were surprised to hear about pushback against the project.
"They don't like the way they look. To me, that's just a lower priority than the safety of my kids walking around the neighborhood," said Ian Peterson, who has lived in the neighborhood for over a decade. "I'm gonna prioritize my kids walking safely around the neighborhood than someone's perceived property values going up or down."
The neighbors against the project are gathering signatures in opposition. So far, they've gathered nearly 80.
DOTI plans to start construction in early October.
