DENVER -- If you've ever driven through the Colfax/Park/Franklin intersection, you know it can be downright dangerous at times. Now the city has taken notice, and taken steps towards safety.
While Colfax was being repaved, the City of Denver and the Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT) worked together to come up with a slightly new design with the hope of keeping everyone who travels through it safer.
The changes include:
- No more left turns from Colfax onto Franklin in either direction
- Changing the turn lane into a pedestrian island
- Curb extenders to protect people on the corners
"This is a really good example of a quick win at minimal cost its going to have maximum impact and make our city safer," Allison Redmon of Denver Public Works said.
The city paid $20,000 for the design of the improvements. They worked out a deal with CDOT to pay for construction and installation.
"I’ve seen multiple people hit pedestrians, people on scooters," Brian Beck, who works near the intersection, told Denver7. "Now that they’ve put this in hopefully it changes things."
Denver7 kept an eye on the intersection for nearly a month. Almost every day, there were a handful of cars that made the illegal left hand turn that used to be allowed, but there were no major incidents or fatal accidents in that time.
One thing the improvements don't account for is jaywalking.
"I don’t think it will do absolutely anything to stop anyone from jaywalking across the middle of Colfax which they do quite often," Beck said.
City officials sa they plan on monitoring the improvements at the intersection to see how they work. In the mean time, there are other plans already in the works for similar improvements at other intersections.
