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DENVER (KDVR) — Denver’s Department of Transportation and Infrastructure just received $576,000 to make improvements to several roadways in the city.

The money comes from the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Safe Streets and Roads for All grant program.

The department will use the money to hire an outside consulting team to perform road safety audits on nine different problem spots around town. Those areas include:

  • Alameda Avenue from Kearney Street to Fairmount Drive
  • Broadway from East Colfax Avenue to 29th Street
  • Colorado Boulevard from Mississippi Avenue to Iliff Avenue
  • Speer Boulevard from Federal Boulevard to Elitch Circle
  • University Boulevard from Iowa Avenue to Yale Avenue
  • West 38th Avenue from Federal Boulevard to Fox Street
  • Evans Avenue from Colorado Boulevard to Quebec Street
  • Tower Road from 45th Avenue to 56th Avenue
  • Tower Road from 56th Avenue to 71st Avenue

Traffic deaths, injury crashes high in Denver

DOTI chose the areas based on crash rates and areas of need. Last year had the second-highest number of traffic deaths and third-highest number of crashes that resulted in serious injuries.

“These streets that we identified for road safety audits are roadways where we’re seeing more fatal and serious injury crashes happening,” Nancy Kuhn, with DOTI, said. “And so what we can do now is have a group of people come out, professionals in designing and engineering, take a look at these corridors and tell us where we need to make improvements.”

Kuhn said some of the solutions could be adding a median along a roadway, improving signage or adding a new traffic signal.

“We’ll look at a hotspot or a corridor and we look at what kinds of crashes are happening there, and then from that we know what kind of countermeasures can we take so we’re addressing the type of problem that we’re seeing with the right solution,” Kuhn said.

Kuhn said they’ll focus on short-term solutions first before planning for long-term changes. They plan to find a consulting company and get to work within the next year.