Tonight during the public comment period at the Denver City Council meeting, crossing guards, parents and neighbors credited recent traffic changes near Polaris Elementary with reducing dangerous driving and increasing the number of children walking and biking to school, and they urged the council to prioritize funding and faster adoption of successful temporary measures.

The improvements came after years of neighborhood advocacy. Bradley (no last name provided), who identified himself as a crossing guard and special-education paraprofessional at Polaris Elementary, described drivers “speeding through the school zone, running the red light with people present at the crosswalk, blocking the crosswalk entirely, and using their cars to threaten and harass pedestrians.” He said left-turn lanes on Tremont Avenue were removed and replaced with a hardened median and that a diverter was installed at the end of the block to reroute cut-through traffic. “While these improvements came in last week, we’ve already noticed a remarkable change this school year,” Bradley said.

Parent and neighbor Leslie James said the diverter and the neighborhood bikeway have had an immediate effect. “The number of children walking and rolling to school has tripled year over year,” James said, and she told the council that enforcement spikes occurred after the project’s first days: “We had 30 wrong-way drivers in under 30 minutes during the first week after this diverter was installed,” a number she said has since tapered off. James credited partners including Denver Police Department, the Safe Routes to School team, school staff, and city staff, and she tied the work to previous commitments such as Vision Zero and the 2017 Elevate Denver Bond.

Speakers asked the council to make it easier to convert short-term traffic fixes into permanent infrastructure. Bradley asked the council to “prioritize the safety of our streets, especially around schools,” to improve reporting so crossing guards are not “reliant on 311,” and to allow temporary measures to be trialed and then adopted permanently by city staff (the speaker used the name Dottie in reference to a city staff contact). James urged that the city budget make safe routes to school a higher priority, saying that the currently proposed Vibrant Denver bond “does not provide funding for this kind of infrastructure moving forward” and asking council members to “fill the gap, find the budget dollars to ensure that kids at all public schools across Denver have a way to get to and from school independently in a safe built environment.”

Discussion only: commenters described observed changes in traffic patterns, enforcement counts, and increased walking and biking but did not report a formal city action during the public-comment period.

Direction requested: speakers asked council members and city staff to (1) prioritize school-zone safety funding in upcoming budgets, (2) improve the reporting pathway for crossing guards and residents (beyond 311), and (3) adopt successful temporary traffic measures permanently once they are shown to work.

Background: Speakers referenced Denver initiatives including Vision Zero and the 2017 Elevate Denver Bond. Leslie James noted that parents and neighborhood volunteers invested significant time in the project and urged that similar efforts be funded proactively across the city.

Next steps: No formal motion or vote was taken during public comment; speakers requested that council and relevant city departments pursue budget and administrative changes to accelerate and fund school-safety infrastructure citywide.