Staff proposes broader eligibility, higher turnout thresholds for traffic-calming; council raises concerns

City of Northglenn Public Works and engineering staff presented proposed updates to the city—xisting traffic-calming policy during the April 21 study session and asked council for feedback on a set of priority changes.

Director of Public Works Sarah Borchers opened the item and introduced civil engineer Gregory Kothian, who described three primary categories of proposed updates: data and testing, eligibility and prioritization, and neighborhood voting and removal procedures. Kothian said the city started using Urban SDK for speed and volume analysis in 2024 and that staff recommends changes intended to increase data accuracy and community participation. "The software calculates the 80 fifth percentile speeds on all roads," Kothian said.

Key proposed changes included: - Automatic qualification if a street has three or more speed-related accidents in the prior year, regardless of measured speed. - Change testing to three consecutive school-year days (Tuesday through Thursday) on clear-weather days to capture typical conditions. - Allow all residential streets and minor collectors to qualify for traffic calming regardless of daily volume (removing the existing >2,500 vehicles-per-day exclusion). - Replace in-person neighborhood meetings as the sole voting mechanism with mail-in ballots (staff proposed a minimum of 75% of affected households returning ballots and 65% approval among returned ballots for installation or removal).

Kothian said staff also proposed mirroring the installation and removal processes so removal of traffic calming (for example, speed humps) would require a comparable community vote. "Voting is currently done in person. We'd like to change that to mail in ballot," he explained.

Council members raised multiple questions and concerns. Council member Walker said, "75% is an extremely, I would say, extremely lofty goal to get," noting turnout comparisons to nonpresidential election years. Several council members suggested a lower participation target (55% was suggested during discussion). Members also asked staff to investigate verified electronic options in addition to mail-in ballots to increase participation while preventing duplicate votes; staff said it would explore software that could map votes to household addresses and report costs.

Police Chief May described how crash investigations quantify speed involvement and noted that speed findings depend on available evidence (skid marks, data downloads in severe collisions). Staff confirmed the city already owns the radar devices used for speed studies and that there is no per-study equipment rental cost; deployment and staffing are the primary resource considerations.

Council members also asked for clearer outreach and communications, for a precise explanation of how the "affected area" is determined for any vote, and for policy language clarifying when and how a removed calming measure would be replaced or studied afterward. Several council members recommended that removal, if approved, be tied to repaving schedules or budget availability rather than immediate city expense in every case.

Staff will return with a redrafted policy that responds to council feedback, including options for participation thresholds, vote mechanisms (mail, electronic, or hybrid), and clearer language on removal timing and outreach plans.