Imagine coming home to find your neighborhood transformed overnight, with new traffic circles disrupting your daily commute and no prior warning. This is the reality for residents of Wash Park West, who are now locked in a heated battle with Denver city planners over the sudden installation of roundabouts in their community. But here's where it gets controversial: while the city claims these traffic circles are designed to enhance safety and aesthetics, locals argue they were blindsided by the project, with many feeling their concerns were ignored. And this is the part most people miss: the debate isn’t just about traffic—it’s about trust, transparency, and the delicate balance between urban development and community needs.
The saga began on November 4, when the Denver Department of Transportation & Infrastructure (DOTI) started installing five traffic circles along East Dakota Avenue, part of a plan to create a neighborhood bikeway connecting Broadway and South Marion Street. According to DOTI, these roundabouts, paired with other traffic-calming measures like bike lanes and speed bumps, aim to make streets safer for cyclists and pedestrians. But Wash Park West residents, like Eric Devansky, who’s lived in the area for eight years, are far from convinced. “We’re fighting back for this little corner of the world, because it’s completely ridiculous,” Devansky says. “We just want to press pause on this.”
The issue isn’t just about the traffic circles themselves—it’s about how the project was rolled out. Many residents claim they received little to no notice before construction began. Some discovered the plans via small papers taped to their doors in September, while others heard about it through word of mouth. “I had heard nothing about this project, neither my wife nor I, until a rickety sign went up and they painted up the streets,” Devansky recalls. “There seems to be zero transparency in this process.”
DOTI spokesperson Nancy Kuhn counters that the project was shaped by community feedback, citing over 300 responses collected from public meetings, online surveys, and interactive maps in 2020. But residents like Mike Thomas, a 27-year Wash Park West resident, feel their input was overlooked. “I think I told them one street over another,” Thomas says of a survey he took years ago. “But that’s really the last I heard of it. Then they made their design plan in 2022, and I didn’t answer any surveys for that.”
Here’s where the controversy deepens: While some, like Denver Bike Lobby founder Rob Toftness, support the traffic circles as effective tools for calming traffic, others argue they’re impractical for the neighborhood’s narrow streets. Pat Wagner, a 41-year resident, worries about parking restrictions and the challenges large vehicles, like those used by arborists or milk delivery services, will face navigating the roundabouts. “Traffic circles work best in quieter, wide streets,” Wagner points out. “Not in the squished-up lanes that we have.”
Aesthetic concerns also play a role. DOTI’s Kuhn notes that the traffic circles were installed in part to improve the neighborhood’s appearance, a move that has divided opinions. Mike Thomas, for one, finds them “unsightly” and believes they clutter the streets without providing significant benefits. “The bikeways we have already are ineffective, and not a lot of people use them,” he says. “They confuse drivers and perhaps don’t do as much good as people think they’re doing.”
The frustration extends beyond the traffic circles themselves. Residents like Wagner and Devansky feel DOTI has been slow to respond to their concerns, with emails going unanswered for weeks until public outcry grew. “It takes a lot more time and energy and money than people think to communicate adequately with citizens about what’s going on,” Wagner observes.
Now, Wash Park West residents are demanding the city halt the project and start over, incorporating genuine community feedback every step of the way. “We just want a seat at the table to be able to raise these very legitimate concerns,” Devansky says. Meanwhile, Thomas suggests Denver should focus on improving crossings at busy roads like Pearl and Logan streets instead. “That’s where we need help,” he argues.
DOTI executive director Amy Ford has acknowledged that community opposition can lead to changes, pointing to past projects that were altered based on resident feedback. But will Wash Park West’s pleas be enough to stop the traffic circles? Only time will tell.
What do you think? Are traffic circles a necessary step toward safer, more bike-friendly neighborhoods, or do they create more problems than they solve? Should city planners prioritize aesthetics over practicality? Share your thoughts in the comments—this debate is far from over.
