Denver will post automated speed cameras along two of its deadliest corridors — Federal Boulevard and Alameda Avenue — as soon as the second half of the year.
The cameras will be part of Mayor Mike Johnston’s push to “double down” on Vision Zero, the city’s ongoing effort to eliminate traffic deaths, city leaders said at a press briefing on Monday.
“Anything that we can do to reduce speed in the city and county of Denver is going to be a great option. It's going to reduce our traffic fatalities,” Kurt Barnes, a traffic enforcement officer in the Denver Police Department, said of speed cameras.
City officials have already completed a slate of safety projects for parts of Federal and Alameda that was announced last summer, said Amy Ford, executive director of the Denver Department of Transportation and Infrastructure.
Those include the installation of more speed limit signs, real-time speed feedback signs, and the retiming of traffic signals to slow traffic and give pedestrians more time to cross the road.
A new marketing campaign this spring, which includes seven billboards on Federal and Alameda, will encourage drivers to ease off the accelerator too.
“Please, for the love of safety, slow down,” said City Council President Amanda Sandoval, quoting the campaign’s main theme.
The cameras could be the most notable part of the city’s immediate push to slow drivers.
Denver has used speed cameras that operate out of vans for years, but only in limited areas like residential streets, near schools and in work zones. Now, under a new state law, automated enforcement systems are allowed to be permanently placed on busier streets.
Federal and Alameda are two of Denver’s busiest, and most deadly, streets. Seven people died and nearly 40 were seriously injured on them in 2024, Ford said. Drivers often exceed posted speed limits, Barnes said, adding that he clocked someone doing 60 mph in a 35 mph zone on Federal near Colfax on Monday morning.
In the long-term, potential redesigns of Federal and Alameda could narrow them in certain places and passively encourage slower speeds. The Denver Police Department is also planning to step up in-person speed enforcement, Barnes said, which had dropped by nearly two-thirds between 2014 and 2022.
City officials, and traffic safety advocates, hope cameras will slow drivers
“Anything that we can do to get the message out for people to slow down, I think, is great,” Barnes said.
Speed cameras tend to be unpopular with drivers and are often criticized for being a money maker for states and cities. But the federal government says they are an effective way to slow speeds, and state lawmakers took steps to keep their use focused on safety and not revenue generation.
Citations, for example, are limited to $40, though that can double for violations near schools. The city must also prominently place signs near cameras alerting drivers to their presence.
The city also wants to avoid a situation where the cameras disproportionately impact certain communities, Ford said, as has happened elsewhere. Black and Hispanic drivers have seen the brunt of enforcement in cities including Washington, D.C. and Chicago in the past, for example.
So, Denver is considering placing cameras in neighborhoods that are some of the city’s wealthiest and poorest, most white and most diverse. Ford named Federal near Colfax, and Alameda near Washington Park and Lowry as being potential locations.
“We've been actually studying and looking at where people are, where they're driving, what that impact is to them, and then ensuring that we can sort of share that across the city,” Ford said.
City officials will soon begin community outreach on the cameras that could shape how the cameras roll out, she said. The City Council could act as soon as this summer to designate speed camera corridors, as is required by state law.
