Whatever the intended “vision” of Denver’s vaunted “Vision Zero” agenda for reducing traffic-related deaths and injuries, the policy hasn’t worked. It may even be contributing to the problem.

That’s the most telling takeaway from an eye-opening, in-depth news report last week in The Denver Gazette.

As The Gazette’s report noted, Denver streets and intersections have taken on a lot of the trappings of the Vision Zero architecture — lots and lots of distracting plastic bollards; speed humps; bright green hashmarks, and other infrastructure that aim to end fatalities and severe injuries among pedestrians, cyclists and motorists alike. 

The city also is aggressively expanding bike lanes at the behest of cycling activists and in some places “buffering” the lanes with barriers like bollards so motor vehicles can’t access them. On Broadway, the bike lanes are even cordoned off with raised concrete medians.

The grand design was borrowed from Sweden, where it was pioneered in the 1990s. 

And it appears to have worked — in Sweden. There, it did reduce traffic deaths and injuries.

But as for Denver, The Gazette report’s headline said it all: “Vision Zero: As Denver doubles down, fatalities keep climbing.”

Not only is Vision Zero failing to spare life and limb, the data shows traffic fatalities in the city increased last year from 80 to 93. Since 2017, when the city adopted its sweeping attempt at Vision Zero, deaths in Denver have risen 82%. Serious bodily injuries in the city did drop last year, but over the program’s history, serious injuries from traffic accidents have climbed 22%.

Break down the numbers, and it gets worse, as noted in The Gazette’s report. According to the city’s Department of Transportation and Infrastructure, Denver experienced increases last year in pedestrian and cyclist fatalities, as well as an eight-fold jump in scooter deaths.

Ironically, champions of the Vision Zero philosophy — who fault the city for flawed implementation — are among City Hall’s harshest critics.

“Since Mayor Johnston took office in mid-2023, more than 200 people have been killed and over 1,000 have been seriously injured on Denver’s roadways,” the Denver Streets Partnership said in a “D” report card it issued on the Johnston administration late last month.

Why is a policy, whose core premise is slowing traffic, not lowering casualties and, maybe, even adding to them?

The Gazette interviewed a former chief traffic engineer for the city who said the entire initiative is misguided and misapplied — and could be contributing to the rising numbers of serious accidents

“These people do not understand the mentality of the average American driver,” said Dennis Royer, who had directed the design of many key features of the city’s traffic network. Some of those are now being modified under Vision Zero.

“Drivers are used to getting from Point A to Point B in a certain time,” Royer said. “They’re not slowing them down, they’re stopping them … The bottom line is that people learn to step on the gas, more people are running lights, and you have more erratic drivers.”

In any event, the numbers don’t lie — and they make clear Vision Zero isn’t working.

Which makes you wonder whether Vision Zero ever was about saving lives as much as changing them. Given its emphasis on corralling cars and slowing traffic to a trickle, is the policy’s true aim to change the way Denverites get from Point A to Point B — by curbing the use of cars?

Is Vision Zero, in fact, simply about forcing the public to realign its transportation preferences — even if it means making the streets more dangerous?