At a moment when neighbors are complaining to Denver’s Department of Transportation and Infrastructure about the safety of its new bikeways through city neighborhoods, the Denver Fire Department is also now asking transportation officials to put the brakes on some installations along the routes.

Denver Fire Capt. J.D. Chism confirmed to The Denver Gazette that the department has placed a moratorium on what the transportation department calls “traffic circles” — “traffic calming” devices installed in numbers of narrow intersections through the East 7th Avenue Historic District.

Neighbors in the area along 7th Avenue noted ongoing tests by fire trucks negotiating the tight turns of the small roundabouts, where residents have reported some crashes that followed their installation this summer.

Those included a construction vehicle that hit a power pole during a turn. Videos by residents also showed a school bus having to cut a turn across one of the asphalt centerpieces that anchor the new circles.

“As of now, there’s a moratorium on installing more,” Denver Fire’s Chism told The Denver Gazette.

He noted that the fire department, which negotiated a reduction in the size of the proposed designs before they were installed, is working in conjunction with the transportation agency.

“The big deal for us is making sure we’re doing the best thing for citizens,” Chism said. “We want to work with our city partners.”

City transportation spokesperson Nancy Kuhn noted to The Denver Gazette in an Aug. 30 written memo that the agency works closely with Denver Fire and that the latter had signed off on the traffic circle designs.

When contacted on Tuesday, Kuhn would not confirm that her agency is working under a moratorium regarding the devices.

“DOTI is not enacting a moratorium on traffic circles,” she wrote, “but will continue to work on refining them, working with DFD.”

“Traffic circles are a valuable tool for reducing vehicle speeds on streets that DOTI is prioritizing for biking and walking and for creating a safer and more comfortable environment for multimodal travel,” Kuhn said.

In on-site community meetings on the danger of reduced response times imposed by the circles, neighbors said that Denver Fire officers have been less nuanced in voicing their concerns about the new installations.

Meanwhile, transportation officials said it has no plans to make changes to the bikeway, other than removing a small fraction of dozens of waist-high bollards along the bikeway at East 7th Avenue and Williams Street that may have been involved in bike accidents, as well as adding and relocating some signs there.

On Tuesday morning, residents sent video of contractors adding yet another stop sign to the intersection — joining dozens of signs along the quiet six-block stretch west from Williams Street, where several of the circles have been installed.

“That brings the total number of signs in a six-block stretch between Williams and Downing St. to 66,” resident Kitty Koch wrote The Denver Gazette.

“Once again, it shows that DOTI really isn’t focused on our neighborhood and doesn’t care. Visual hazards and needless information are visually polluting the street and making them dangerous to use.”

Bike activists remain largely supportive of the traffic circles and other installations, although some have questioned how well they function in specific installations.

“The traffic circles are my favorite part,” said bike activist Bryan Wilson, who lives in Congress Park. “I think they do such a nice job of slowing bikes down, too. They slow everybody down.”

“The goal is to give people a safe place to ride,” said Denver Bicycle Lobby spokesperson Rob Toftness, who encouraged people to look beyond 7th Avenue to other parts of town, where bike lane infrastructure has been installed, including north of downtown along Blake Street, and West 14th west of Broadway.