Traffic Violence Report: Drivers Killed 2 Pedestrians in Denver, 1 in Aurora

Note: Streetsblog would like to thank The O’Sullivan Personal Injury Law Firm for supporting this report. Financial contributions do influence our editorial content.

Drivers killed two pedestrians in Denver and a third in Aurora this week, bringing the number of traffic fatalities to 37 in Denver and 14 in Aurora. In Denver, traffic fatalities are up 29 percent compared to this point last year when drivers had killed 29 people.

Streetsblog Denver does not track fatalities in Aurora closely, but a frightening hit-and-run happened there Saturday night.

A driver crashed into Levi Montoya (Noles), 23, killing him and injuring two others in a parking lot outside of the Gaylord Rockies Resort in Aurora before fleeing Saturday at 11:44 p.m., according to the Denver Post. Montoya saw the car coming and was able to push several friends out of the way, according to his cousin, Jesse Davila, who talked to 7 News.

In Denver, a driver killed Joseph Fresquez, a pedestrian, who was on W. Alameda Avenue near S. Perry Street in Westwood on Friday. It is the second death on Alameda this year. The street is listed on Denver’s high-injury network, the five percent of streets where more than half of all traffic fatalities and serious injuries happen. The driver was charged with vehicular homicide, according to police.

A driver also killed Concepcion Medina in the Gateway district of Green Valley Ranch in Denver. The driver was charged with careless driving with death, according to police.

The alarming rise of traffic fatalities in Denver shows an ongoing failure of Mayor Michael Hancock’s 2016 Vision Zero plan to end all traffic fatalities and serious injuries by 2030.

Beyond the city’s slow adoption of its Vision Zero action plan, last month, Denver announced that it will widen 14 miles of Peña Boulevard near the airport t0 nine lanes, according to the Denver Post. The project will encourage more high-speed driving within city limits, which runs counter to the its Vision Zero goals — and its commitment to reduce single-occupancy vehicle trips from 73% today to 50% by 2030.