The city of Durango is developing a plan to curb speeding and reduce crashes on city streets.
Multimodal Manager Devon King said the plan will significantly impact how traffic speeds are managed in the city.
The plan explores traffic-calming features such as chicanes – road curves that discourage speeding ‒ roundabouts and curb extensions.
The city has been gathering feedback from residents.
A survey that closes Friday asks residents about their travel habits, appropriate speed limits for different streets, and their top concerns when traveling around the city.
This summer and fall, the city will install temporary traffic-calming features in three locations known for speeding. The city will seek feedback and evaluate the features’ effectiveness, King said Tuesday at an Engage Durango forum.
The demonstrations will include narrower lanes and buffered bike lanes on Goeglein Gulch Road between Hillcrest Drive and a roundabout at Fort Lewis Drive; a chicane on Riverview Drive between the two Animas Place intersections; and back-in angled parking and curb extensions on Seventh Street between East Third and East Sixth avenues.
Because the demonstrations are temporary, they will use paint and white flex posts, similar to those used to represent proposed features on Main Avenue for the Downtown’s Next Step project, he said.
The locations were selected because of frequent speeding. King said the multimodal division has received numerous complaints about speeders from residents near Hillcrest Drive and Jenkins Ranch Road on Goeglein Gulch.
“(The police department) has pulled multiple people over for citations in that area,” he said. “Then there’s also just a lack of bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure there. It’s an opportunity for us to try to meet both of those needs and conduct a pilot project.”
The same goes for Riverview Drive and Seventh Street. The multimodal division has conducted speed surveys and will repeat them when the demonstrations are live to measure impact.
Back-in angled parking, like that proposed on Seventh Street, has grown in popularity over the past decade, he said.
“When you’re backing into that space and the people behind you see you, you are visible to them, and as you’re backing in ‒ especially these days with back-in cameras ‒ you can see behind you as you pull into that spot,” he said.
He added that when pulling out, drivers have a clear view of what’s in front of them.
King said the plan considers six key factors that play into holistic speed and traffic management: commuter patterns, bicycle and pedestrian safety, transit and tourism trends, emergency and evacuation access, seasonal maintenance, and intersection operations.
“The idea is, how do we address our streets from a holistic perspective?” he said. “If we’re making changes over here, what does that impact look (like) over here and how do we be consistent throughout the city?”
Why does Durango need a new approach to speed management?
King said it’s about preventing crashes – and, in turn, injuries and fatalities.
He said the risk of death from a person being struck by a vehicle rises from 10% at 25 mph to 90% at 58 mph.
Between 2016 and 2021, there were 71 injury crashes in Durango, seven of which were fatal, he said. In 2024, there were 416 total crashes, with 59 resulting in injuries – 16 of those involving cyclists and pedestrians.
That same year, he said Durango Police Department conducted more than 2,000 traffic stops for speeding and issued more than 750 citations.
King said strategies to address speeding include education, enforcement and traffic-calming features. Other strategies include the use of automated speed and red-light enforcement cameras, protected bike lanes, and road diets – such as the one planned for College Drive and East Eighth Avenue this summer.
cburney@durangoherald.com
