Next week, I will start a new position at the Regional Transportation District. I will join the FasTracks public information team as the manager for the Eagle P3 project. That’s the innovative public-private partnership initiative that will finance, design, build and operate the FasTracks commuter rail lines to Denver International Airport, Arvada-Wheat Ridge and south Westminster.

Kevin Flynn

And I had no trouble coming up with stories. Things are happening every day, and my goal was to bring you that wide range of stories, from the weightiest crises to the geekiest tales. I was sometimes amazed at the appetite out there for stories about “how stuff works.” Among the most popular stories was a slide show on the electronic gizmos mounted on poles along the highways, detailing what they are and what they do. And who knew I would bump into strangers on the street who remembered the story I did revealing how CDOT comes up with the letter-number designations it bolts to its bridges?

Let me leave you with a few thoughts.

Having an effective and efficient system of transportation infrastructure is simply vital to Colorado’s quality of life. That’s always been true, from the first gold-rush trails, to the transcontinental railroad connection, to the Valley Highway, to Denver International Airport, to FasTracks, to CDOT’s 28 Strategic Corridors.

But it’s rarely been more at stake than now, in the midst of this very serious recession.

I believe that investing now in modern, well-functioning transportation infrastructure will position Colorado to emerge more strongly from this downturn, and not just in the short term. Putting stimulus dollars into highway projects isn’t “make-work” for a few months. It’s building and improving the roads we need to support the timely and efficient movement of people, workers, goods and services that make this state’s economy work when the paving is done. The rate at which we emerge from this recession will be accelerated to the degree we have improved roads, transit and air service.

In some way or other, almost everything we do at work and at play, day in and day out, relies on transportation. Even if you never leave your house, your well-being still depends upon it. Without properly investing in maintaining what our predecessors have given us and in building what our descendants will need to rely on, we will be failing in our duty to pass on a better place. If Interstate 70 had dead-ended at the Mousetrap, as the original interstate highway plan envisioned in the 1950s, what would the state of commerce be on Colorado’s Western Slope? It took determined political leadership and consensus to push that highway up and under the Continental Divide and west toward our connection to Utah and ultimately to California.

To achieve this, it is essential that Colorado fixes the current patchwork system of funding transportation. The gas tax is broken. It’s a per-gallon levy, last raised in 1992, and long since succumbed to inflation. It can’t be raised again without a statewide TABOR vote, and good luck with that one. To keep fingers in the dike, our representatives have tried many different approaches over the last two decades. But we’ve ended up with an unreliable, unstable and unpredictable revenue package for transportation that defies good planning and scheduling.

I believe that it matters less whose plan or whose strategy for solving this dilemma wins out. What matters more is that it be resolved. Don’t get bogged down in the day to day obstacles to doing this work, but focus on the goal of having a well-functioning transportation system that serves this state’s needs and allows its citizens to have a good quality of life.

And that brings us to the November election, when you will decide on three ballot measures that would severely cripple the people’s ability to sustain good infrastructure investment in Colorado. Proposition 101, Amendment 60 and Amendment 61 are bad for you. Any one of them on its own is harmful enough. Together, they are a knock-out blow to Colorado’s ability to emerge from this bad economy in a competitive position to attract job growth and to maintain a good quality of life.

Imagine wanting to buy a house and being told you cannot get a 30-year mortgage. Cutting your paycheck in half while trying to pay your bills and provide for your family. In effect, this trio of ballot measures chokes the people’s government. If they had been in place at the time, T-REX would not have been built. Denver International Airport could not have been financed. Your neighborhood school’s budget would be sliced in half.

Specifically on transportation, Prop 101 arbitrarily slashes total auto registration fees to a flat $10, without any regard or thought as to what it costs for CDOT, your county road and bridge department or your city public works division to provide the highways, plowing and expansion you need. Why $10? Because that’s what the authors of the measure feel like paying. The figure bears no relationship to the reality of costs today. Simple anger at last year’s auto fee increase, which is earmarked for replacement of failing bridges and road safety projects, is driving this out-of-control measure.

Fans of the measure don’t even understand the problems. Several blogs have picked up a recent story in a publication called The Constitutionalist Today that goes on a tirade about the FASTER bill’s fee increase, but overstates it by double. It claimed FASTER increased registration fees AND added the bridge and road charges on top of that. False. FASTER increased total registration fees only by adding the bridge and road charges. Even with the new fees, the state is still behind in maintenance needs, without even getting to the need for capacity and mobility enhancement. Like being stuck in traffic? These ballot measures will severely restrict our ability to solve our transportation problems.

I want to extend my thanks to several people who have been of immense help to me in getting Inside Lane going. This site has steadily built a following of about 300 unique readers a day and was building a loyalty with more than 3,200 people who visited Inside Lane more than 100 times since I went live in August.

Foremost is my wife, Harriet Novak, who went out with me the Sunday after the Rocky Mountain News closed to help me take pictures and do interviews on the story I didn’t get to do in that last publication – Jim Moffet, the RTD driver who was injured helping an elderly woman across Federal Boulevard in the snow. The Colorado State Patrol had ticketed him for jaywalking, but I believed the ticket was bogus. It is not jaywalking to cross where Jim was crossing. The patrol voided the ticket but never acknowledged it was in error. I posted that story on our fledgling blog, I Want My Rocky.com, and it soon led to other writers posting news there.

That is what led eventually to Inside Lane. Harriet has been the most supportive and encouraging partner I could hope to have.

Steve Welchert, the political consultant, floated the name “Inside Lane” over coffee at Common Grounds, and a day later the PR guru Pete Webb suggested over lunch at Yia Yia’s that I brand it with my name because of my many years covering transportation at the News. Many thanks to them.

Steve Foster, an internet producer at the Rocky and the driving force behind I Want My Rocky and Rocky Mountain Independent.com, designed the original site and traffic sign logo, then worked with me through the redesign I launched in February that doubled my traffic. My new logo was designed by Angie Lee at Grindstone Graphics.

I owe the continued presence of Inside Lane to my major sponsor, Colorado Contractors Association, and its executive director, Tony Milo, and to the encouragement of MOVE Colorado and its executive director, Randy Harrison. Without their support, Inside Lane would have pulled over to the shoulder many months ago.

UInside Lane was founded on the idea that the public benefits from having a well-rounded knowledge of all aspects of our very important transportation infrastructure system, from how we pay for it, build it and use it to how we think about it and have fun with it.

There are a number of stories still in the pipeline that I didn’t get to do. Among them were pieces on the planning for reconstruction of the Wadsworth interchange on the Sixth Avenue Freeway in Lakewood, updates on the U.S. 36 corridors plans to leverage its stimulus grant into a larger federal loan to extend the car pool-bus-toll lane system toward Boulder, decisions on the Interstate 70 Mountain Corridor and an examination of cashless tolling’s potential to replace the gas tax entirely and overhaul our inadequate system for infrastructure funding.

And of course, continuing coverage of the debate and campaign over the three scorched-earth amendments on the fall ballot.

Also in the works was some more of the geeky stuff that proved popular among readers: How is Colorado going to change our license plate numbering now that we’re approaching the letter “Z” in the current three number-three letter configuration? A tour of Colorado’s various Scenic Byways during the “Staycation” season. A story on the true first transcontinental railroad link – in Strasburg, Colo., not in Utah. It was through Denver and Strasburg that you could first ride coast to coast in a single train when the Kansas Pacific drove the last spike at Comanche Creek in Strasburg in 1870. The Union Pacific mainline that gets all the publicity still had a gap at the Missouri River in Omaha, where until a bridge was completed in 1872, railroad passengers had to take a boat across the Missouri and change trains.

Until a decision is made on transferring this site to other management, the archives remain here for you to peruse.

As mentioned, I want to point you to some in particular.

Presenting information in an interactive way:
• Take a look at 124 poor-rated bridges on the state highway system that the FASTER bridge fee is earmarked to replacing. Check out the pictures, ratings, year of construction and where each bridge stands in the process.
• Metro Denver’s Habitual Freeway Bottlenecks and What’s Being Done About Them.
• CDOT’s Fall and Winter Construction Projects.

Many stories concentrated on projects or jobs that demonstrated an efficient use of public resources:
• One of the first ones was this piece on how Denver’s investment in fixing up the Sixth Avenue Viaduct saved taxpayers a lot more money in the long run.
• CDOT’s road swap with Montrose on U.S. 50 to save money for both.
• DIA’s system of solar energy to operate its jet fuel pumping operation.
• RTD piggybacks on another agency’s order to get more low-polluting buses.
• FasTracks plans to break off a segment of the I-225 light rail corridor for early construction.
• The G Line light rail would return when the FasTracks light rail corridor is completed.
• RTD’s refurbishing of the 16th Street Mall shuttles was done in-house and under budget.
• FasTracks’ recent drop in cost is partly attributable to efforts to trim the projects as much as feasible while maintaining the same end points.
• The Eagle P3 FasTracks project includes construction of an initial segment of the commuter rail corridor to Westminster.

The FASTER bill, which increased vehicle registration fees last year to help replace poor-rated bridges and carry out road safety projects, is now the target of a repeal attempt as part of Prop 101. I thought it was important for you to know, when you’re asked to plunk down an extra $9 or $18 to replace deteriorating bridges, just what that means. Among the stories Inside Lane did on FASTER:
• CDOT’s first year’s list of 17 bridges to replace included four old wooden bridges on a lonely highway out on the southeast plains. There used to be five wooden bridges. One burned out in the April 2008 Ordway grassfire, and two volunteer firefighters died when their truck plunged off the abutment while enroute to try to save the town.
• The Transportation Commission last year selected 17 candidate bridges for replacement with the first year’s FASTER revenue, and this story included a slide show of all 17 and an interactive locator map with their details. This kind of report is what I loved about doing Inside Lane.
• The commission then decided to take up the issue of issuing bonds backed by FASTER revenue in order to accelerate the replacement of poor-rated bridges.
• As the year went on, CDOT started to draw up long-term lists of road safety projects that FASTER would fund.
• The low bidder on the first FASTER bridge project was a Walsenburg contractor. This story included an interactive Google Street View image of the bridge.

FasTracks West Corridor to roll out signature bridge across 6th Avenue
Innovative construction technique saves months of traffic impacts

Lakewood, April 16, 2010 – The RTD FasTracks West Corridor team will roll out the main span of a double-track light rail bridge across 6th Avenue just east of Simms/Union the weekend of April 23rd through April 25th. All lanes of 6th Avenue between Simms/Union and Kipling Street will close at 8:00 p.m. on Friday, April 23rd to prepare the area for the roll-out, scheduled to begin early Saturday morning. 6th Avenue and the frontage road will re-open by 5:30 a.m. Monday, April 26th.

For the past several months, crews have been assembling the steel tied arch structure along the south side of the highway. Now, crews will transport the bridge into its final position over the highway via a large dolly consisting of two 35’ platforms with eight axles each. The arch will travel on guided rollers which are pushed by hydraulic rams capable of up to 270,000 pounds per square inch of force. At speeds ranging from 10 to 25 feet per hour, the actual roll-out is expected to take up to 30 hours for the bridge to connect with the north span already in place across the north 6th Avenue Frontage Road.

Had the structure been built over 6th Avenue, traveling motorists would have endured months of lane closures and traffic congestion. This approach to bridge construction enabled West Corridor crews to work in a safe environment outside of traffic and significantly minimize impacts to commuters using the 6th Avenue freeway.

“If the bridge had been constructed in place over the highway, we would have had to impact traffic on 6th Avenue many times over the course of construction instead of just one weekend as we are doing,” said Jim Starling, RTD’s West Corridor Project Manager. “This is a much more efficient process that minimizes inconvenience to the traveling public.”

The 12.1-mile West Corridor light rail project is the first rail line of RTD’s FasTracks program to start construction. The West Corridor line will operate between Denver Union Station in downtown Denver and the Jefferson County Government Center in Golden; serving Denver, Lakewood, the Denver Federal Center, Golden and Jefferson County. The corridor is scheduled to open to the public in 2013.

FasTracks is RTD’s voter-approved transit program to expand rail and bus service throughout the RTD service area. FasTracks will build 122 miles of commuter rail and light rail, 18 miles of bus rapid transit service, add 21,000 new parking spaces, redevelop Denver Union Station and redirect bus service to better connect the eight-county District. The FasTracks investment initiative is projected to create more than 10,000 jobs during the height of construction, and will pump billions of dollars into the regional economy.

Click here to see CDOT’s planned lane closures in northeast Colorado.

Click here to see CDOT’s planned lane closures in southeast Colorado.

Click here to see CDOT’s planned lane closures in western Colorado.

VMT Fee Should Replace Gas Tax, ULI Report Suggests

Congress should consider initiating a vehicle miles traveled fee to replace the gasoline tax currently funding federal highway and transit programs, an infrastructure report issued by the Urban Land Institute and Ernst & Young recommends. The report also calls for boosting transportation investment through other sources.

This report is the fourth in an annual series. (Inside Lane note: Read and download the report here.) It focuses on the pressing need for long-term and integrated investments in transportation and other infrastructure.

“Investing in infrastructure — done well and strategically — can help ensure increasing prosperity and the rising standards of living that Americans have come to expect,” the report contends. “Many countries around the world — China, India, and those in Europe — understand the infrastructure investment imperative and are working to build the transportation, water, and energy systems that will grow their economies for future generations.”

There have been a few hopeful steps towards an adequately funded transportation system nationwide, the report notes. It highlights several transportation and finance programs in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act such as those for high-speed rail, discretionary multimodal grants, and Build America Bonds.

The document includes examples of a few transportation-oriented public/private partnerships currently underway in the United States, and notes how these can offer “guideposts” for similar efforts elsewhere. These examples include the Florida Department of Transportation’s agreements for constructing a $2 billion tolled expressway expansion along Interstate 595 and a $1 billion tunnel for the Port of Miami, and the collaboration between the Texas Department of Transportation and a private operator for building High Occupancy/Toll lanes as part of a $4 billion widening and upgrade for Interstate 635.

One means of further encouraging those partnerships, the report suggests, is a national infrastructure bank based on Europe’s model for financing and attracting private capital. “A federal infrastructure bank could help establish procurement protocols and standards, facilitating the bidding process,” the report states.

The 102-page report, “Infrastructure 2010: An Investment Imperative,” is available at the Urban Land Institute website.

Bridge Demolition to Close I-25 Near 104TH Avenue Next Week

ADAMS COUNTY – The Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT) recently completed the center portion of the new 104th Avenue bridge over I-25. With two thirds of the new bridge complete, crews will be realigning eastbound 104th Avenue onto the new bridge this week and demolishing the final third of the existing bridge.

“We have now completed two thirds of the new structure and will be removing all traffic from the old bridge this week,” said CDOT Program Engineer John Schwab. “With traffic realigned to the new structure, we can demolish and replace the southern portion of the bridge.”

As a result of the upcoming bridge demolition, there will be various lane closures on 104th Avenue as well as I-25 next week. The following closures will take place Sunday, April 18th through Thursday, April 22nd, weather permitting:
• Sunday, April 18th: All left turn movements from northbound and southbound I-25 to 104th Avenue and from eastbound and westbound 104th Avenue to I-25 will be prohibited from 12 a.m. until 5 p.m. on Sunday for paving.
• Monday, April 19th: A single lane of southbound I-25 at 104th Avenue will be closed at 7 p.m. followed by a full closure from 9 p.m. to 1 a.m. In addition, all lanes of northbound I-25 at 104th Avenue will be closed from 1 a.m. to 5:30 a.m. on Tuesday morning. Crews will be removing a fence on the 104th Avenue bridge over I-25. Detour: Motorists will be detoured via the on and off ramps at 104th Avenue. Uniformed traffic control will be used to direct motorists through the interchange.
• Tuesday, April 20th: The left lane and left turn lane to I-25 will be closed on eastbound and westbound 104th Avenue from 8:30 p.m. to 5:30 a.m. to allow crews to realign eastbound 104th Avenue onto the new bridge.
• Wednesday, April 21st and Thursday, April 22nd: One lane of northbound and southbound I-25 at 104th Avenue will be closed at 7 p.m. with all lanes closing at 9 p.m. for bridge demolition. All lanes will reopen by 5:30 a.m. the following day. Detour: Motorists will be detoured via the on and off ramps at 104th Avenue. Uniformed traffic control will be used to direct motorists through the interchange.

Major delays are throughout the week and alternate routes are strongly advised. CDOT would like to remind motorists to obey all traffic signs and flaggers and to “Slow for the Cone Zone.”

The existing 104th Avenue bridge over I-25 was originally constructed in 1962 and is one of Colorado’s structurally deficient bridges. When complete, the new bridge will accommodate an additional left turn lane from eastbound 104th Avenue to northbound I-25.

Hamon Contractors, Inc. is the contractor for this $6.5 million project scheduled to be complete by the end of January 2011. CDOT is funding the bridge replacement and the Northglenn Urban Renewal Authority (NURA) is funding the aesthetic improvements which will include upgraded bridge rail and upgraded bridge lighting similar to the existing lighting on the 112th Avenue overpass bridge. Aesthetic improvements also include cornerstone monuments at the four ends of the bridge and “Northglenn” monument signage mounted to an upgraded retaining wall.

C-470 Concrete Repairs Complete, Resurfacing Begins

DOUGLAS/JEFFERSON COUNTY— Crews have completed all of the concrete repairs on eastbound and westbound C-470 between I-25 and Santa Fe Drive and asphalt resurfacing is just beginning. Since temperatures are not yet warm enough for paving during the overnight hours, crews will continue to work on weekends.

“With the concrete work complete, we will micro-surface C-470, which seals the concrete and levels the pavement,” said CDOT Project Engineer Doug Liane. “Once that work is complete, we will resurface both directions of C-470 in asphalt for a smooth driving surface.”

This weekend, crews will work from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday, weather permitting. The following closures will be in place:
Closures on Saturday, April 17, 2010
• Westbound C-470 between University Boulevard and Santa Fe Drive: The left lane of westbound C-470 will be closed from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Saturday. Major delays are expected and alternate routes are strongly advised.
• Eastbound C-470 between University Boulevard and Yosemite Street: One lane of eastbound C-470 will be closed from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Saturday. Major delays are expected and alternate routes are strongly advised.
• Lucent Boulevard to Westbound C-470: The ramp from Lucent Boulevard to westbound C-470 will be completely closed from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Saturday. Detour: Motorists can take County Line Road to Santa Fe Drive where access to westbound C-470 is available.
• Westbound C-470 to Lucent Boulevard: The ramp from westbound C-470 to Lucent Boulevard will be completely closed from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Saturday. Detour: Motorists can take Santa Fe Drive to County Line Road where access to Lucent Boulevard is available.
• Quebec Street to Eastbound C-470: The ramp from Quebec Street to eastbound C-470 will be completely closed from 7 a.m. to noon on Saturday. Detour: Motorists can take County Line Road to Yosemite Street or I-25.

Closures on Sunday, April 18, 2010
• Westbound C-470 between University Boulevard and Santa Fe Drive: The right lane of westbound C-470 will be closed from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Sunday. Major delays are expected and alternate routes are strongly advised.
• Westbound C-470 to Santa Fe Drive: The ramp from westbound C-470 to Santa Fe Drive will be completely closed from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Sunday. Detour: Motorists can take Platte Canyon Road to Mineral Avenue where access to Santa Fe Drive is available.
• Eastbound and Westbound C-470 at University Boulevard: The left lane of eastbound and westbound C-470 at University will be closed Sunday from 8 p.m. to 5:30 a.m.

In addition to the weekend work, the following lane closures will be in place Monday, April 19th through Friday, April 23rd, weather permitting:
• Eastbound and Westbound C-470 at University Boulevard: The left lane of eastbound and westbound C-470 at University Boulevard will be closed Monday from 8 p.m. to 5:30 a.m.
• Eastbound and Westbound C-470 at Broadway: The left lane of eastbound and westbound C-470 at Broadway will be closed Tuesday and Wednesday from 8 p.m. to 5:30 a.m.
• Eastbound and Westbound C-470 at Santa Fe Drive: The left lane of eastbound and westbound C-470 at Santa Fe Drive will be closed on Thursday from 8 p.m. to 5:30 a.m.

Delays are expected during work hours and alternate routes are strongly advised. CDOT would like to remind motorists to obey all traffic signs and flaggers and to “Slow for the Cone Zone.” Most fines will be doubled if the infraction occurs in the work zone.

This work is part of an American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) project. The $32 million project will repair concrete along nine miles of C-470 and then pave the entire length in asphalt. Concrete repairs will also be made along 26 miles of the C-470 bike path between I-25 and I-70.

Castle Rock Construction Co. of Centennial, CO is the contractor for this project, which is scheduled to be complete by the end of September 2010.

In all, Colorado will receive more than $400 million from the Recovery Act for highway projects and $103 million for transit projects. For more information about how Colorado is putting the recovery act to work, visit www.colorado.gov/recovery. For a list of CDOT’s Recovery Act projects, visit http://www.coloradodot.info/projects/arra.

But after the first of the state’s two public hearings on the study, the very idea of evaluating an eventual VMT tax is proving to be polarizing and politically risky.

Go to DC Streetsblog to see the entire item.

Sidewalk plaque at 17th and Stout streets, the heart of downtown Denver. commemorates the 58-year-old all-walk phase known as the Barnes Dance. Inside Lane photo.

By Kevin Flynn
Inside-Lane.com

Save the last dance for me!

Denver, the city that popularized the pedestrian-friendly all-walk diagonal-crossing Barnes Dance, is considering phasing it out of the busy downtown grid as part of a larger evaluation of signal timing within the central business district.

Another Denver institution on the ropes? Could they leave the Barnes Dance, the cheeseburger and the ice cream soda in their native town and instead eliminate the Denver Boot?

“We have preliminary data from our consultant and we’re talking to stakeholders,” said Matt Wager, director of operations for traffic engineering services at Denver Public Works. “It’s a complex discussion.”

Pedestrians would still get “Walk” signals, but not the all-red diagonal crossing.

Wager said a decision is likely six months out. The “All Pedestrian Phase Study” is being done by Jacobs Engineering, while a larger retiming study of the downtown signal system, called the Downtown Denver Traffic Signal Retiming Study, is being done by Navjoy Consulting Services.
“We are taking a look at signal timing downtown and are evaluating not only pedestrians but bicycles, autos and transit,” Wager said. “We’re always evaluating signal timing downtown.”

In part, the retiming study is a response to RTD’s anticipated introduction of four-car light rail trains along Stout and California streets. The longer train consists – RTD now operates two- and three-car consists on the Central Corridor downtown – will require more all-red clearance at cross streets.

The so-called Barnes Dance refers to the inclusion of an all-red phase within the traffic signal cycle that stops vehicles on all approaches and allows pedestrians to freely cross, including diagonally. It’s called the Barnes Dance because it was brought to Denver by the city’s visionary first traffic engineer, Henry Barnes. He did not come up with it, but was the first to apply it in an entire downtown zone when it went live in 1952.

Henry Barnes, left, in Baltimore with traffic signal inventor Charles Adler, center, installing a plaque at the 1928 location of Adler's first signal. Photo from Signalfan.com

In his autobiography, “The Man with the Red and Green Eyes,” Barnes said he came up with the notion for the all-walk phase while dropping his daughter off at school and watching her try to cross the street with her friends. People trying to cross the street during breaks in traffic were playing games of chicken. In a presentation in Los Angeles to a meeting of the Institute of Traffic Engineers, Barnes told them:

“As things stood now, a downtown shopper needed a four-leaf clover, a voodoo charm, and a St. Christopher’s medal to make it in one piece from one curbstone to the other. As far as I was concerned – a traffic engineer with Methodist leanings – I didn’t think that the Almighty should be bothered with problems which we, ourselves, were capable of solving. Therefore, I was going to aid and abet prayers and benedictions with a practical scheme: Henceforth, the pedestrian – as far as Denver was concerned – was going to be blessed with a complete interval in the traffic signal cycle all his own. First of all, there would be the usual red and green signals for vehicular traffic. Let the cars have their way, moving straight through or making right turns. Then a red light for all vehicles while the pedestrians were given their own signal. In this interim, the street crossers could move directly or diagonally to their objectives, having free access to all four corners while all cars waited for a change of lights.”

Barnes acknowledged there were such intersections already using such a signal by the 1940s in Kansas City, Vancouver and a few other places. But Denver was where Barnes had them installed throughout the business district, where for the most part they remain in use today.

But downtown Denver has changed.

The 1982 debut of the 16th Street Mall into the traffic flow presented signal timing issues. To accommodate the transit shuttles, 16th was converted to two-way traffic from its former one-way function in the downtown grid. Engineers had to integrate efficient timing for RTD’s shuttle business going in both directions into a total 75-second cycle from green to green. Also, since the original Denver grid is platted on a 45-degree diagonal to north-south-east-west, the connections to East Denver and Golden Triangle streets east of Broadway and south of Colfax Avenue present timing issues.

Wager said Denver uses the mall shuttle movement as the starting point for setting all the other timings.

The diagonal crossing was dubbed the “Barnes Dance” after Denver Post city hall reporter John Buchanan wrote that, despite citizen and official apprehension in advance of its introduction, the innovative all-walk phase had pedestrians “dancing in the street.”

Barnes also oversaw the demise of the Denver Tramway’s 1950 conversion of the city’s extensive but aging streetcar lines to buses – having been quoted as saying he had no objection to streetcars except that they ran in the street.

Barnes departed Denver a year after introducing his dance and became traffic engineer in Baltimore, where he introduced computerized signal controls. He was hired to be New York City’s traffic commissioner in 1962 by Mayor Robert Wagner. Barnes used the all-walk phase in Manhattan, although only a few locations remain in use today.

He died of a heart attack on the job in New York in 1968, at the age of 61.

On a personal note, my own subconscious awareness of the Barnes Dance and downtown signal timing nearly got me whacked by a car when Denver altered signal timing with little fanfare years ago. While working at the Rocky Mountain News, I was in the habit of taking reading material with me when walking to appointments or lunch. The timing patterns had been inculcated into my brain for years: Named streets got the green light first, then the numbered streets, followed by the all-walk Barnes Dance.

One day, walking back to 400 W. Colfax from the Brown Palace, I stepped to the curb at Tremont Place and 17th Street, my nose in a book, looking to cross west toward 16th. When the last of the traffic zoomed past me on 17th, I started out into the street still reading, confident Henry Barnes had my back.

But I heard cars starting out from Tremont, including some making a left turn right into my path. I looked up to see a bumper coming at me, and jumped back.

I found out Denver traffic engineers had flipped the order of the signal phases east the mall. Numbered streets now went first, named streets second.

Rendering of the new bridge over Lake Champlain between West Addison, Vt., and Crown Point, N.Y.

WCAX TV in Burlington, Vt., reports that Flatiron Construction of Lafayette is the apparent low bidder to build the new Crown Point bridge across an arm of Lake Champlain to connect New York and Vermont.

The old bridge was brought down by controlled demolition in December after inspectors closed it due to its condition becoming unsafe.

Flatiron’s bid was around $69 million. There were nine bidders on the project, none from Vermont. Vermont Department of Transportation officials stressed this was an apparent low bidder but Flatiron will not be awarded the contract until the bid is fully vetted.

Go to WCAX.com to see the entire story.