Cyclist Deaths up in Colorado–and “No Money” to Fix it

In the News:

Cyclist deaths in Colorado are up 44% since 2002, but the state doesn’t have enough money to study the issue.

The Denver Post reported Monday that cyclist deaths are up 44 percent and pedestrian deaths are up nearly 10 percent since 2002.

That’s not the only bad news. Though death rates have fallen for motorists, they have risen for cyclists and pedestrians, and even more so in the first quarter of 2013.

“More recently, auto-pedestrian collisions in Denver for the first four months of this year have risen almost 35 percent since the same period in 2010, and hit-and-run cases in the city this year are up 55 percent over each of the previous four years,” wrote the newspaper.

Rollie Heath, chairman of the state Senate’s Transportation Committee, said if good data helps planners prevent traffic deaths, “that’s a conversation worth having.”

But when it comes to paying for it, that’s a different conversation.

“We’re not adequately funding basic repairs on some of our roads,” said the Boulder Democrat. “And we’ve got a lot of needs for the funds we have.”

The data-sharing systems can cost millions of dollars across multiple agencies. And coordinating the effort can be difficult.