denver proposing more centralized infrastructure effort

The largest city in Colorado with the largest infrastructure system in the state is thinking about creating its own transportation and infrastructure department.

As proposed, the new department would provide oversight to a multi-modal transportation system and would be tasked with planning, designing, and constructing specific individual transportation projects throughout the city.

The department’s mandate would also include the operation and maintenance of new and existing transportation systems.

City officials additionally say that the current Department of Public Works would be folded into the larger Department of Transportation and Infrastructure. By so doing, there would be a better coordination between such tasks as repairing existing sewers and building new roads.

The idea, which will require a change to the city’s charter, now has to go to the Denver City Council, which will decide whether to put it on this November’s ballot.

In a statement, Eulois Cleckley, executive director of the city’s Public Works Department, said a new and comprehensive department addressing the bike, car, and transit needs of the more than 700,000 people who live in Denver just makes good sense.

Combining public works with infrastructure and transportation into one agency, said Cleckley, would create an enhanced “project delivery approach that takes transformation and infrastructure projects from concept to completion in a more integrated, sequential, and coordinated manner.”

By Garry Boulard

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