Overview:
Residents were perplexed when 13th and 14th Avenues suddenly became two-way streets. City admits it “missed some communication steps.”
The Denver Department of Transportation and Infrastructure, or DOTI, has acknowledged that the February conversion from one-way to two-way streets on 13th and 14th Avenues was poorly communicated. However, those who used the road in its early days continue to be perplexed as to why it occurred.
When Monique Helstrom drove down East 14th Avenue on Feb. 18, she expected the road to be as it had always been: one-way.
“I was driving down the street thinking nothing of it and thinking it was still a one-way,” said Helstrom, a resident who is also the president of the East Colfax neighborhood association. “Then I saw a car coming at me.”
Helstrom quickly realized something had changed.
“I was in the wrong; he was in the right because they had just switched it,” she said. “I had to turn and get out of the way. I started looking around and saw two-way signs with one-way signs stacked above them and thought, ‘Oh my God, oh my God,’ so I rushed home and residents were blasting us with phone calls to let us know that this happened.”
The confusion was caused by DOTI’s larger rollout, which included converting a 16-block stretch of East 14th Avenue between Quebec Street and Yosemite Street from one-way to two-way traffic around midday on Wednesday, Feb. 18. A similar conversion on nearby East 13th Avenue followed the next day.
While the project had been planned for months, many residents said the abrupt rollout caught them off guard.
“If you’re driving on 14th, there was one electronic sign posted for a while and it said ‘change coming soon,’ but it didn’t outline the exact change or the date this change was supposed to come,” said East Colfax resident Danielle Shepard. “There were no notifying signs between Quebec and Yosemite, where the actual change was happening.”
The conversion is part of Denver’s $950 million Vibrant Denver bond package, approved by voters in November 2025 to fund transportation and infrastructure improvements.
According to DOTI, converting the streets to two-way traffic is intended to slow vehicle speeds and improve safety along the East Colfax corridor. In a statement released on Feb. 19, the agency said the project aims to address speeding and safety concerns along the corridor.
DOTI spokesperson Nancy Kuhn later acknowledged that communication about the rollout did not go as planned.
“We were in contact with District 8 Council Office in early February but did not give them an updated timeline when we learned work would start Feb. 17,” Kuhn said.
Although the department had placed electronic message boards at the ends of both streets weeks before, warning drivers of an impending traffic change, Kuhn claims that they failed to communicate effectively when informing the community, Google/Apple Maps and the council office about the conversions.
“In our eagerness to get these treatments implemented to improve safety and slow vehicle speeds, we missed some communication steps,” Kuhn said. “We did not get the word out to the level that we needed to prior to work starting. In hindsight, I should have issued a travel advisory the week prior to get the word out more broadly and help reduce confusion.”
For residents, the biggest issue wasn’t the project itself. It was the speed with which the change occurred, as well as the city’s failure to communicate. Shepard claimed that drivers were unprepared for the conversion.
“I saw two cars immediately turn into a parking lot so they didn’t collide because they didn’t know the change had happened,” she said. “It was an absolute mess.”
At the time, Shepard said the roadway markings had not yet been updated and there were no cones or clear lane markers indicating that the street had become two-way.
“Now you have cars trying to make turns from the right-hand lane when they usually don’t and cars coming towards each other from opposite directions confusing the drivers,” Shepard said, “and this all happened within a five-minute period.”
The confusion continued the next day when 13th Avenue was converted to two-way traffic. Shepard said the city added cones and “stay right” signs to help drivers navigate 14th Avenue after the first day’s confusion.
But residents say similar measures weren’t initially put in place when 13th Avenue changed. “You would think they wouldn’t make the same mistake twice,” Shepard said.
Kuhn said DOTI has since worked to improve communication with the community.
“We have since been in communication with the local RNO (Registered Neighborhood Organization) in that neighborhood in an effort to improve relations and open new lines of communication between our organizations,” Kuhn said. “What we learned in using a slightly different project delivery method for this conversion is that we have some processes to add to it, including ensuring more robust communication. We are taking steps to prevent that from happening in the future through process improvements.”
Despite the rocky rollout, residents say they are not opposed to the street conversion itself. In fact, many have long supported changes that could slow traffic along the busy corridor.
“I have high hopes that it’s going to make our neighborhood safer,” Shepard said. “I think it will be maintained long-term, especially since they’re keeping the cones and the signage over the last week. I think that this is a step in the right direction.”
For now, traffic cones and additional signage remain in place as drivers adjust to the new layout. Helstrom said it’s still too early to judge whether the change will work.
“We’re figuring it out,” she said. “I do think it is getting easier down here.”
But she said the experience offers a lesson for the city moving forward.
“I still think there’s a lot to get done and figure out still,” Helstrom said. “I think going forward the city needs to speak with local councilpeople and try to use resources to get the word out better.”
Editor’s Note: The original story incorrectly stated that the change occurred overnight on Tuesday, Feb. 17, and has been updated to reflect that it occurred midday on Wednesday, Feb. 18.
