Shailen Bhatt

CDOT Executive Shailen Bhatt told north Denver residents during a public meeting last month that more lanes will actually improve air quality.

Thursday night at Swansea Recreation Center, opponents of the I-70 expansion took over CDOT's open house, wearing black bandanas over their faces to symbolize the pollution they'd breathe should the agency dig a highway trench in contaminated soil.

Traffic fatalities in Colorado have spiked 24 percent in two years, and pedestrian and cyclist deaths have reached a 15-year high. But Colorado DOT chief Shailen Bhatt won't redesign streets to reduce the death toll.

The governor framed the ballot measure as a roads and transit package, but lawmakers haven't nailed down specifics.

How far has the Colorado Department of Transportation come since its days as the Colorado Department of Highways? Not very far, judging by Denver’s high-speed, state-owned streets like Colfax and Federal. While Colorado DOT Director Shailen Bhatt talks a good game, the agency he runs has shown almost no inclination to create walkable, bikeable, transit-oriented streets … Continued

While Colorado DOT seems hell-bent on spending billions of dollars to widen I-70, it’s not too late to stop the project. If Governor John Hickenlooper says the word, the city can still escape unscathed from the state’s efforts to ram a super-wide below-grade highway through north Denver. Going through with the highway widening will have long-lasting consequences, saddling the … Continued

The Colorado Contractors Association wants to raise the state sales sales tax to pay for roads (and maybe some transit, but definitely roads). The CCA wants to get the tax proposal on the November ballot. In other words, everyone will pay more for consumer goods in order to subsidize driving. Basics like clothing will get more expensive … Continued

Colorado DOT Executive Director Shailen Bhatt wants drivers to pay their fair share for the roads they use, he said at the Colorado Bicycle Summit on Tuesday. To do that, he’d like to see a higher gas tax on the state and federal level. “Raising the gas tax is absolutely the right thing to do,” Bhatt said. … Continued

It’s really not that difficult to build bike infrastructure so that city streets are safe and efficient for everyone. That’s what Mikael Colville-Andersen, the “bicycle urbanism” expert who founded Copenhagenize, wants Colorado to know. “The greatest thing about bike infrastructure today is very, very simple,” Colville-Andersen told the crowd of about 250 at the Colorado Bicycle … Continued