Bow Mar, a leafy community with homes on acre lots wedged between Denver and Littleton, made it clear this week that it is moving ahead with plans to build a gate at its northern entrance on South Sheridan Boulevard that will allow only town residents to pass in and out using remote openers.

Meanwhile, officials from Denver and Littleton have fired back with threats of erecting their own barriers to impede Bow Mar denizens from moving freely into their jurisdictions, calling the tiny town’s proposed gate an insular and unreasonable way to try to slow drivers on its gently winding streets, which feature neither street lights nor sidewalks.

Bow Mar Mayor Bryan Sperry was determined not to back down as he addressed a packed Board of Trustees meeting Monday evening. In the back of the room, residents held up signs that read “Protect Bow Mar Kids” and “Families Over Shortcuts.”

“This is about safety — this is not about excluding others,” the mayor said.

Sperry held up oversized photos of the aftermath of recent vehicle collisions with walls and other structures in Bow Mar — vivid examples of motorists using the quiet community of 900 as a high-speed cut-through on their way to somewhere else.

“Thankfully, this was not kid versus car,” said Sperry, holding up a photo of stones from a smashed wall strewn across the ground.

But Denver City Councilman Kevin Flynn, who represents the southwest pocket of Colorado’s largest city near Fort Logan National Cemetery, isn’t buying it.

“They’re trying to privatize access only to the residents of Bow Mar by installing a gate that only their residents can raise,” said Flynn, noting that Denver’s city line abuts Bow Mar’s entrance sign. “We can’t have our public right of way being turned into your private driveway.”

Residents in two neighborhoods he represents — Bow Mar Heights and Pinehurst South — would be forced to take dangerous left turns onto West Quincy Avenue if denied the signal at South Sheridan Boulevard.

Ninety people, he said, showed up “enraged” at a community meeting in May to speak about the gate.

In turn, Denver will look into whether it should drop a barricade across South Sheridan Boulevard just north of Bow Mar’s entrance so that nobody — including Bow Mar residents — can move through, he said.

“I hope it doesn’t come to that, but it is definitely one of the measures we could take if this is not resolved,” Flynn said.

Littleton Mayor Kyle Schlachter said his city is considering whether it’s time to cut off access into Bow Mar from West Belleview Avenue.

“Closing access to a certain group of individuals does not seem fair or equitable to me,” he said of Bow Mar’s proposed gate on Sheridan. “It’s a public street and our residents use that to get to where they are headed.”

Limiting access into a community has happened before in Colorado, with the small Arapahoe County town of Foxfield erecting two gates several years ago to reduce the volume of traffic cutting through the town from Parker Road.

But Flynn pointed out that Foxfield’s gates only operate during morning and evening rush hours, whereas Bow Mar’s gate would be an around-the-clock affair.

“We cannot allow a public right of way to be used like that,” he said. “They’re changing the status of our right-of-way.”

Bow Mar residents say nothing else the town has tried over the years to slow drivers has worked — be it speed bumps, roundabouts, narrowing the roads with striping, or imposing a 20 mph maximum speed throughout town.

“We’ve tried everything,” Charli White, a 3-year resident of Bow Mar, told the trustees this week. “It still feels like it’s not safe.”

Bow Mar said it issued 294 traffic citations last year, including 127 speeding tickets and 49 traffic arrests. There were three DUI arrests in 2025.

Through April this year, the town has stopped 117 drivers, with 45 speeding tickets issued and 15 traffic arrests made. Two of those drivers were suspected of being drunk.

Rob Sterling, who has lived in Bow Mar for 11 years, told The Denver Post in an interview that a car smashed into his mailbox last year and left a piece of fender in his driveway.

“In 10 years, I have had 14 cars end up in the drainage ditch in front of my house,” he said. “All they think about is getting to where they are going. They don’t realize there are kids on bikes and people trying to do the speed limit — those things just get in their way.”

There are no commercial businesses in Bow Mar — just homes. The gate at Sheridan, which could be in operation by the end of the year, would be accessible to emergency crews and delivery services, town officials said.

Bow Mar Trustee Liz Manning said those claiming that the town is trying to wall itself off from its neighbors are ignoring the fact that there are no plans by Bow Mar to control access at West Berry and West Belleview avenues.

“We are putting a controlled access gate at Sheridan and at no other entrance,” she said. “Our traffic data show that by far the highest volume of cut-through traffic goes through Sheridan.”

Manning also pointed out that while Littleton complains about Bow Mar’s plans for a gate, the city has had its own gate at the entrance to Bow Mar South, a Littleton neighborhood, for years.

“I’ve heard that Littleton’s position is: A gate for me and not for thee,” she said wryly.

Schlachter said he recognizes the mixed messaging of Littleton having its own gate in place to restrict traffic into a city neighborhood while opposing Bow Mar’s plans. He said he’d like to see the gate, which is not closed all the time, gone.

“It’s something I will ask city staff to explore removal of,” he said. “I have never liked that gate there.”

In the meantime, Barclay Miller, a Bow Mar resident for 3 years, is concerned that with plans for hundreds more housing units to be added to neighborhoods surrounding Bow Mar, the problem of cut-through traffic is only going to get worse if the town doesn’t protect itself.

“We don’t want a tragedy to happen for us to take action,” he said at the trustees meeting.

°äŽÇ±ôŽÇ°ùČč»ćŽÇ’ČőÌę, *CSP, received 33,387 reports of road rage incidents in 2025, Colorado State Patrol trooper and spokesperson Sherri Mendez said. That included reports of excessive speeding, tailgating, angry gestures, passing on the right, honking in anger, showing a weapon, weaving in and out of traffic and getting out of the car to confront another driver, she said.

Aggressive behavior has “continued to climb” over the past three years, Mendez said. Roughly 54% of the tens of thousands of calls made to *CSP in 2023 reported aggressive driving. That rose to 56% in 2024 and 57.3% in 2025, she said.

“High speeds and erratic movements make it harder for other drivers to anticipate actions, increasing the likelihood of collisions,” Mendez continued. “In some cases, confrontations can escalate to violence.”

Dash-camera video showed two drivers who came to a stop in the middle lane of Interstate 70. A driver exited one of the cars and repeatedly slammed the other driver’s door as they tried to get out.

As we head into another hot summer weekend, we need to bring down the temperature on our roads.

On Wednesday, the Wheat Ridge Police Department got a call for a road rage situation on I-70 westbound approaching W 32nd Ave.

— Wheat Ridge Police (@WheatRidgePD)

After the first driver returned to their car, the second driver gave chase and punched the first driver’s rear window, appearing to shatter it. That prompted the first driver to return to the second’s car, and the two appeared to exchange heated words before returning to their vehicles.

The video came from the dash camera of a semitrailer that almost collided with the two stopped cars on Wednesday, according to the Wheat Ridge Police Department. The two drivers had been swerving between lanes and brake-checking each other before the confrontation, police said.

Both drivers were cited for disorderly conduct, police said,

“This situation was downright dangerous and these two are lucky they didn’t get hit on the highway,” the post stated. “Keep your cool on our roads.”

Drivers who spot road ragers are encouraged to find a safe spot to pull over and call *CSP with a description and location of the vehicle, Mendez said. If the situation escalates or poses an immediate threat, the driver should call 911.

“The best response to road rage or aggressive driving is to keep your cool,” Mendez said. “Do not engage with the aggressive driver. Allow space, create distance and prioritize safety. A decision not to engage can prevent a dangerous situation from escalating.”

Colorado is one of the top states for road rage incidents, according to a study released last year. That study — which calculated “Road Rage Scores” for states using data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the Bureau of Transportation Statistics — ranked Colorado first for angry and aggressive drivers.

Road rage is a year-round constant in Colorado, but summer can bring more drivers to the state’s roads and increase the chance of encountering an aggressive driver, Mendez said.

In April 2025, Johnston vowed that if the city took more than 180 days — or about six months — to process a construction application, it would refund the developer up to $10,000 in fees.

Since then, the city hasn’t had to pay back any developers, according to the city’s Department of Community Planning and Development.

“Collaboration across all of our teams and departments is better than I’ve ever seen it,” said Jill Jennings Golich, the director of the new permitting office. “The review times have improved significantly. We’re over 90% for almost every review discipline for on-time reviews. A few years ago, some of them were in the 60s.”

A graphic produced by the office shows the city completing an increasing portion of the permit reviews on time. In 2023, about 57% of commercial project reviews were considered “on time.” In 2026 thus far, that figure is 88%.

Two years after releasing a , the Denver Auditor’s Office praised some of the latest improvements in a of residential permitting this spring.

“The city made positive changes, demonstrating how powerful public engagement can make a difference when the city values people’s concerns,” Auditor Tim O’Brien said in a recent news release.

Auditors highlighted that the new office had clarified which information applicants needed for their requests. City officials also created a formal training plan for employees who review residential plans.

“For example, new guidelines specify residential plan-review staff response emails should avoid acronyms, answer all applicants’ questions, and reply to applicants within 48 hours of receipt,” according to the auditor’s news release.

Before the new office’s creation, large-scale housing and commercial projects had to pass through reviews by seven city departments before getting final approval — the Department of Community Planning and Development, the Department of Transportation and Infrastructure, Denver Parks and Recreation, the Fire Department, the Department of Housing Stability, the Department of Excise and Licenses (now Licensing and Consumer Protection), and the Department of Public Health and Environment.

The process could take more than two years.

While developers still need permits from the various agencies, the new office works to make sure all of them have streamlined processes and work together, so that applicants have an easier time navigating the system.

“We are responsible for ensuring that the system as a whole is transparent, is effective and is collaborative with our customers so that they, ideally, aren’t having to understand the various pieces and parts and teams,” Jennings Golich said.

Applicants get a “project champion” to help them navigate the permitting process. The three-person permitting office also has an in-person counter in the Wellington E. Webb Municipal Office Building near Civic Center to answer questions. It’s open from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. on weekdays.

The city previously didn’t have any deadline for when permit applications should be completed.

Ted Leighty, the CEO of , said its members represent a small portion of recent permits issued by Denver but have reported that the process is “moving in the right direction.”

“More importantly, the city appears to be listening to concerns regarding the process and timelines, and the impact these issues have on housing costs,” he said in a statement. “We are hopeful the city will continue working collaboratively with builders to further improve the permitting process while reducing delays and additional costs.”

Construction permits are required for new buildings, buildouts and remodeling.

for the city’s plan review times shows that it takes, on average, 244 days for major commercial review plans to be approved and 212 days, on average, for major residential projects. That includes the time the application is in the hands of the applicant, Jennings Golich said. The city’s goal of 180 days includes only the time a permit application is being processed by the city.

So far, 0.5% of the projects with open permits since the new permitting office was formed have taken more than 150 days for the city to review, said Alexandra Foster, a spokesperson for the planning department.

Reviews for four projects have lasted longer than the 180-day target, she said. Three of those projects were then resolved by a review board within 30 extra days, precluding the repayment of fees. One of the projects was still being reviewed by that board.

“I think we’ve had great success,” Jennings Golich said. “There is still more work to do.”

The directors voted unanimously at an operations committee meeting on Wednesday night to task RTD service planners with identifying specific reductions in service hours, frequencies, and routes, and to present them later this month. The planners will propose combinations of cuts to achieve service reductions of 15%, 17.5%, and 20%.

A 20% service cut would save an estimated $62 million to help close the $215 million annual deficit and balance the agency’s $1.5 billion budget. It would mean eliminating 7,300 hours of bus and train service per month across RTD’s 2,345-square-mile service area, according to agency documents.

For months, the directors have been wrestling with the implications of service cuts, including the risk that they could accelerate the decline in RTD’s ridership, which has decreased by nearly 40% since 2019. Those supporting service reductions say that, if cuts must be made, they should target runs where buses and trains are mostly empty while preserving the public transit people use.

“There are no other options that sustainably get the budget back into balance. The reason why we should cut service when people are not using it is because that has the least impact on our customers,” RTD Director Chris Nicholson said.

If voters in 2028 approve a tax hike for public transit, then RTD service could be “dramatically expanded” again, Nicholson said. “What we’re doing is starting on a path to right-size RTD. These cuts would show voters where we’re headed if voters don’t take action in 2028.”

The funding that RTD receives, mostly from sales taxes, hasn’t been enough to cover rising costs for labor, fuel, maintenance, and programs such as free fares for youth.

In April, RTD managers recommended a service cut of at least 20%.  Since then, the agency’s 15 directors have looked for other ways to balance their budget, including fare hikes, grant funding, reduction of managerial and executive jobs, and debt restructuring. They’ve anguished about the impacts service cuts would have on metro Denver residents who rely on public transit.

But the numbers don’t add up, forcing consideration of other savings, possibly by cutting early morning, late night, and weekend bus runs.

The decision this week marked a shift by the board toward accepting the agency managers’ recommendation.

“We need to come to the hard reality,” said Director Julien Bouquet, who previously served as the board chairman and represents the south Denver suburbs, including Littleton.

If RTD does not balance the budget for 2027, the financial institutions that RTD relies on for funds needed for large projects, such as maintaining tracks and bus fleets, could downgrade the credit rating, RTD’s chief financial officer Kelly Mackey has told directors. Colorado law and RTD’s fiscal policy require .

Over the past three months, Director Karen Benker, who chairs the RTD’s finance committee, led the efforts to reduce transit spending without cutting service.

“Finance committee members are reluctant to cut service, but the operations committee members just voted for deep cuts. We are divided,” Benker said Thursday, urging public input before final decisions are made.

“If RTD goes down this path of chopping service, we will continue to decline in ridership and relevance, and we will lose the faith of the taxpayers.  Some on the board want to seek a tax increase in 2028 because of our deficit situation. If RTD slashes service, there will be no interest by the taxpayers to bail us out.  We are leaving our customers stranded–waiting for a bus that never comes.”

RTD chief executive and general manager Debra Johnson told directors she will instruct the agency planning staff to identify the service cuts required for each scenario and present that information at a board meeting later this month.

Meanwhile, directors are mulling whether they can afford to maintain their ban on ads that block bus and train windows and are highly unpopular among riders. They’re planning to launch a new, hourly bus service, funded by a state grant, linking Longmont with Denver International Airport. They plan to revive RTD’s BroncosRide bus service, which would deploy 92 buses on routes from 18 locations around metro Denver to the football stadium, at an additional cost of about $1.6 million. And RTD officials confirmed that they’re still hiring bus and train operators to fill vacancies, offering $4,000 bonuses.

In 2025, 86 drivers and passengers between the ages of 15 and 20 died in crashes on Colorado roads — a 91% increase from the 45 deaths recorded in 2015, according to the Colorado Department of Transportation.

“As teens look ahead to traveling more while school is out for the summer, the Colorado Department of Transportation reminds them that their actions behind the wheel matter,” department officials said Tuesday in a news release.

Crashes that lead to death or injuries for people of all ages spike during the summer, the agency said.

The top factors for teen crashes in 2025 were distracted driving, speeding, lane violations and following other vehicles too close, according to the Colorado State Patrol. More than a third of the teens who died in crashes did not wear a seatbelt, according to state officials.

“Driving a vehicle is an immense responsibility requiring safe driving behavior that parents and all adults should model for young drivers so they observe, learn and adapt good, safe habits from the very start,” CDOT Executive Director Shoshana Lew said in the release.

And for that to happen, they need to reach agreements with landowners and finalize the purchase of all the property in the planned stadium’s footprint.

But one of the most critical and complex negotiations, with Denver Water, has hit a potential snag over whether a hotly contested 5-acre parking lot in Sun Valley — which now serves as supplemental parking for season ticket holders at Empower Field, the Broncos’ current home — should be part of the deal.

The plot of land, called Lot M, is in the middle of a key corridor that neighbors want to see changed from an industrial hotspot to a cozier, more pedestrian-friendly community.

Denver Water officials hope to move part of the utility’s operations there as they make room for the new stadium on its campus next to Burnham Yard. They have identified Lot M as a prime location for Denver Water’s central emergency response facility if the Broncos’ plans for Burnham Yard come to fruition.

But residents of the surrounding area have complained for years that the nearby cloverleaf interchange for Colfax Avenue and Federal Boulevard divides the community and creates unsafe conditions for pedestrians and drivers.

In recent weeks, opponents and supporters of the Lot M plans have kicked off a series of back-and-forth letters to the city over whether Denver Water should be able to take over the property.

The complication is symbolic of a larger theme: While the Burnham Yard deal may seem to some like it¶¶Òőap all but finalized, there are still dozens of steps before the Broncos can put shovels in the ground.

Everything that¶¶Òőap happened so far has been like the setup of a — an overly complicated system that incorporates things like domino cascades, marbles rolling on a track and rubberband-powered levers to complete a task.

The Broncos, Denver Mayor Mike Johnston’s office, Denver Water and community groups have all begun placing the figurative dominoes, toy race cars and pulley system that will make up the process to build the stadium.

But no one has tipped the “start trigger” yet by making key final decisions.

While there’s some disagreement among close observers of the project about when exactly that chain reaction must begin to meet the 2031 deadline, the consensus is that major decisions need to be made in roughly the next two months.

“The timing of everything is constantly on my mind,” said Denver City Councilwoman Jamie Torres, whose district includes both Empower Field and Burnham Yard. “The complexity of this is just hitting everybody in the face.”

The Broncos must relocate several components of Denver Water’s sprawling campus, much of which sits on the site of the future stadium; begin negotiating with the surrounding residents for a community benefits agreement; win various approvals from the often-skeptical council; finalize the purchase of the bulk of Burnham Yard from CDOT; and still acquire another critical plot of .

Before construction can start, a crew will also have to clean up the area through environmental remediation. Team officials will likely seek tax-increment financing for the project, too.

While the overall task isn’t impossible, it becomes more difficult with each passing week, sources familiar with the negotiations say. The team announced Burnham Yard as its “preferred site” for the future stadium in September.

Dispute over parking lot

Resolving the fight over Lot M is just one of the challenges ahead.

In a May 11 letter to Johnston, the council and Denver planning director Brad Buchanan, dozens of advocacy and community groups urged the city to reject plans to use the site for Denver Water infrastructure.

The group called the Colfax and Federal interchange a “physical and symbolic barrier” that must be addressed.

“Introducing a new industrial use on Lot M at this critical moment would be a significant step backward. It would preempt ongoing planning, constrain future redevelopment options, and jeopardize a once-in-a-generation opportunity to realize the community’s vision for this area,” according to the letter.

The group cited several city planning documents, including the and the for the area around Empower Field. Those plans suggest that the interchange should be removed or redesigned. The federal government provided a $2.4 million grant to begin developing a plan to do just that.

But after over a year of analyzing possible sites, Denver Water identified Lot M as its best option for relocating its emergency response facility. The building must be centrally located with easy access to Interstate 25, Interstate 70 and the Sixth Avenue Freeway so that emergency services can be deployed quickly, Denver Water CEO Alan Salazar wrote in a May 26 letter to Torres.

Salazar added that Denver Water never wanted to leave its campus of over 100 years, but that its leaders were working to help make the Burnham Yard stadium a reality “to support the economic prosperity of the largest community we serve.”

“At the same time, we must scrupulously protect all Denver Water ratepayers by avoiding any public subsidy for private development consistent with the Denver Charter,” he wrote in the letter.

The Broncos, which have an agreement to cover Denver Water’s relocation costs, agreed to provide most of the acreage necessary to replace the parts of its campus that the utility will move to the Elyria-Swansea neighborhood, on a property near East 40th Avenue and Clayton Street.

That construction, which hasn’t begun yet, is behind schedule after originally being set to start in May. Denver Water’s Administration Building will remain in place on the northern part of its current campus.

In a statement provided to The Denver Post, Broncos spokesman Patrick Smyth said the team is working to ensure a “smooth transition” for Denver Water and the broader community.

“We continue to have productive conversations with Denver Water about its plans to relocate part of its operation to Lot M,” he said.

CDOT says Denver Water plan won’t interfere

In its own letter on Thursday, CDOT weighed in on the Lot M controversy, saying that its officials believe the goals of improving the area could still be met even if Denver Water builds a new emergency response facility on the property.

“We want to make clear that the Lot M property would not interfere with possible changes further to the west at the interchange itself,” says the letter from Jessica Myklebust, the transportation director for the region.

CDOT will also refocus the study funded by the $2.4 million federal grant to consider the area without Empower Field, assuming that the Broncos build their stadium in Burnham Yard and the city tears down the old one.

“While we understand the urgency many feel to address the longstanding frustrations with the cloverleaf interchange, we cannot ignore the strong possibility of changes to the Stadium District in the near future, and we look forward to complementary study processes that avoid the inefficiencies of duplicative taxpayer expense,” the letter says.

The council would likely have to approve any deal to give Denver Water the Lot M property. The Metropolitan Football Stadium District owns the current stadium’s land but the city has the right to acquire it before any other developers.

A recent meeting between city officials and the community groups ended with a shared agreement that no one wants the disagreement over Lot M to result in the Broncos rescinding their plans to build a new stadium at Burnham Yard, said Dan Shah, the executive director of the West Colfax Business Improvement District and the signatory of the community letter.

“It¶¶Òőap hard for me to believe that the entirety of that (Broncos) development — of that relocation to Burnham Yard — is contingent on this particular site being accommodating of the lay-down. That¶¶Òőap a little bit hard to believe,” he said.

Shah said he hoped officials would find an alternative site for the facility.

“We’re looking forward to exploring other locations and their pros and cons in Denver,” he said. “In the next weeks, I expect those things to happen.”

Staff writer Luca Evans contributed to this story.

The changes include the temporary suspension of the D, H and L rail lines due to the downtown rail reconstruction project, the temporary reinstatement of the C line to allow continued transit from Union Station to Mineral Station, and an increased frequency for the 16th Street FreeRide bus, from four-and-a-half minutes to three minutes.

Other rail service improvements include the B Line, which runs from Union Station to Westminster Station, increasing to every 30 minutes and the G Line, which runs from Union Station to Wheat Ridge, moving to stops every 15 minutes.

A full list of changes is available on . The agency also recommends customers use the to make necessary changes to their travel plans.

RTD generally makes service adjustments three times a year to account for new traffic patterns, economic conditions and customer feedback. The next update typically happens in August or September.

Aware — and annoyed — that he’d been nabbed for exceeding the 35 mph speed limit, Anderson didn’t realize the monthslong legal quagmire in which he would soon be embroiled. It’s one that echoes an all-too-familiar battle pitting the .

When the 44-year-old computer repair specialist received his ticket in the mail, it said he had 30 days to pay it or challenge it. Through deft use of the artificial intelligence chatbot Claude, Anderson dug into state law. He found that in 2023, the state legislature had that stipulated that the response time given to motorists caught by speed cameras “not be less than forty-five days after the issuance date on the notice of the violation.”

With that, Anderson hit on a legal discrepancy that he felt obligated Aurora to void his $40 ticket. And not only his ticket.

“I’m not against safety,” he said, “but if you want everyone to follow the laws, you need to follow the laws, too. I’m really hoping they have to refund the fines to those that got a 30-day notice.”

Through a public records request this week, The Denver Post learned that Aurora had issued 26,268 speeding tickets to motorists since the city began enforcement through its automated photo safety program in late December. As of May 31, it had collected $627,000. Around 60% of violators had paid their tickets, the city said.

“If you have a program that’s going to make you millions over the next few years, you should be able to follow proper procedure,” Anderson said.

He noted that the city’s has a link to the very state law he’s holding up in his defense.

Anderson requested a hearing to dispute the ticket within the 30 days allotted. A magistrate commended Anderson for his gumshoe research into the matter — “You did a good job and you’re making the city work,” she told him during the April 30 appeal — but she refused to dismiss the ticket.

The city agreed with the magistrate, telling The Post this week that Aurora is a home-rule municipality, “meaning the city has the constitutionally protected right to make local decisions at the local level.”

“The 30-day timeline between issuance and due date on these fine-only, civil violations is an example of the city exercising said authority,” said Jennifer Soules, an Aurora spokeswoman.

That’s not how two sponsors of the 2023 bill see it.

Former state Rep. Leslie Herod, a Denver Democrat, said the 45-day response period was deliberately inserted in the law to give violators a reasonable amount of time to both receive and respond to the ticket.

“Forty-five days was put in there intentionally, and Aurora should follow the law,” she said.

Outgoing state Rep. Meg Froelich, an Englewood Democrat, said the legislature saw the use of speed camera systems as a matter of “statewide concern” that would give localities little discretion on enforcement.

The first paragraph of the bill says so — adding that the “enforcement of traffic laws through the use of automated vehicle identification systems … is an area in which uniform state standards are necessary.”

“We were trying to balance people’s civil liberties with the push for traffic safety and saving lives,” she said. “We would hope the municipalities would enforce it to the letter of the law.”

Lawmakers, Froelich said, wanted to make sure that people who might work in another location in today’s work-anywhere environment had adequate time to collect their mail and respond.

“Fifteen (extra) days may not seem like much to Aurora, but it may be for this guy,” she said.

The underpinnings of the dispute over Anderson’s speeding ticket have flared often in Colorado, where state lawmakers gave towns and cities the ability to enact . The problem that repeatedly arises is the conflicting interpretations of how the state or the cities wield their respective powers.

“There’s always been tension between state decisions and local sovereignty, and that won’t go away,” said Robert Preuhs, a political science professor at Metropolitan State University of Denver. “If the driver wants to pursue this, it will come down to the courts.”

That’s where two recent prominent home-rule and state preemption cases landed.

Last year, six metro Denver cities sued Gov. Jared Polis over the enforcement of several housing laws that require municipalities to take steps to increase housing density. The plaintiff cities, including Aurora, claimed that the state laws encroached on their local home-rule authority to oversee land-use matters. The case is ongoing.

And in the waning days of 2025, the Colorado Supreme Court handed down a ruling forbidding cities from punishing lawbreakers beyond what state courts would allow for the same offense. The justices ruled that when a municipal ordinance and a state statute prohibit identical conduct, the municipal penalties for such conduct “may not exceed the corresponding state penalties for that conduct.”

Preuhs said it was not totally clear who had the legal advantage in the Aurora speeding ticket case. But if he had to bet, he would give the edge to Aurora.

“Given the civil nature of it and the power of cities to set speed limits and enforce them, it wouldn’t surprise me that they would have the power to set a reasonable time frame for a response to a ticket,” he said.

Questions about the terms and conditions of speeding tickets issued by radar-activated cameras will only increase as the technology proliferates. Local governments in at least 27 cities and towns in Colorado have approved automated speed camera enforcement.

The Colorado Department of Transportation‘s first speed cams on Interstate 25 north of metro Denver caught more than 4,000 drivers speeding between Mead and Berthoud in March. Denver expects to install its first fixed cameras along high-accident stretches of Alameda Avenue and Federal Boulevard later this year, adding to the four photo radar speed vans that police move around the city.

Anderson, who did pay his $40 fine after his appeal failed, doesn’t know what his next steps will be with Aurora.

Municipal leaders in the Weld County town of Kersey voted in January to refund thousands of dollars it overcharged drivers caught by its speed cameras, according to . While the situation in Aurora is different, Anderson could envision a class-action lawsuit arising from all of the drivers who paid their $40 fine but didn’t have enough time to formally lodge an appeal.

He to tell his story.

“I’m not going to stop,” he said. “There’s a lot more road to go down.”

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The CEO of Denver-based Formativ kicked off construction on a 16-story, 358-unit apartment complex Wednesday at 38th and Blake streets in RiNo. The project is next to another 16-story apartment building currently under construction, which Campbell started work on last year.

“Outside of Cherry Creek, there’s not a lot of cranes in the air. 
 You’re going to see a cliff where there’s nothing new coming onto the market,” Campbell said.

“The idea was to open up into a friendly market.”

The building he just broke ground on will be market-rate, and will come with fifth-floor and rooftop decks along with amenities such as a sauna and cold plunge.

The other apartment building is restricted to those making between 60% to 90% of the area median income, and will come with a pool and gym. Also planned for the 2.1-acre site is a 180-room hotel, set to begin construction early next year.

Part of the construction entails building a pedestrian promenade that leads directly to the Regional Transportation District¶¶Òőap 38th and Blake rail stop. The ground floor of the buildings will hold a combined 15,000 square feet of retail space, which will include three restaurants.

“I was told this morning that the hotel alone will be about a $30 million annual budget, just in the hotel alone. 
 This is a $400 million development going into the ground,” Campbell said.

The project that broke ground Wednesday will cost $196 million to develop, he added. Formativ has other active projects in RiNo, down at Denargo Market, and is also developing an apartment complex for senior citizens in Littleton.

Campbell began buying pieces of the site in 2016. Back then, an office and hotel development was anticipated, with consulting firm World Trade Center Denver expected to anchor the campus.

The developer recalled starting site work on the project in the days leading up to the pandemic, which halted construction.

“We all thought that was going to be two or three weeks, and we’d strike the band back up. But the band never got back together,” he said.

The World Trade Center announced in 2021 that it would open in a different location. Campbell’s current plans for the site were first reported in 2024.

The following year, he broke ground on the first apartment complex. Unlike most income-restricted housing projects, Campbell’s did not receive a penny of public money. When asked how he made the math on that work, he had a simple response.

“We’ve got some great partners.”

Campbell’s apartment projects aren’t the only ones to break ground in RiNo recently. In April, fellow Denver developer Jon Dwight started construction on a 13-story, 301-unit apartment building two blocks up the street.

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A semitrailer dropped the boxes on westbound U.S. 285 at milepost 247, near the exit for Morrison, according to a news release from the Colorado State Patrol.

Five drivers remained on scene with damaged tires, and state patrol officials received calls from more than 50 affected drivers between Tuesday and Wednesday, according to the release. Those drivers were given the semitrailer company’s insurance information to file claims.

Colorado Department of Transportation crews cleared all the nails from the highway, state patrol officials said.

The semitrailer driver was fully cooperating with the investigation and had not been charged with any crimes as of Wednesday, state patrol officials said.

Anyone who was affected by the spill is asked to call the Colorado State Patrol Denver Communications Center at 303-239-4501 and reference case number 1A261639.