why centennial?
Since its founding in 2001, Centennial has prided itself on maintaining roads so cars can move in and out of our city with convenience and efficiency. However, by prioritizing automobile travel over the past 25 years, we have created more dangerous conditions and lower quality of life on our neighborhood streets where our kids hope to get to and from school safely. And due to a combination of cultural, structural, and financial barriers, our city leaders have never fully invested in safe routes to schools. This places more burden on stressed out schools and parents, and we have had enough.
our streets aren't safe for kids. This is especially true near schools
What happens on our roadways before and after the school zone? Centennial has the highest default residential speed limit of any front range city, and most of our school zones begin at the school parking lot entrance. Next time you are at school, see for yourself!
Our children are growing up in a world that is profoundly different from when our neighborhoods were designed: vehicles are bigger, faster, stronger, and there are more of them on our streets. Many of our neighborhood and collector streets were engineered to move cars at 35-40 miles per hour! No child should have to share a street like that. Streets should be designed for the people that use them, not for maximum automobile efficiency. Despite adopting plans for Vision Zero, Livable Streets, and Safe Streets for All, the city is not addressing these problems our kids have inherited.
Our ordinance will fix this: instead of moving traffic between arterial roadways, we will move kids safely and independently on safe routes to school.
The city's own data show the risks our kids face walking and biking near schools
“The high risk network refers to probabilities [that someone will be hit by a car]. We also have realities…I can’t forget about cars.”
– Centennial City Councilmember, May 1, 2026 email
This figure from Centennial’s Comprehensive Safety Action Plan depicts the High Risk Network. This data shows that on streets near schools, there is a high probability of a child being struck by a car. (Schools added by Safe Routes Centennial). We need to do more to lower the risk of a crash near a school. Our ordinance will prioritize safety within a mile of each school, and provide kids a dedicated path to get there.
The city does not even maintain our school zones to minimum legal standards
0
– the number of school zones in the city of Centennial that comply with current city and state law
0
– the number of school zones in Centennial that the city has studied over the past ten years
(Colorado Open Records Act request, August 17, 2026)
Who is responsible for making sure school zones are safe in our city, and what legal standards must be followed? By law, Centennial must follow both the 2024 Model Traffic Code for Colorado, and the recommendations in the Manual of Uniform Traffic Control Devices published by the Federal Highway Administration. Unfortunately, there is not a single school zone in Centennial that complies with these regulations. Jacobs, the independent contractor responsible for studying school zones and ensuring they are compliant with minimum safety standards, has not studied a single school zone in Centennial in the past 10 years according to a public records request. Most school zones are missing the required signs designating a beginning and end of a school zone, and they fail to meet the recommended boundary distances. Ford Elementary, which opened in 2021, doesn’t even have a single school zone sign posted. Look at your kid’s school zone. Is it designed for kids walking or biking, or is it designed to minimize the disruption to cars? Clearly, Centennial needs more oversight, accountability, and personnel to keep our kids safe near schools. Our ordinance provides this.
Due to the lack of uniformity and accountability across cities in Colorado, the state passed HB 26-1318, also known as Liam’s Law, in 2026. This law put new, expanded school zone requirements in place as well as other school safety structures that our ordinance will utilize. “School streets” and “safe routes to school” are new roadway designations that the state has promoted with Liam’s Law. Our ordinance builds on recent state legislation by mandating a school street at every school, designating a network of safe routes to school, and prioritizing the safety of kids walking, biking, or rolling to school.
our city government does not address problems on our roadways in a time efficient, cost effective manner.
“I will not prioritize travel on a collector street over an arterial… I don’t make engineering decisions by committee.”
– Centennial Traffic Engineer (an independent contractor), March 31, 2026 District 1 Meeting, after repeated requests from community members to make the S. Franklin St and Arapahoe Rd intersection safer for school kids
Have you ever reached out to the city with concerns about traffic safety in your neighborhood and got a disappointing response? You are not alone! All projects in the Centennial department of public works are contracted. Jacobs, a multi-national, multi-billion dollar corporation, manages all traffic engineering in Centennial in one of the largest and longest private-public partnerships in the country. Parents, neighbors, and school district officials are left out of decision making, and there is significantly less accountability to the public. The city has always relied on third party consultants and multi-year studies to determine transportation needs, which often results in recommendations for huge multimillion dollar infrastructure overhauls instead of the simple fixes our communities ask for. Contractors and consultants should not independently determine how our kids get to school. Parents and neighbors deserve a voice. Our ordinance will fix this issue by creating a Safe Routes to School Advisory Board and a permanent, full-time Director of Safe Routes to School that will be responsible for all aspects of the Safe Routes. Our ordinance will allow for quick build projects along safe routes to school to improve safety promptly, while our kids are still in school.
The city does not prioritize investments in safety near schools
Due to its ideology and dependence on savings to fund huge multi-year projects as recommended by consultants and contractors to overhaul our infrastructure, the city lacks the financial flexibility to fund necessary improvements near schools. When a problem comes up, the city needs years and years to study the problem and save for the solution. And, unfortunately, school safety is not a financial winner in the city’s prospective budgeting process. This is why there has been hardly any meaningful investments near schools in our 25 year history. Take a look at the numbers in 2026:
$0
– The amount of money the city has borrowed in 25 years to invest in simple, cost effective safety countermeasures to make streets safer for our kids
$20 million
– the annual amount centennial taxpayers pay Jacobs, an independent contractor, to manage traffic operations within the city’s department of public works
$0
– the amount of money the city has spent directly on school zone or school route improvements in 2026
$67 million
– the amount the city will spend on other projects and programs in 2026 from its Street fund
0.5%
– the minimum amount of its annual expenditures our ordinance will require to be allocated to a special fund to establish and maintain a safe routes to school program
In the 2026 Centennial budget, 0.50% equals about $700,000. This should be allocated from general fund dollars. When passed into law, our ordinance will also require the allocation of traffic penalties in school zones and along school routes to go straight to the Safe Routes to School fund. Additional revenue to pay for infrastructure projects can be generated through revenue allocation from other sources, including bonding, taxation, or grant funding…
$0
– the amount of money in the past 25 years that the city has been awarded by the state of colorado through safe routes to school grants to improve safety near schools
Since 2004, Colorado has awarded over $48 million to cities across the state from its Safe Routes to School program to fund over 300 different projects. Cities including Cortez, Paonia, Timnath, Denver, and Boulder are among the grantees. Centennial, the state’s 10th largest city, has never been awarded a safe routes to school grant. Our ordinance will make us more competitive for these grant dollars
The city places all the responsibility for safe transportation on parents and schools
“If your streets aren’t safe enough to walk or bike to school, your kids can take the bus.”
– Centennial City Councilmember, meeting at Centennial Civic Center, April 29, 2026
“We would not generally recommend for non-adult-supervised crossing of arterial (or other) roadways by young children as a matter of course.
– Centennial City Traffic Engineer, email, November 15, 2025
$23 million
– annual budget shortfall in cherry creek public schools
$10 million
– annual budget shortfall in littleton public schools, resulting in wage freezes for teachers and fewer instruction days
$680
– cost per year to drive your kid to school, based on a conservative estimate of $1 per mile and 3 mile round trip
Due to social and economic factors across the front range, schools are closing, and districts are faced with growing budget woes. School consolidations have forced kids to travel further. While bussing still exists in a diminished and extremely inefficient capacity, kids within a mile of schools aren’t eligible for a bus ride. Instead of investing in safe routes for kids to walk, bike, and roll independently, the city has placed the burden of transporting kids on our financially stressed school districts and working parents. Ultimately this leads to more cars on our neighborhood streets, making streets less safe for kids and further necessitating car trips. Our ordinance will prioritize safe, independent travel within a mile of every school in the city to give our schools and parents a break and strengthen our communities
our kids deserve better.
do you agree it's time for safe routes to school in centennial?
Let us know in the comments below, or get in touch!