Safety
Road safety of the residents of Greeley is a priority. This includes safety in school zones through reliable school flashers and other traffic control measures as well as maintenance and finding solutions that will improve safety and enhance pedestrian travel.
Street, Sidewalk or Parking Lot Concerns?
Contact 311 for assistance
Safety Near Schools
Road safety of the residents of Greeley is a priority. This includes children's safety in school zones through reliable school flashers and other traffic control measures including crosswalks and proper signage. Staff also respond to residents’ concerns with speeding and cut-through traffic in neighborhoods to find solutions that will improve safety and enhance pedestrian travel.
Having safe routes to school is important for parents and students. If parents feel safe allowing their children to walk or bike to school, it creates an opportunity for the child to be active and helps relieve school-hour traffic jams. Greeley’s Public Works and Transportation department facilitates safe travel to and from school through pedestrian traffic control devices, route maps, and educational materials.
Quick Links
Check the Safety of a Neighborhood
Review the walkability and bikeability checklist to see if a specific neighborhood is pedestrian ready.
HAWK Signals
Learn more about the safety signals in use across Greeley neighborhoods.
Flashing Yellow Arrows
Drivers are allowed to turn left after yielding to oncoming traffic and pedestrians. (Oncoming traffic has a green light.) Drivers must determine if there is an adequate gap before turning! When in doubt, wait!
Why Have These?
Safety-Studies show that flashing yellow arrows actually improve safety at an intersection. It's all about efficiency; the arrow allows more vehicles to make left turns and reduces the overall number of vehicles that queue in left turn lanes.
Neighborhood Traffic Safety
Neighborhood traffic management responds to citizen concerns regarding speeds and traffic flow on residential streets. Staff conduct traffic studies in areas that have been identified by residents and assist residents with developing and implementing traffic calming solutions for their neighborhood.
Become a Speed Watch Neighborhood
Joining Speed Watch is simple:
- The first step is to download and fill out the Neighborhood Traffic Treaty. We ask that 50 percent of the residents in a targeted neighborhood agree to participate and sign the Neighborhood Traffic Treaty. Once complete submit the form to Transportation Services.
- The neighborhood designates a contact (or contacts) to help maintain neighborhood participation and communication.
- Neighbors hand out brochures to every house in the neighborhood.
- Neighbors provide speed reduction reminders in their HOA newsletter, website and other publications.
Speed Watch Neighborhoods receive:
- Yard Signs
- Safety and awareness brochures
- Signs entering the neighborhood
- Neighborhood listed on the city website
If you are interested and would like to know more, please contact Allison Baxter at 970-350-9326 or allison.baxter@greeleygov.com.
Neighborhood Speed Watch Resources
Work within neighbors to help keep neighborhood streets safe.
Speed Watch Neighborhoods
Mind your speed and watch out for signage and increased police patrol in Speed Watch Neighborhoods.
Safety Frequently Asked Questions
Please contact 970-350-9355 to discuss your concerns. Staff will likely schedule a traffic study to determine the number of vehicles traveling on the street and their speed. Staff will then share the results of the traffic study and talk about options.
- Lowering the speed limit will reduce traffic speeds and raising the speed limit will increase speeds. Reasonably set speed limits increase voluntary compliance by drivers. Speed limits that are set too low force drivers into unlawful behavior, while speed limits that are set too high create disparity in speeds among vehicles on the road, which can lead to crashes. Stop signs will slow down traffic.
- Stop signs may slow traffic near the stop sign. However, speeds between stop signs increase up to five miles per hour as drivers try to “make up time” from having to stop so frequently. There is also an increased traffic noise near stop signs.
- Engineering (actual diversions or obstructions in the roadway) and enforcement (police patrols) are the only methods to reduce neighborhood speeding. While the City will evaluate the installation of traffic calming devices on neighborhood streets, education is considered to be the first effort to be undertaken. In many cases, drivers become “comfortable” with a particular roadway or become distracted and are not aware of their speed.
Flashing Yellow Arrow- Drivers are allowed to turn left after yielding to oncoming traffic and pedestrians. (Oncoming traffic has a green light.) Drivers must determine if there is an adequate gap before turning! When in doubt, wait!
Why have these?
- Safety - Studies show that flashing yellow arrows actually improve safety at an intersection.
- Efficiency - The arrow allows more vehicles to make left turns and reduces the overall number of vehicles that queue in left turn lanes.
Colorado Law states that vehicles must yield for pedestrians in a crosswalk. However, few people follow this law in Greeley and across Colorado. Rectangular Rapid Flashing Beacons (RRFBs) alert drivers to the presence of pedestrians with yellow flashing LED lights that are activated by pedestrians at the push of a button and encourage compliance with State Law.
Studies conducted by the Federal Highway Administration show that RRFBs work, increasing the number of vehicles that stopped for crossing pedestrians from 17% to 81%.
Despite these study results, pedestrians should still use caution and wait for all traffic to stop before crossing the street.
Often the City receives complaints from citizens regarding speeding on their street. While the City explores many options for solving speeding issues, one low-cost option is referred to as road "right-sizing". Sometimes this involves reducing the width of the travel lane from the average 12 feet to 9.5-10 feet. Narrowing the travel lane makes motorists feel more constrained and can cause them to slow down.
Other options involve reducing the number of lanes on the street from four lanes to two with a shared center left turn lane. In some cases bike lanes are added to the street as part of road right-sizing, which provides biking options and buffers on-street parking from moving traffic.
Connect with us
Contact Us
Public Works – Transportation Division
1300 A Street
Bldg. H
Greeley, CO 80631
Office Hours
Monday - Friday
7:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.