Brandon Leuallen, The Business Times

The Grand Junction City Council convened for a special meeting May 29, following a grassroots campaign urging the council to reconsider its decision to end the Fourth and Fifth Street pilot program.

After hearing public comments, the council unanimously approved a compromise. The adopted motion calls for a two-lane configuration with a bike lane on Fourth and Fifth Streets south of Grand Avenue and maintains the pilot’s 2.0 version north of Grand Avenue.

“The motion aims to synthesize various viewpoints and provide a path forward,” Council member Robert Ballard said.

The organizing effort that preceded the special meeting was partially led by former City of Grand Junction Sustainability Coordinator Jenny Nitzky, who helped develop Grand Junction’s Sustainability and Adaptation Plan that was adopted July 3, 2024. The plan advocates repurposing the city’s transportation network to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by shifting investment away from automobile traffic and toward walking, biking and public transit.

Nitzky’s and other downtown residents’ organizing included distributing flyers downtown and in surrounding neighborhoods. The flyer outlined seven suggested talking points encouraging residents to support continuing the pilot program in its revised “2.0” version.

In an op-ed in the Daily Sentinel, Nitzky responded to criticism from Mayor Cody Kennedy, who had previously compared the flyer campaign to “astroturfing” – a term for a coordinated campaign with repeated talking points designed to appear as grassroots activism but actually driven by a specific group with vested interests. Kennedy’s blog suggested such efforts could create a misleading sense of public consensus, especially when amplified in forums such as city council meetings.

During Thursday’s meeting, Kennedy apologized for any offense caused by his blog post.

City Manager Mike Bennet opened the session by clarifying its purpose: “The purpose of the special meeting tonight is to clarify direction for the next steps, both immediate actions and longer-term items for which staff will bring back information for council to consider.”

Grand Junction Transportation Director Trent Prall presented traffic data before public comment and council discussion.

“While vehicle-vehicle accidents decreased, bike-vehicle incidents have increased in the corridor,” he said. 

Prall highlighted the pilot program’s successes, including reduced vehicle speeds and fewer car-on-car accidents. During previous meetings, Prall elaborated on the rise in bike-vehicle collisions, saying one of the three incidents was directly caused by the pilot’s design. The other two, he said, were indirectly related to the project, assuming the addition of bike lanes encouraged more cyclists to use Fourth and Fifth Streets, resulting in a higher number of interactions and therefore resulted in more potential for crashes between bikes and vehicles. 

Public comment revealed a range of perspectives from approximately 30 speakers, most of whom were downtown residents. While many voiced support for adopting the 2.0 plan in full, others advocated for a bifurcated compromise. A smaller group of  four speakers supported ending the pilot program entirely and returning to the original street layout as council members had promised during their campaign. 

Erin Allard, a downtown resident, expressed appreciation for the city’s responsiveness, saying, “Completely reversing the changes to 4th and 5th isn’t the answer this community needs. I believe listening to all perspectives and finding the best modifications builds trust.”

Linda Arness, who supported the election campaigns of Council members Kennedy, Ballard and Ben Van Dyke, said, “Trust will be lost if the council does not return streets to the original configuration as promised. Trust is built by engaging the public before a plan is even proposed.”

Lisa Fry criticized the decision-making process that led to the pilot program, referencing an op-ed by Council member Anna Stout calling for public input and transparency. Fry called the op-ed hypocritical, arguing the pilot program’s implementation contradicted those values in the first place by moving forward without meaningful public outreach or notice. 

Keith Ehlers urged the city to learn from the divisive rollout of the pilot. Rather than debating street designs in isolation, he suggested revisiting Grand Junction’s Bike and Pedestrian Master Plan to better reflect the public’s actual appetite for trade-offs between vehicular traffic and multimodal improvements.

“Let’s clarify whether we’re displacing car traffic to create safer bike access or aiming to add options without subtracting capacity,” he said.

Mark Jensen, a supporter of the pilot program’s continuation, argued the city must move forward, not backward.

“The pilot program is a step toward a more sustainable and pedestrian-friendly downtown. We need to give it a chance to succeed,” he said.

Mayor Pro Tem Laurel Cole was adamant that the parking in front of the post office be restored as it was one of the most frequent complaints that she received. 

After the vote Kennedy responded affirmatively to Ehlers’ suggestion, saying he’d like to revisit those standards as well.

“I think we need to have that conversation,” Kennedy said. “I’d like to see us take a hard look at how those design standards align with the public’s expectations.”