High-Crash Corridors
High-crash corridors: US-85, C-470, SH-121, and US-285
Littleton sits at the intersection of some of the most dangerous roads on the Front Range, and distraction turns each of them dangerous. US-85 (Santa Fe Drive) is a documented high-crash corridor with 2,282 crashes recorded from 2016 to 2018 on that single corridor, a rate CDOT attributes to congestion, left-turn conflicts, and freight traffic. C-470 (the Centennial Freeway) carries high-speed commuter traffic with short on-ramps and off-ramps that force aggressive merging and produce rear-end collisions during peak hours. Wadsworth Boulevard (SH-121) and US-285 (Hampden Avenue) carry the rest of the city's through-traffic load. A driver who can manage inattention on a quiet road cannot at this volume and merge density.