As motorists zip along Federal Boulevard and Alameda Avenue — two popular speeding corridors in Denver — large billboards with huge, bright lettering now urge: “slow down.”

Denver’s transportation department insists its new marketing campaign is “for the love of safety,” according to the billboards, which city officials said at a press conference Monday will appear along Alameda and Federal in March and April.

Denver is targeting the two major street corridors, which are labeled as “high injury network” corridors, to curb speeding. Specifically, the goal is to reduce roadway fatalities by 50% along Federal and Alameda, Denver’s Department of Transportation and Infrastructure (DOTI) officials said in a new marketing campaign announcement Monday.

DOTI officials blame speeding as a leading cause of traffic-related deaths and critical injuries.

Seventy-nine total traffic fatalities were reported across Denver last year. In 2024, four people were killed in crashes along Federal Boulevard, while three people died in crashes on Alameda Avenue, according to DOTI.

So far in 2025, no fatalities have occurred along both corridors, officials said.

The marketing campaign aligns with the city’s “SPEED” and “Vision Zero” goals, which hope to reduce the number of traffic fatalities down to zero by 2030.

“All of the improvements we make, whether they’re from infrastructure to changes, like we did here in the SPEED program, are all oriented around creating safe approach,” DOTI Executive Director Amy Ford told The Denver Gazette in front of a new billboard at the corner of Federal Boulevard and Exposition Avenue on Monday.

“No one should be dying on our roads,” she said. “That 50% goal is very much attached to the fatality number. But as we reduce that, we will reduce crashes overall.”

The installation of at least seven new billboards with an accompanying digital marketing campaign are designed to encourage motorists to “take the pledge” against speeding. The program cost the city $50,000, according to DOTI spokesperson Nancy Kuhn.

The department is using a “geofencing marketing tool” encouraging motorists to sign the “For the Love of Safety Pledge,” incentivizing the first 100 people who sign it to receive a $15 gift card.

“Safety is pretty much a part of everything we do,” said Councilmember Amanda Sandoval, who represents the Federal Boulevard corridor district.

As part of the SPEED program announced last June, DOTI officials said new speed indicators are already installed along Federal Boulevard and Alameda Avenue. This includes more signage, lighting, adjusted traffic signal timing and extended pedestrian crossing times.

Those measures, specifically increased lighting and signal timing, has led to a 47% reduction of speeding violations along an upgraded portion of the Colfax Avenue corridor, according to DOTI.

“It’s going to reduce our traffic fatalities … more than anything, our vulnerable road users, those are the ones that we want to protect,” said Kurt Barnes, a Denver Police Department spokesperson and traffic officer.

Ford said the department seeks to install speed cameras along the two roadways — also possibly by the Washington Park and Lowry communities — by the end of the year.

“It’s a series of layers on how we do this,” Ford said in response to what would happen if traffic fatalities increase in 2025. “There is no one magic or silver bullet unfortunately in this.”

Ford added: “There are parts that we do on our infrastructure and how we think about policies and how we think about areas that create both the carrot and the stick to also encourage sort of that partnership from the community on how they treat each other.”