Somewhere between 11 pm and 1 a.m on May 1st, my unscratched 2006 Dodge truck was hit and severely damaged by a hit-and-run drunk driver in a silver Jeep Liberty. It was parked in front of my house at 9565 W. 52nd Avenue. I blame the absolutely idiotic driver, but just as much I blame the city council and the city manager.

In 2006, I began writing to the city council after my neighbor across the street had two street-parked cars smashed within six months of each other. I asked for traffic calming. I asked for traffic reduction.

The city manager told me there would be no traffic calming, no traffic reduction. None allowed because it would impede emergency traffic. None allowed because his team found it convenient to label our not wide street as a collector street.

Since the letter from the city manager, my neighbor across the street had his truck hit WHILE IT WAS IN HIS DRIVEWAY. My neighbor on Independence Street had his HOUSE hit. With my truck, this makes FIVE severely damaging incidents in less than three years, THREE in the past year. What if the next time it's a person?

The city's refusal to implement any traffic calming measures on 52nd Avenue between Garrison & Independence led to the damage to my truck. Our little road cannot safely and sanely handle the traffic coming down it because of the developments at Target and Old Towne - developments the city actively allowed and encouraged. Their brilliant traffic plan for running TEN TIMES as much traffic through narrow neighborhood streets was to require Target to put a light at 51st & Kipling.

I have been told that the city will be reviewing the accident history and traffic patterns of the street after this latest episode and I am hopeful that positive change will come, but I am skeptical. I feel that my neighborhood has been betrayed by the city that should have been protecting it. Old and stable neighborhoods are the core of Arvada. They should not be destroyed in the name of development.