At a moment when neighbors are complaining to Denver’s Department of Transportation and Infrastructure about the safety of its new bikeways through city neighborhoods, now the Denver Fire Department is asking DOTI to put the brakes on some installations along the routes.

Denver Fire Capt. J.D. Chism confirmed to The Denver Gazette that the department has placed a moratorium on what DOTI calls traffic circles — “traffic calming” devices installed in numbers of narrow intersections through the East 7th Avenue Historic District.

Neighbors in the area along Seventh report ongoing tests by fire trucks negotiating the tight turns of the small roundabouts, where residents have reported some crashes that followed their installation this summer.

Those included a construction vehicle that hit a power pole during a turn. Videos by residents show a school bus having to cut a turn across one of the asphalt centerpieces that anchor the new circles.

“As of now there’s a moratorium on installing more,” Denver Fire’s Chism told The Denver Gazette.

He noted that the department is working in conjunction with DOTI, and that the department had negotiated a reduction in the size of the proposed designs before they were installed.

“The big deal for us is making sure we’re doing the best thing for citizens,” Chism said. “We want to work with our city partners.”

DOTI spokesperson Nancy Kuhn noted to The Denver Gazette in an Aug. 30 written memo that the agency works closely with Denver Fire and that the department had signed off on the traffic circle designs.

Contacted Tuesday, Kuhn would not confirm that the agency was working under a moratorium regarding the devices.

“DOTI is not enacting a moratorium on traffic circles,” she wrote, “but will continue to work on refining them, working with DFD.”

“Traffic circles are a valuable tool for reducing vehicle speeds on streets that DOTI is prioritizing for biking and walking and for creating a safer and more comfortable environment for multimodal travel,” Kuhn said.

In on-site community meetings concerning the danger of reduced response times imposed by the circles, neighbors said that Denver Fire officers have been less nuanced in voicing their concerns about the new installations.

Meanwhile, DOTI officials said it has no plans to make changes to the bikeway other than removing a small fraction of dozens of waist-high bollards along the bikeway at E. 7th and Williams Street that may have been involved in bike accidents; and adding and relocating some signs there.

On Tuesday morning, residents sent video of contractors adding yet another stop sign to the intersection — joining dozens of signs counted along the quiet six-block stretch west from Williams where several of the circles have been installed.

“That brings the total number of signs in a six-block stretch between Williams and Downing St. to 66,” resident Kitty Koch wrote The Denver Gazette.

“Once again, it shows that DOTI really isn’t focused on our neighborhood and doesn’t care. Visual hazards and needless information are visually polluting the street and making them dangerous to use.”

Bike activists remain largely supportive of the traffic circles and other installations, although some have questioned how well they function in specific installations.

“The traffic circles are my favorite part,” said bike activist Bryan Wilson, who lives in Congress Park. “I think they do such a nice job of slowing bikes down, too. They slow everybody down.”

“The goal is to give people a safe place to ride,” said Denver Bicycle Lobby Spokesperson Rob Toftness.

He encourages looking beyond 7th to other parts of town where bike lane infrastructure has been installed, including north of downtown along Blake Street, and West 14th, west of Broadway.