Much like the traffic that Denver city officials hope to alleviate with the aid of new technology, the road to a future of connected vehicles is slow and plodding. But a $12 million, four-year program that is set to receive City Council approval Tuesday aims to lay serious groundwork. Funded in part by a federal grant, the program will experiment with three threads of an emerging smart network that eventually could wirelessly tether most cars and trucks to traffic signals, signs and pavement, creating a real-time stream of information to smooth the flow of traffic. “They are case studies in trying to establish this technology,” said Nancy Kuhn, a spokeswoman for the Denver Department of Public Works. The three initial projects are: Connected Freight: By working with private delivery and freight truck companies to install communication devices on board, Public Works aims to reroute some trucks from neighborhood to arterial streets.