Shared Streets Are Back and Denver Is Poised for Something Great
Rewind to the early days of the pandemic. People were desperate to get outside and parks were overflowing. To increase the amount of space for people to walk and bike, the City created Shared Streets practically overnight using little more than barricades saying “NO THRU TRAFFIC.” These were havens for walking, biking, and rolling and people loved them.
And then, in a flash, they were gone.
Mercifully, the City is now bringing back Shared Streets, which means we have an incredible opportunity: Denver has all the ingredients to build the best complete network of quiet, family-friendly walking, biking, and rolling routes in America. It could happen fast: you could wake up in 2023, hop on your bike, and comfortably ride to any destination in Denver.
At the Bike Streets Project, which produces the Low-Stress Denver Bike Map, we’re calling that network “VAMOS” and we invite you to join us for a ride on the routes and to sign our letter encouraging the Mayor to make it happen.
With the revival of Shared Streets, building VAMOS is really just an extension of what we’re already doing:
We have Vision Zero and city plans that call for a complete network that increases access for people of all ages, abilities, and backgrounds.
We have a wildly popular program subsidizing mass adoption of e-bikes and producing a legion of new riders.
We have a fabulous grid of quiet residential streets unified in the complete Low-Stress Denver Bike Map.
We have a rapidly growing constellation of paint and plastic interventions that make our streets safer.
And to catalyze VAMOS, we have Shared Streets, rapidly deployed low-cost infrastructure that aligns the interests of neighbors, people walking, biking, and rolling, and folks who have to drive.
The significance of Shared Streets is hard to overstate. Because they’re built on quiet, residential streets, they don’t require expensive engineering or complicated concrete. (The Broadway bike lane alone, by contrast, will probably cost $15 million when all is said and done.) Shared Streets can be built quickly and can change based on how people are using (or underusing) them. They are an absolute joy to walk or ride on. And neighbors love them: they prevent cut-through traffic, parking remains in place, and residents can still drive to their homes.
Shared Streets are the catalyst. When we add them to the other ingredients, fireworks go off and pure possibility emerges: Denver can be a global beacon of hope for how a community can rapidly increase access and lower mobility costs, reduce traffic congestion, improve air quality, and fight climate change.
We have the ingredients to make it happen. Now we just need the willpower.
Let’s build VAMOS now.