Tens of thousands of people are walking, biking and rolling on Denver streets once dominated by cars. Will they stick around?

April 24, 2020 – Tired: Motorists owning Denver streets. Wired: Sharing the public assets — even just a little — with others.

That’s how the Denver Streets Partnership, an advocacy group for sustainable transportation modes like walking, biking and public transit, characterizes the city’s CVOID-19 experiment. Fueled by overcrowded sidewalks and parks from Denverites escaping cabin fever, the transportation department turned roads around the city into “open streets” (roads closed to cars) and “shared streets” (roads open to everyone, including motorists, but designed for people walking, rolling and biking).

And people are using them. Between April 8 and April 19, an average of 1,026 people daily traveled down the middle of 16th Avenue in North Capitol Hill and City Park West, which is closed to motorists who don’t live on the stretch. The Streets Partnership put down a bike and pedestrian counter to get the data.