April 24, 2020 – Denver residents are taking to the streets for fresh air and recreation during the stay-at-home order.
Among the first cities in the country to open streets to pedestrians to slow the spread of COVID-19, Denver now has 15.9 miles of newly designated roadways, plus an additional 10.2 miles of roadways inside city parks that have been closed to vehicular traffic. This amounts to 26.1 miles of urban roadways that, because of COVID-19 and physical-distancing concerns, have been made increasingly friendly for mixed use.
This began on March 24, when the Denver Streets Partnership proposed the idea to Mayor Michael Hancock. On that same day, the organization launched a community survey of over 1,400 Denver residents to gauge the demand for changing how streets would be used. In response, the city designated the first open streets in parks on Friday, March 27. Then, on Tuesday, March 31, the DSP followed up with the mayor’s office to share survey results about which streets residents thought would be good to open.
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