For Coloradans with Disabilities, Navigating Denver’s Snow-Covered Sidewalks and Streets is Dangerous—and Often Impossible

By Jenny McCoy

For nearly two weeks after a late December snowstorm that left 7 inches of snow on the ground in Denver, when resident Julie Reiskin needed to leave her home on Milwaukee and 37th, she had to roll her wheelchair down the middle of busy streets and then station herself in the street to flag down a public bus.

That experience, she said, was “terrifying.” And it was due to Denver’s snow plowing protocol.

“A lot of times, the sidewalks will be shoveled, but the curb cut that lets us get on and off isn’t,” explained Reiskin, co-executive director of the Colorado Cross-Disability Coalition (CCDC), a social services agency that advocates for disability rights. (CCDC is a Colorado Trust grantee.)

“So then we’re forced to roll in the street… and when the streets are filled with ice and slush, the only place we can go is on the busiest streets, and in the middle of the street.”

Denver’s snow plowing response was widely criticized following the December storm, when a sustained cold snap combined with the city’s failure to deploy side-street plows caused mounds of snow and ice to languish for weeks. In response, the city upped its plowing efforts for the Jan. 17-18 storm, dispatching small plows to clear residential streets. Still, due to a sidewalk clearing system that relies heavily on business and private property owners to ensure sidewalks and curbs are accessible, problem areas have inevitably remained.