5280 – When the COVID-19 pandemic first tightened its grip on Colorado in March, and residents were ordered to stay at home, the entire pulse of its capital city shifted—and with it, the possible future of its streets.
“There was some talk about, ‘should we close the parks?’ And that just seemed like the absolute wrong response,” says Jill Locantore, executive director of the Denver Streets Partnership, a coalition of various advocacy groups pushing for more people friendly streets. The group was quick to push out a survey to over 1,400 Denver residents in early April asking about their newfound mobility needs. Fifty-one percent of respondents said they were walking or biking more than before. And 95 percent of respondents, regardless of how much they were walking or biking, cited exercise as the main reason, with 44 percent walking or biking to pick up food, and 25 percent strolling or rolling for other essential services. Roughly 87 percent of all respondents said they supported opening up the streets for people. “What the community members were expressing was a desire for safe outdoor space where they could walk and bike,” Locantore says. “So rather than reduce the amount of space that’s available for that, let’s increase the amount of space.”
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