Driving near Civic Center Park on any given weekend is a reminder of the vast cultural offerings of our city, or a compelling argument for Ashley's neverdrive dogma, depending on your perspective.
The City of Denver is trying to make both easier by closing Bannock Street to cars from 14th to Colfax Avenue for a five week period starting Aug. 25. So basically, the block in front of the City and County building.
The hope is to make traveling downtown more consistent for Denver residents, said Denver Public Works in a release. For the most part, access to the Bannock Street bike lane will be maintained, save for A Taste of Colorado, Fiesta Patrias and Hot Chocolate Run.
Denver Public Works’ Transportation and Mobility Division also gets to study this section of Bannock as a pedestrian-friendly downtown plaza during the closure period.
“We’ll evaluate how the stretch is operating from a safety and mobility perspective and see if we are doing all we can to accommodate community demand for this space while we keep people moving,” said Crissy Fanganello, Director of Transportation and Mobility in the release.
DPW spokesperson Nancy Kuhn added that there will be additional programming in between the bigger Civic Center events to see how pedestrians might use the space when there aren't cars travelling there.
This temporary closure is a real triple-threat, because DPW will also look at an alternate configuration for 14th Street at Colfax during the month or so period.
The alternate configuration currently proposes to close the far left lane and use the next two lanes for turning left onto Colfax eastbound. The other big shift will be overhead signage rather than posts or cones to illustrate lanes.
What a whirlwind five weeks, which again, will be from Aug. 25 until Oct. 1.
