Category: Shared Streets

As we pass the halfway point of a summer marked by Action Days that have overwhelmingly outnumbered days without clean air, it’s time to review one of the Shared Streets that will remain permanent, The Byron Place Shared Street that acts as the northern buffer of Sloan’s Lake.

The Approach

For this street, given its short length, I took a couple of turns around it to make sure I had a good “feel”. Given it is shorter than the previous streets, it doesn’t make sense to divide it into sections, so this review will be for the entirety of the street.

Riding East to West

The biggest difference that I noted about this street versus other shared streets is how abundant sharrows were along it. It felt like the first ½ of the street was riddled with them, and that car traffic was pretty moderate. 

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The one other major piece of infrastructure along the street included curb extensions, which seemed as if they were a way to reduce parking along the Byron place corridor. While I hadn’t rode Byron Place much pre-sharrow, I do remember that there seemed to be a greater amount of car traffic prior to the implementation of shared street.

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As I hit the Denver/Edgewater border, I turned around, expecting the westbound experience to mirror the eastbound experience. Little did I know there would be one substantial difference.

East to West

While my beliefs regarding the effectiveness of sharrows mirror my belief in the effectiveness of treating the climate crisis as a problem of an individual’s action vs a systemic issues, there was a sharrow heading eastbound that could cause more harm than most other sharrows. The offense that it committed was that it hovered in the “door zone” an area where car doors are opened that could harm someone on a bike if opened in front of them. Other than the offending sharrow, the West-east route was relatively parallel to it.

In regards to pedestrians, only a handful of runners were using the street besides those riding bikes.

Final Thoughts

The Byron Shared Street in the form that it is in now is passable. Expanding the use of curb extensions as a way to reduce parking along it would be my biggest personal want in it, along with moving the offending sharrow and possibly converting it into a two way bike lane.

The End of Summer As we know it.

While I alluded to it at the beginning of this review, I would be remiss without talking about the awful air quality that the Metro Area has had over the entire season. With nearly every day since the beginning of July being an “Action Day” where air would reach the “unhealthy for sensitive groups” level most day, it feels like the withdrawal of Shared Streets in places is the waving of a white flag as the climate crisis draws on. It feels like this year and last summer are the new normal for us, as West Coast fires will continue to threaten our air quality and summers as we know it.

What has to be remembered, however, is this weather is the sum of the collective inaction of leaders at all levels of government. From the widening of I70 that has been a co-venture of local, state, and federal government, to the backing off of a rule that would have reduced traffic, to the infrastructure bill at the federal level including a highway through the South, leaders to keep summers from being a fiery, toxic mess are nowhere to be found. As we finish up of our Shared Streets series, ask yourself this: what actions can we take to mitigate the climate disaster unfolding before our eyes?

*Featured photo is a landscape photo of Sloan’s Lake on August 2nd, during a day of “unhealthy for sensitive groups” air.*

As the hottest days of the summer grind on, I have been trying to explore more of the options that the Denver metro has, food, drink, and otherwise. To me, Broadway is emblematic of these things, having everything from a men’s underwear store (NSFW) to a well known rooftop patio.

This past Sunday, I decided to take a ride on the Bayaud Ave Shared street after helping a nearby friend move, given that I needed to snag groceries from the Safeway on Alameda.

The Approach

After helping a friend move some furniture on Clarkson, I double backed to Downing Street and took a left unto Bayaud. While in the past I have started slightly earlier in the afternoon for my reviews, time constraints made it so I was delayed until about 3 PM. Additionally, while I tried to document as much as I could, my phone overheated and shut off.

Downing to Pennsylvania

As I headed towards Broadway, the biggest things that I noticed were twofold.

1. Compared to the 11th and 16th Ave Shared Streets, there were a lot more parked cars
2. Compared to both streets, the traffic seemed significantly lower

While this may be a function of the fact that the section of Bayaud is harder to access by car due to the adjacent Marion Parkway being shared street as well, it was a welcome sign as I headed westbound.

As I hit Washington, I noted that the curb extensions could potentially be something welcoming for pedestrians, but didn’t think much of it because it didn’t seem like traffic was heavy, which felt odd in a few ways. I passed through, noting that only a handful of cars had gone by me.

As I was approaching Pennsylvania, the barricades that typified my last two experiences on shared streets appeared. Rather than being something that narrowed traffic, they acted as a monolith as little car traffic outside of the occasional vehicle passed by me.

As a sidenote, beyond myself there were few active people not in cars out and about, owing itself probably to the heat more than anything else.

Pennsylvania to Sherman

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After passing the outdoor dining area on Pennsylvania, I kept heading east. The left picture above is an image that is the typical ingredients to a Shared Street: Sharrows, Signage, and Barricades.

To me, those in their entirety had less impact than the Traffic Circle up ahead. Even less so than another piece of infrastructure: bollards blocking off the entirety of the street to traffic from Lincoln Street.

While I was unable to get a good full photo of the bollards that Sunday, I have an earlier photo I took in the winter, along with the bollards from two angles.

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Final Thoughts

To me, this was the closest it felt like to be in a high-comfort bicycle facility outside of being in a protected bike lane or a separated trail. Blocking off major intersections to only local traffic kept the area fairly tame, and the fact that it acted as a connection from the Washington Park area to Baker and South Broadway is incredibly appealing to a rider like myself. The one improvement I would suggest would be to get rid of the temporary barricades, as they seem to force everyone towards the center of the street in unsafe ways. This street embodied what I think helps build competent multimodal connections: restrict cars from using it.

*Featured Image is a section along the Bayaud Shared Street*

Back in early July, I was going to do a review of the Shared Street just north of Sloan’s Lake. However, recent events, most notably the closure of a Sexy Pizza location after a driver ran a dumpster into the side of the building, warranted a review. While Sexy Pizza is open again as of last Friday, many multi-mobility activists asked the relevant question: if a building distinctly off the Shared Street can be in danger of being damaged, how does that bode to the people that use the Shared Street on a daily basis? I set out to answer this question this past Sunday.

The Approach

Rather than do a West-East approach, I exited Cheesman Park from 12th, turning on Humboldt before riding along the street bound towards the Golden Triangle area.

The one notable part about the east-most end of the shared street from a cyclist perspective is the fact that the turnoff into Cheesman Park on 11th is much more suited for pedestrians. Noting that, I started heading west

Sexybound

Heading west, I immediately noticed that the roundabouts on 11th seemed significantly more established than the blockier, orange barricades on 16th. To an extent, it actually did feel like it slowed down car traffic. The westbound route is a slight downhill, with mostly residential buildings surrounding it along with a handful of businesses.

Compared to the 16th Shared street, it felt like there was a slightly larger amount of people in the streets. From runners looking to use the asphalt to their advantage, to rollerbladers using it as a major thoroughfare, the amount of life on 11th Avenue on that early Sunday afternoon seemed almost commendable. It was around the time that I passed Sexy Pizza that I started to notice a change.

Sexy to Emerson, or, the Danger Zone

I intentionally set out to be on this street in early afternoon, mostly in the hope that car traffic would be heavy as people were heading to lunch and leaving brunch at the various businesses along the corridor. What I found at that point in my ride, particularly along Ogden, was increased car traffic in relation to the fact that there was abundant street parking near the various businesses along the corridor. Human traffic had basically vanished as well, with most people on the sidewalks rather than brave the streets. The higher amount of traffic that was known to signify that element of 11th ramped up around that time, making me feel a little unsafe and hesitant to stay and grab more photos.

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Emerson to Logan: Or, the Disappearance

As I started heading towards Downtown, much of the main infrastructure associated with the shared street seem to slowly disappear and shrink. The more robust roundabouts closer to Cheesman gave away to the smaller ones, with the street entirely disappearing by the time Logan is hit. To navigate to where I needed to go (the King Soopers on Speer), I had to go up 2 blocks to Sherman and 13th and take a protected bike lane until I hit Speer.

Analysis And Final Thoughts

While the 11th Ave Shared Street had a lot more great places for pedestrians to access, the design once you get to the heavily trafficked corridor from Corona to Emerson is incredibly concerning given it does little to separate riders from motorists. For that stretch, I could see a protected Bike lane being useful as a mechanism to improve the street design. The biggest flaw in design from a rider’s perspective is the lack of direct connective tissue to the 13th Avenue protected bike lane, a valuable resource that is a major west-east connection in Denver. To me, the closest equivalent is the 15th Street Protected Bike Lane, which ends at Larimer Square and offers little guidance beyond sharrows to get from Downtown to the Lower Highlands.

So, how could the street be saved to save Sexy Pizza from getting hit again? Reduction of car usage along it, from taking away parking immediately along it to putting in infrastructure that discourages driving would be two tangible first steps. While to many who see parking as a right, I choose to believe that I am telling an inconvenient, important, and unsexy truth.

*featured image is a photograph of Sexy Pizza when it was closed to repairs*

This is the first in a series of weekly reviews of shared Streets

In 1867, President Andrew Johnson’s William Seward purchased territory from the Russian Empire that would later become the State of Alaska. While some decried this purchase of unused land at first, likening it to being “Seward’s Folly”, the territory would find success and growth in the later 19th and 20th century, achieving statehood in 1959.

Today, as the Department of Transportation and Infrastructure (DOTI) tries to make good on their promise of building 125 miles of bike lanes, it seems as if they have stumbled upon their own folly in the creation of the 16th Avenue Bikeway, an east/west connection of Lower Downtown and the North Capitol Hill/Uptown area to City Park

The Approach

Though I have ridden the bikeway several times because I live close to it, I wanted to get a feel how it would feel during peak traffic time. My solution? Ride during the City Park Jazz Festival that takes place every Sunday, which also happened to coincide with several Pride Events that happened last weekend. I left a little after 6:00 going west to east, and came back around 7:40, right as the Jazz festival was ending.

West/East

The west east approach, which starts roughly around Logan and 16th, is a slight climb, with a small downhill on the way to East High School and into City Park.

As I started my climb from the east, the claustrophobia of the design set in. The barriers and roundabouts were designed in such a way that, while it seemed like less cars were on the street, the cars that remained would speed up to narrowly leapfrog me as I headed towards the park. The barriers on both sides of the streets rendered the existing bike lane useless, as all traffic was pushed towards the narrow center. Outside of a couple other bicyclists, I was fairly alone with the cars, with a jogger being the only other person not on a bike in the street. While rainbow adorned revelers of Pride lined the sidewalks, I navigated the shared streets, noting that the bike lane heading towards West was completely filled with parking.

East-West

While much of the ride back was marked by the fact that I had gotten caught in a downpour that stopped at City Park, the westbound route towards downtown felt a slight bit more pleasant. At the the intersection of 16th and Park Ave, I caught up with a large group ride.

After passing the group, car traffic felt like it was significantly lower than on my ascent eastward. Exiting the Shared Streets, I moved into the bike lane until my turn, and headed home.

Analysis

Positives

The one benefit that I noticed from this shared street in particular having ridden it prior to it being converted was the fact that car volume overall seemed smaller than when it was a bike lane. Whereas in the past it was a major thoroughfare, it seems like a lot of the traffic has been pushed to other streets.

Negatives

The traffic that did remain on these streets, however, felt all squished together. The placement of the plastic barricades in a lot of circumstances did the reverse of what was needed to slow down traffic, encouraging motorists to speed up so they could “race” somebody on a bike to a stoplight or a roundabout barricade to get to their destination faster.

The question of whether it was truly a “shared street” with pedestrian buy in swirled through my head as well. If, during a busy Pride weekend, there weren’t people in the streets in droves, would it ever be seen as safe for pedestrians to use?

Final Thoughts

The value of having a truly shared street in this region of Denver would be great as a communication tool for multi-mobility and building out workable infrastructure. Unfortunately, it seems to have all of the negative aspects of a bad deal, similar to how outsiders viewed the purchase of Alaska in the 1800’s. If DOTI can fix the issues in regards to space on the street, doing things such as having protected bike lanes to and from the main stretch of of the shared streets, discouraging and limiting car usage along it, and possibly sponsoring events in the street to encourage usage by pedestrians, they may be able to get away from making this stretch of road DOTI’s Folly

*Featured Image is the entrance to the 16th Ave Shared Street from 16th and Pennsylvania