While many of us await Mayor John Hickenlooper’s official position on task force recommendations regarding Denver’s infrastructure needs, hizzoner has turned his attention to a far more ambitious civic initiative: the BS Project.
The proposal, which considers tunneling Speer Boulevard from the Auraria Parkway to Champa Street – thus “Bury Speer,” or BS, for short – was produced free of charge by a local landscape architecture firm at Hickenlooper’s request.
Granted, the approach to enhancing the connections between the Auraria campus and downtown has not been vetted by city officials, preservationists or the broader community. In fact, the mayor just recently put the idea before members of his Cabinet.
However, spending any more time and resources on this idea before thoroughly analyzing the challenge of linking downtown and Auraria will distract from evaluating more appropriate, contextual and less expensive solutions.
For years, urban advocates have bemoaned the absence of strong connections between the Auraria campus and downtown. Twenty years ago, the Peña administration was roundly criticized for considering a monorail link across Speer from the campus to the Denver Center for the Performing Arts. More recently, the Parks and Recreation’s Game Plan envisioned extending the arts center’s Galleria across Speer to connect with Auraria.
And last Monday night, the Denver City Council adopted the Downtown Area Plan, which emphasizes pedestrians, grand boulevards and enhanced connections between the Auraria campus and downtown.
Certainly, long-term development of the Auraria campus and the Pepsi Center – both on the north side of Speer Boulevard – require improved access and links to downtown’s core.
There are numerous strategies to realize improved connections. But any approach must begin with a fundamental change in how we define streets and boulevards. For half a century, Denver’s urban roadways have been designed to move cars efficiently and quickly out of the core. We have ignored pedestrians, human interaction and activity at the ground level by opting for multilane, one-way streets, narrow sidewalks and second-story plazas.
We have ignored the important role great streets and boulevards play in defining urban life and in meeting diverse social, commercial and political needs. Streets designed solely to facilitate vehicular traffic are neither safe nor inviting. A great street serves numerous interests – cars, public transit, pedestrians and bicycles.
The key to connecting Auraria – isolated from downtown by speeding, eight-lane traffic – is to celebrate the street that’s there. Strategies include reducing the number or width of lanes, widening sidewalks, adding tree canopies and street furniture, enhancing pedestrian intersections and creating adjacencies that engage the public.
In 1907, Mayor Robert Speer hired George Kessler to design the key diagonal, tree-lined boulevard that follows Cherry Creek. This broad, landscaped thoroughfare, perhaps the centerpiece of Denver’s defining park and parkway system, provides identity and structure to the city. Improving connections and access begins with recognizing Speer Boulevard as, first and foremost, a public place. This street is more than a linear space designed to move vehicles and goods. Speer Boulevard must be viewed as integral to the civic realm.
There are ample precedents to evaluate, from New York City’s Park Avenue and Milwaukee’s Riverfront to Barcelona’s Paseo de Gracia, and the Avenue Montaigne and Boulevard San-Michel in Paris.
Why not begin by studying the Speer Boulevard corridor from Colfax to Confluence Park?
With apologies to Shakespeare, I have a suggestion: Let us come to praise Speer – not to bury it. It is the BS Project that must be interred.
Susan Barnes-Gelt was a Denver City Council member for eight years and an aide to former Denver Mayor Federico Peña
