Sprucing up Denver’s aging 16th Street Mall is one of those important civic projects that most of us instinctively leave to the experts. They know what they’re doing, surely. But maybe it’s time to pay attention. After all, what if I told you that one of three existing design proposals foresees shuttle buses going down the mall in just one direction?
Impossible, you protest. The buses must circulate if they are to repeat the course. How would they return to the starting gate?
Elementary, dear reader. They’d return not on 16th Street, but on 15th, in a dedicated shuttle lane. And we’d have the equivalent of two downtown malls on parallel streets — or, since private vehicles would still be allowed on 15th Street, maybe a mall and a half.
“To my personal surprise, the third option has received a lot of public interest,” says Dennis Rubba, an urban designer from StudioINSITE, who is part of the project team. What intrigues people about this dramatic plan, he tells me, is “how it leverages other opportunities,” beginning with the creation of even more public space on the 16th Street Mall.
The potentially bigger payoff, however, involves 15th Street, currently a mostly dreary traffic corridor between activity centers on the mall and 14th Street.
Now consider the potential effect on 15th Street of wider sidewalks, attractive landscaping and an influx of pedestrians heading to westbound shuttle buses. Wouldn’t that spur a renewal along that street — especially given the steady growth of downtown residents and activities?
It sounds plausible, but the designers are well aware of possible drawbacks. What if the dispersal of pedestrians from one to two streets makes both feel empty? What if mall visitors resent walking 400 feet to a less attractive corridor to grab a westbound shuttle? Currently, people often hop a shuttle for just two or three blocks, but who would do that when it required leaving the mall itself?
For that matter, is it really wise to eliminate lanes on 15th Street, as the plan envisions? The Hickenlooper administration has narrowed many streets over the years in its campaign to promote a more pedestrian and bicycle-friendly environment but, like it or not, people do still need to drive.
“I’m not sure it’s the right solution today,” Rubba acknowledged, emphasizing that he wasn’t speaking for the design team. “But it may well be part of the solution in the future.”
The 15th Street option might also be the most expensive of the three, a major consideration at a time when funds for big projects are scarce. Even the least expensive option — maintaining the mall’s current design but upgrading everything from pavers to fountains to light fixtures — will cost tens of millions of dollars. And yet, as John Desmond, vice president of urban planning and environment for the Downtown Denver Partnership, told me, officials “have not identified exact (funding) sources yet.”
Still, it’s not as if the partnership, the city and the Regional Transportation District have much choice. The effective lifetime of a project like the 16th Street Mall is usually 30 years, Desmond explains, which in this case will be reached in 2012. “The pavers in the transit lane are failing at an increasing rate,” he points out, and the electrical system — which runs under the mall — should be replaced, too. Once officials realized the mall’s basic infrastructure warranted a thorough upgrade, they began considering what other changes might improve the mall as well.
Make no mistake: The mall has been hugely successful in its original design. But if it is going to be reconfigured, it probably makes sense to do it along the lines of what designers have dubbed Option 2: Widen the mall’s north sidewalk by eliminating the pedestrian median between the two shuttle lanes and running those lanes side by side. As Downtown Denver’s website explains, this would create “an extra- wide walkway with extended patio and kiosk space . . . with room for full-scale retail kiosks . . . as well as a possible third row of trees.”
Sounds appealing — not radical, but not stand-pat, either. If we’re going to dig up a mile-long pedestrian mall for a 30-year makeover, we might as well give it more than a mere facelift.
E-mail Vincent Carroll at vcarroll@denverpost.com.
