The proposal to reroute the 16th Street mall shuttle over to 15th and 17th streets only looks good until you get to the details. Remember, the mall was designed to make shuttle service the primary conveyance across downtown at no cost to travelers.
One of the shuttle’s principal attractions to accomplish this is that it travels on dedicated lanes, with just enough curves to break up the visual monotony. Neither 15th nor 17th Street is designed to handle the loss of a full lane of motor vehicle traffic. On 15th, for example, that would leave just two lanes to serve the growing traffic load downtown, and that might be a tough sell for the boosters behind this boondoggle.
Allowing vehicles to cross the shuttle lane to make right or left turns on to cross streets will only slow down shuttle and other bus service, and increase the risk of accidents.
Weekend activity downtown is always welcome, and whatever happens to the shuttle isn’t going to have much impact — unless it’s negative. Street fairs? Buskers? Art shows where the silent shuttles now run? Food trucks en masse? These are interesting concepts, but they’re not going to draw more people downtown when those who do not live here have to go greater distances to find parking.
Dumping people on desolate stretches of 15th and forcing them to slog a long block over to civilization (retail, entertainment, dining) on the mall? Families wanting to go from the Pavilions into LoDo? Now, it’s convenient for them to take the shuttle and sample all of what downtown Denver offers just walking on and off at their convenience. But how does that play out when they have to walk a block to catch a bus, then walk at least one long block even when they’ve guessed the stop for their next destination? With kids in tow?
Yeah, that’ll happen once or twice before the family agrees to make fewer visits downtown or to simply go to one place, then pack it in.
Will the alternate routes spur more retail on 15th and 17th? Not very likely. Seventeenth, once known as the Wall Street of the West, has so little space available for retail that it can’t happen there. On 15th, the few remaining parking lots are slowly being replaced with office or hotel development.
Think that swath of land behind the Pavilions will be developed anytime soon? Maybe, but the economics of the current retail/entertainment/restaurant complex suggest the parking lots are better left as open lots for some time to come.
Would a 15th Street/ 17th Street alternative benefit several hotels? You bet! That is until the cacophony of clanging bells and the occasional warning horn becomes an issue for guests.
I have a horse in this race. I have lived downtown for 25 years, and love all the attractions this part of the city has to offer. It’s great to share this resource with folks who live elsewhere.
But why make it tougher for them to enjoy it? Why complicate something that might be better served by simply replacing the pavers on the mall with something more suitable for the heavy traffic?
Bill Clarke retired in 2007 as the Consumer Champ at Denver’s KMGH-Channel 7.
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