Buses would run down the center of downtown Denver’s 16th Street Mall for its entire length under one potential new configuration that would include equal sidewalk widths on both sides of the transitway.
That is the most drastic of three proposed bus-alignment changes unveiled Monday as Denver’s city planning office, the Regional Transportation District and the Downtown Denver Partnership .
Under any of the changes — which still don’t have price tags attached but whose cost could run into the tens of millions of dollars — RTD’s Free MallRide would remain a defining feature of the 35-year-old mall.
But the option chosen in “” study — a selection is expected later this fall — will determine how the buses traverse the mall’s original 13-block span, from Broadway to Market Street. The remodeling project also could result in dramatic changes to the pedestrian spaces, which in some sections run outside the transit lanes and which, in the middle section, include a central median between the lanes.
“All of these (alignment options) would require a total rework of the mall,” said Brad Buchanan, executive director of the Denver Department of Community Planning and Development, during a recent meeting with journalists at The Denver Post.
But under some configurations, the most intensive upgrades and replacements would be below ground, where the mall’s infrastructure is fast deteriorating under the weight of the buses and old age. At street level, the changes contemplated by the city and RTD mostly would be aesthetic.
Not that aesthetics aren’t controversial. Any redesign likely would require the uprooting of many of the mall’s mature trees. And one of the hotly debated aspects of a potential mall project is whether to replace the expensive “rattlesnake” pattern of black, gray and red-hued granite pavers — a hallmark of I.M. Pei’s design — with less costly materials.
“We have done some test fits, (though) we have not done any design,” Buchanan said. “What we can say is that any one of these three configurations could allow that pattern on the mall to continue to exist.”
A look at the potential configurations
One thing to understand before considering the three options — along with a fourth “no change” alternative — is that the 16th Street Mall is segmented in how the city splits up the constant 80 feet of space between buildings.
In the first section (from Broadway to Tremont Place) and the third (between Arapahoe and Market streets), the bus lanes run together, and the north side of the street has a much wider sidewalk than the south. In the middle section, the outer sidewalks are more equal in width, and there is an additional pedestrian space in the middle, between the lanes.
Here is what would change under the three options, as labeled by the city and RTD, going from the smallest change to the most significant:
“Median Asymmetrical”: This alignment would keep the basic setup in the three sections, while making slight changes; the mall’s surface and below-ground infrastructure still would be rebuilt.
“Center Asymmetrical”: This option would move the buses to the middle for all sections of the mall, but the first and third sections would keep the wider north sidewalks.
“Center”: The middle section’s median would be removed, with the buses moved to the center, and the sidewalks would change to equal widths up and down the corridor.
“From our perspective,” said Dave Genova, RTD’s general manager, “we can operate on all of them. The Center (option) is probably the simplest for us,” because it would remove the current jogs to the left and the right as buses move between sections.
The city and RTD previously to a loop that uses 15th and 17th streets. But officials have rejected that option, citing logistical concerns and other factors, including the mall’s original design as a transitway.
City and RTD seek public feedback
The project partners hosted a workshop Monday to give a first look at the alignment options to downtown business owners, Downtown Denver Partnership and business district members, RTD and city representatives, and neighborhood and historic preservation advocates.
In coming weeks, they will solicit public feedback — and during hour-long open houses Oct. 18 at noon and 5 p.m. at RTD’s headquarters, 1600 Blake St.
The idea behind the 16th Street Mall project, which has evolved in the last two years from smaller-scale upgrades to a full-scale reworking, is to deal with a need for large-scale fixes as well as to adapt the mall for increasing use and make it a more active place, officials say.
The bus ridership is 45,000 daily weekday riders, including office and retail workers, tourists, the homeless and downtown visitors. But that is forecast to grow to nearly 60,000 in the next decade.
“When we are successful with a new 16th Street Mall, that’s a place for everyone,” Buchanan said. “And I wouldn’t suggest that it’s a place for everyone today, because it’s a place for everyone to walk today (but) it’s not a place for everyone to gather today.”
City and RTD officials, along with other project partners, plan to select a preferred alignment option later this fall. This is a key step in the federal environmental review process, which is required because the mall originally was built with federal money in 1982.
That review process is expected to wrap up in June, and then the project would move into final design and planning for construction, which would include identifying funding sources.
There are some big possibilities: Officials have said the downtown tax-increment financing district would have the capacity to support about $72 million in borrowing for the project, while RTD is holding about $10 million to $15 million in grants it obtained originally to work on three blocks of the mall.
And this fall, the mall project could receive $13 million if city voters approve in the Nov. 7 election.