It’s How We’re All Connected

Contemplating The Green Streets Of Park Hill

Last month’s newspaper included a lot of discussion about slowing down impatient drivers and about traffic in Greater Park Hill. It sent me right back to an idea I have pondered in the past.

What if we were to pursue the concept of green streets in Park Hill? What if we were to work to synchronize, or at least incorporate systems, to address flooding and stormwater, bikes, pedestrians, fewer cars, and connecting with green places?

It’s certainly been done elsewhere. A joint effort by Denver’s Community Planning and Development Department, the Downtown Denver Partnership, and the Colorado Rockies retained the consulting firm AECOM to prepare a conceptual design for the Wynkoop Street + 21st Street Design Plan. Three of the project’s goals caught my eye:

• Help create signature streets within the neighborhood

• Pilot various innovative stormwater best management practices

• Connect with other key destinations, and the overall public realm experience

In that project, 21st Street meets Blake Street at the front gates to Coors Field in Lower Downtown. It extends southeast to Benedict Park, at Grant Street and 20th Avenue in the Uptown neighborhood. The project’s conceptual design presentation shows how the improvements on 21st Street and Wynkoop Street will complete an urban trail around downtown Denver. Enough said about that project and hats off to all involved.

The three goals above could be a part of a conversation about green streets or signature streets in Park Hill. So I am starting that conversation right here and now.

Let’s slow things down on our streets. Let’s anticipate impacts of RTD’s proposal to dedicate one lane of Colfax Avenue throughout Park Hill and beyond for buses only during rush hour, morning and evening. Let’s get more school kids (and their parents too) on foot and on bike to various schools in and near Greater Park Hill.

Let’s identify potential destinations in our community (schools and schoolyards, shopping districts, churches, libraries, parkways, etc.) and talk about ways to connect them better. Let’s consider topographic and hydrologic characteristics and integrate floodplains/stormwater systems with pedestrian/bike corridors.

Let’s never just presume that cars always come first. Indeed, what if there were places in Park Hill where cars never, ever came first?

First, I’ll borrow from the 21st Street project six strategies for “Building An Urban Trail.”

1. Aggregate open space & claim some parking

2. Meander the roadway

3. Create the urban trail … a braided channel

4. Incorporate social eddies & green infrastructure

5. Coordinate with complementary park spaces

6. Go curbless at most active blocks

The following are five east-west streets in Park Hill that the Denver Moves bicycle plan identifies as bicycle routes:

• 17th Avenue

• Montview Boulevard

• 23rd Avenue

• 26th Avenue

• Martin Luther King Boulevard

And, the following are five north-south streets:

• Cherry Street (south of Montview)

• Dahlia Street (north of Montview)

• Holly Street (north of Montview)

• Krameria Street

• Monaco Street

With the modification of substituting Kearney Street for Krameria Street from Montview Boulevard to 25th Avenue, I can envision a bicycle route that is also a green stormwater infrastructure corridor on all of these streets. Then throw into the mix creating safer routes to schools, installing traffic calming technologies, and creating more green space and ensuring that it is actually useable.

At the very least, isn’t that worthy of an extended conversation?

I have expressly left out any discussion of the area north of Martin Luther King Boulevard and any discussion of the Colfax Avenue corridor for right now. I will get to those discussions at a later date.

Meanwhile, here is an idea for you to ponder. Take a look at the map at right. Note the five locations that are highlighted in blue. For easy reference, they are:

• Montview Boulevard and Niagara Street

• 26th Avenue and Monaco Parkway

• 2200 block of Kearney Street

• Smiley Middle School Campus (entire site)

• 2200 block of Forest Street (if homeowners are interested)

What if we considered them as possible sites for green infrastructure research in Greater Park Hill?

Brian Hyde is an expert in floodplain management and stream restoration. He wants your feedback at westerly_connect_brian@comcast.net or 720-939-6039.