Sloan's Lake Citizen's Group

The Colfax Design Guidelines

By Dennis Cox

There are two main issues regarding the revitalization of West Colfax: the street’s poor image and a lack of investment. West Colfax has had a hard history and represents a unique problem. There is no other example in this city that is like Colfax that can be used as a model for redevelopment.

With or without zone districts, Colfax is the main street common to small towns and small cities. What we see on Colfax from one end to the other reflects the market realty and the historic ambitions of the people who created that reality. The trick to making West Colfax a part of our neighborhood is to make Colfax sidewalks alive with pedestrian-oriented activity.

The current planning effort comes from the Denver Public Works Engineering Division. The authors want to know how much do we really care about our neighborhood and how much do we really want to integrate Colfax into it without destroying it. If we care little, then the assumption will be that we’ll sacrifice it along with pedestrian and vehicular safety for the vehicular-friendly, higher-speed conduit into downtown.

The Public Works Plan is to expand the current vehicular corridor (both traffic and parking) from 60 feet with a Right-of-Way (ROW) that varies from 76 feet to 124 feet to a 77 foot vehicular corridor and a ROW of 109 feet uniformly to accommodate 11 foot travel and turning lanes including an 11 foot raised median, an 11 foot parking allowance on both sides of the street, and 16 foot sidewalks on both sides. Most Colfax Corridor ROW averages around 80 feet. Expanding the ROW from 80 feet to 109 feet eliminates one zone lot on both sides of the street and pushes the street and sidewalks into the commercial strip.

Years of discussions, a country-wide study, as well as our own public meetings indicate that people don’t want concrete islands or wide streets. What they do want are older places, the Shaded sidewalks, houses with detail, main streets with life and texture. They want car-free architecture on the small scale. But the Public Works Plan ignores the message. The expansion of parking and vehicular-friendly sidewalks forces most commercial redevelopment into the neighborhood that needs protection and makes it less desirable.

The summary of what we have said over the years is to leave the right-of-way as it is and allow commercial redevelopment to build 1 to 4 stories high which would create the send of enclosure for drivers to slow their speeds to 30 mph. This country has many streets narrower than Colfax where redevelopment has occurred carrying about the same amount of traffic volume at lower speeds making the environment safer for both drivers and pedestrians.

The raised median of the Public Works Plan interrupts left-turn lanes and traffic crossing north-to-south in eleven out of 19 potential locations between Federal and Sheridan. Raised medians do the opposite of their purported benefits. They restrict traffic flow and left-turning movements, increase driving distance and air pollution, and reduce safety. Flat medians as noted in previous discussions have to have a color and/or pattern contrast compared to the rest of the street. The color/pattern contrast provides a pedestrian refuge and a perception of enclosure because it conveys to drivers a mental picture that the median and bicycle lanes are pedestrian and bicycle spaces.

The 11 foot parking allowance in the Public Work Plan includes an 8 foot parking lane plus 3 foot “buffer” with an inadequate reference to the International Fire Code. The dimensions are related to the need for two fire trucks to pass one another to set up at a fire and are more relevant to cul-de-sac streets where there is only one access point. Of course, Colfax has never had a problem accommodating fire trucks because of its ample width, multiple accesses to each block provided by a street grid system, and
third points of access offered through alleys. So an 11 foot parking allowance is needless. But remember, Colfax is supposed to be a multi-modal street that includes bike lanes. Yet 5 foot bake lanes on both sides of the street would allow the existing four traffic lanes and turning lanes to remain within the existing vehicular corridor while providing the pedestrian buffer so desperately needed.

The total required for the bike lanes would come from the parking lane on the north side of Colfax that is used for driving. And if we are insisting on little used parking lanes on both sides of the street, then we should be adopting the 7 foot parking lanes recommended by the “Street Design Guidelines for Healthy Neighborhoods” published by the Center for Livable Communities.

Regarding sidewalks, the Public Works Plan for 16 foot sidewalks is pedestrian hostile. The “Planning and Urban Design Standards” acknowledges 10 foot attached sidewalk widths in areas of high density for pedestrian friendly streets. This dimension includes a 4 foot furniture zone for utility poles, trees, hydrants, signs, benches, bus shelters, and planters; a 1 foot shy zone against buildings.

By the time this is read, the deadline for comments will have passed. The city planner for addressing comments is Amy Wiedeman. She may be flexible in hearing from more people if you can get your comments to her during November. The draft plan for Colfax Street Design Guidelines can be accessed online at denvergov.org/Infrastructure and click the “Colfax Design Guidelines” link. We are best at telling others about what we want our neighborhood to be when we, ourselves, understand the nature of the objectives