The Living Streets Initiative is an interdisciplinary, multi-sectorpartnership intended to stimulate a regional dialogue about the benefits and tradeoffs of living streets, and recommend how to infuse a living streets approach into everyday decision making by City agencies based on their respective roles and responsibilities as well as City practice and policies.
The policy basis for the initiative primarily stems from three Citywide plans:
The integrated land use and transportation vision for growth in Blueprint Denver
The City and County of Denver was awarded with Smart Growth Implementation Assistance by the US Environmental Protection Agency to study how the application of living streets principles in the Cherry Creek Corridor (Speer-Leetsdale Travelshed) could improve multi-modal transportation, community development, economic development, environmental quality and support public health and active living on commercial corridors throughout the city.
Stakeholders from along the corridor created a Photo Voices exhibit identifying challenges and opportunities on the ground.
Based on meetings with corridor stakeholders and a two-day public charrette, EPA’s consultant team of national experts in April 2009 completed a report focusing on the “Fulcrum” of the corridor, 3.5 miles between University Boulevard and 1st Avenue on the west and Leetsdale Drive and Quebec Street on the east. The report provides three principles and design strategies to implement living streets along commercial corridors: (1) reduce the number of lanes dedicated to cars, (2) create a pedestrian and transit friendly streetscape, and (3) relate development to the street. It also lists a number of short- (1 year) and medium-term (1-3 years) actions to implement living streets in Denver.
The Living Streets Initiative commissioned a market opportunity study funded by a Colorado Heritage Planning Grant by the Colorado Department of Local Affairs Office of Smart Growth to conduct a market opportunity analysis of the economic benefits of living streets. The study was undertaken by the Denver-based firm Progressive Urban Management Associates (P.U.M.A). To develop ideas that could be implemented throughout the city, P.U.M.A. looked at two types of corridors; one that developed and functions primarily as a vehicular corridor (Leetsdale Drive) and another that developed as a traditional streetcar corridor (Colfax Avenue). P.U.M.A. created a market profile for each including information on neighborhood demographics, housing, employment, traffic and crime; conducted online surveys for businesses and residents, and researched American and international studies of the economic-related benefits of multi-modal infrastructure.
The study found overwhelming evidence that economic vitality is enhanced through investment in pedestrian, bicycle and transit infrastructure and related amenities. For Denver, it suggests new ways of looking at how neighborhoods connect to commercial corridors and offers an incremental and cost-effective methodology to realize the benefits of Living Streets.
Public Engagement
Kaiser Permanente Colorado provided a grant for the initiative’s public education and engagement series. The public engagement team was lead by Civic Results.
Five educational events for policymakers and professionals were held from summer 2008-winter 2009 featuring national experts on the themes of policy and politics, engineering and design, public health, economic development, and finance and implementation.
July 30, 2008: Institute for Transportation and Development Policy President Enrique Penalosa, an economist and former mayor of Bogotá, Colombia, presented “Living Streets: Our Cities Depend Upon Them.”
October 15, 2008: Walter Kulash, a principal and senior traffic engineer with Glatting Jackson Kercher Anglin presented “Engineering Living Streets.”
November 11, 2008: Dr. Rajiv Bhatia, Director of Occupational and Environmental Health for the San Francisco Department of Public Health presented “The Road to Healthier People and Places.”
January, 28, 2009: Urban economic expert Dena Belzer, president of Strategic Economics, presented “Fueling Local Economies with Living Streets.”
February 26, 2009: Surface Transportation Policy Partnership (STPP) President Anne Canby—a former deputy assistance secretary of the US Department of Transportation, secretary of the Delaware Department of Transportation, and commissioner of the New Jersey Department of Transportation—presented “Financing Living Streets.”
See the Events page to download PDFs of their presentations and watch them in streaming video.
Five public workshops were held in different Denver neighborhoods in fall 2009 to engage the general public on the potential benefits and tradeoffs of living streets and receive input and feedback. See the Events page to download PDFs of the workshop materials.
