The Gaylord Rockies Resort & Convention Center reopened for reservations on June 25, 2020, after being closed due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Staff members, wearing masks and having been retrained for enhanced cleaning technologies, were eager to greet guests as they checked in for the first time in months.
Outdoor Pool: The Arapahoe Springs pool now requires reservations. Each guest can choose between an 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. or 3 p.m. to 9 p.m. slot for each night of their stay. A limited number of guests are allowed in for each time slot.
The reopening comes with limited capacity and strict social distancing measures. The resort has set up directional arrows for walking throughout the resort, hand sanitizing stations throughout, and limited restaurant availability. The Mountain Pass Sports Bar, which features a 75-foot viewing screen, the largest in the state, is the only restaurant open. In addition, the Arapahoe Springs Bar & Grill near the pool, Rockies Marketplace, and the taco bar near the Pinyons bar are other options. The Pinyons bar now forms a single file line to order drinks which allows for social distancing. For the time being, the other restaurants are closed. However, the resort does allow outside food to be brought in. Convenient options are services such as Uber Eats or GrubHub.
The Arapahoe Springs pool area is now under a reservation only system. Guests can choose either an 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. or 3 p.m. to 9 p.m. slot. The pool closes from 2 p.m. to 3 p.m. every day for enhanced cleaning measures. These reservations allow staff to monitor how many people are in the pool for each time slot and limit the number of guests there at once. For guests with younger kids, it is recommended to reserve the 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. shift as the pools and lazy river are less crowded during that time slot.
The pools are definitely the resort’s main attraction. There is an indoor and outdoor pool (which includes an infinity pool), an outdoor lazy river, and three water slides. This water park is spread out over 22,000 square-feet which allows for proper social distancing. The entire resort is situated on 85 acres of land, so it never feels crowded even under normal circumstances. Guests can reserve a cabana if they want their own dedicated space. Or they may snag a chair by the lazy river and relax.
Every night at 9 p.m., the resort plays a kid-friendly movie on the lawn with plenty of room for families to spread out. They also have games such as bingo on the lawn. The activities are less than usual but it is still a nice getaway if families feel the need to get away for a couple of days yet are not ready to jump on an airplane.
Gaylord Rockies is near Denver International Airport and is a Marriott property that opened in December 2018. The 486,000 square feet of convention space makes it the largest combined resort and convention center in Colorado. It is the fifth Gaylord property to open with the others located in Washington, D.C, Nashville, Orlando, and Dallas.
The Gaylord Rockies Resort & Convention Center is located at 6700 North Gaylord Rockies Boulevard. For more information about the resort or to make a reservation, visit www.gaylordrockies.com.
On May 26, 2020, during a televised press conference, Colorado Governor Jared Polis made a statement that turned more than just a few service industry heads.
New Space: Glendale’s Bull & Bush got the jump on outdoor seating through an expedited application process.
He suggested that Denver restaurants, upon reopening after the forced Covid-19 closure, commandeer adjacent outdoor areas, parking lots and even residential yard space so that they could increase their serving capacities under the current social distancing regulations. To many, the idea must have initially sounded farfetched and perhaps a bit naive. Yet now, for most establishments looking to resume business while complying with Department of Health regulations, this tactic may be their only hope.
Impossible Rules?
Governor: Colorado Governor Jared Polis stepped in to help restaurants quickly get approved for outdoor seating.
The restrictions on reopening are many and read like a restaurateur’s worst nightmare. Most involve distancing measures not only between patrons, but between employees as well (six feet seems to be a figure of ubiquity) and as anyone who has worked in a restaurant knows, following such a stipulation in a kitchen, behind a host stand, behind a bar or in a wait station is practically impossible. Navigating this turbulent stretch of the proverbial reopening waters seems daunting enough, that is, until you get to the part about capacity limits. All establishments must keep tables, yep you guessed it, six feet apart and can seat only up to 50% capacity or 175 people — whichever is less. Yet, realizing that restaurants employ 10% of Colorado’s workforce (300,000 people) leaders like Polis are urging proprietors and service professionals to get back to work — a crucial step in offsetting the economic disaster that looms on the horizon.
Uncertainty With A Side Of Harsh
So far, restaurants across the Mile High City in districts such as Glendale, LoDo and many others are getting creative with their proximal outdoor spaces. This unprecedented period of reopening could be deemed as a restaurant’s life support phase before either recovering enough to be released from the ICU or giving up and pulling the plug. After being shut down for three months (takeout and delivery notwithstanding) many places are simply unable to recover after such an extended hiatus from revenue and have already thrown in the towel. According to the National Restaurant Association, revenue losses through April 2020 are estimated at $80 billion and project to be as high as $240 billion through the end of the year. While (sadly) many restaurants forced to close are one-of-a-kind, mom and pop joints, several national chain restaurants are being forced into early retirement as well.
The New Abnormal
Despite the setbacks, some establishments with a loyal clientele and a strong identity across the neighborhood culture are attempting to forge forth. In doing so, however, they are forced to cut indoor capacities in half. This is where auxiliary external spaces turned into temporary seating areas can make a big difference. Bull & Bush Brewery (4700 Cherry Creek South Dr.) co-owners David and Erik Peterson have opted for a temporary exterior expansion. “So far it’s working out quite well,” David explains. “The waitstaff are all young, energetic and eager to work — so to them a few extra steps is no big deal.” While a recent Friday afternoon lunch service was moderately busy at best, Peterson was confident that the evening’s numbers would be many times greater — meaning that his overflow patio would indeed be helping circumvent the restrictions so that the restaurant could operate at an optimal capacity.
Another long time Glendale business, Shotgun Willie’s, has had to reimagine what their footprint looks like and how they can maximize their space while adhering to guidelines. When businesses were shut down, they shifted their sister company TBar (adjacent to Shotgun Willie’s) to a To-Go food and liquor business. They were even able to run some car washes during the warmer days to help generate some revenue which owner Debbie Matthews allowed her employees to keep. “I wanted to make sure when we reopened, that some of my most loyal and hard-working employees would come back,” said Debbie Matthews, owner of Shotgun Willie’s. “We got creative and kept Shotgun Willie’s and TBar on people’s minds. Now, having reopened, Shotgun Willie’s and TBar are seeing loyal customers return. They are both open for business at noon, seven days a week.
TBar: Jeremy Marshall stands inside TBar Patio which is the bar adjacent to Shotgun Willie’s at 490 S. Colorado Blvd. TBar Patio has an open-air concept and serves cold draft beer, specialty cocktails, and has plenty of games to choose from.
Unlikely Allies
While restaurant owners/managers have often found dealing with the Denver Department of Excise and Licenses to be highly challenging, getting approval for outdoor seating areas has been fast and easy for most. Whereas pre-Covid-19, garnering such clearance would have taken weeks or even months from an agency that is notorious for red tape, miscommunication and outright hostility toward businesspeople. Observations aside, the truth behind the sudden expediency is that on June 5, Governor Polis signed an executive order requiring that the Department of Revenue and the Liquor Enforcement Division respond to applications for extended seating/serving areas within 24 hours. The order allows restaurants to extend dining areas up to 1,000 feet of their entryways while allowing the consumption of alcoholic beverages within these areas as well.
Expansion: Esters has expanded into their parking lot in order to adhere to new regulations and serve at an optimal capacity. Pictured here is Paul Sullivan, owner of Esters Neighborhood Pub
Determined Stalwarts
Meanwhile, Esters at 1950 S. Holly has expanded outdoor seating into the adjacent strip mall parking lot. A staff member explained that an application was recently submitted and approved — giving the place the green light to expand seating by 40 guests at the start of the third week of June. “This is not something we would have normally done,” said Paul Sullivan, owner of Esters Neighborhood Pub. “This gives us open air seating which I think people are looking for. The landlord at this location and the other tenants were cooperative on getting this going and adjusting to our new reality of what people want in a dining experience. I am thankful we are allowed to do this, I hope people enjoy it, and I feel this is going to help us survive this tough time.”
Beer Garden: Blake Street Tavern has expanded their serving capacity and are now “in the beer garden business.”
Further west into LoDo, longtime area staple Blake Street Tavern is ahead of the curve. Of the 700+ Denver restaurants who applied for additional patio space permits, they are already serving meals in their parking lot like their aforementioned Glendale counterparts. In a recent piece published by CBS4, owner Chris Fuselier states, “We’re in the beer garden business now. It’s all about outdoor dining.” Although Colorado is beloved for 300+ days of sunshine per year, that was not the case the day Blake Street opened their temporary beer garden, as violent winds showed up without a reservation and made for an interesting afternoon. This brings to light another potential issue: While the additional seating remedy is seasonal at best and better than nothing at all, inclement Colorado weather that hits hard and fast can cause inadvertent violations. Should an outdoor area need to be evacuated quickly, a bunch of patrons being herded indoors will take the social distancing regulations and scrape them into the trash bin.
Silver Linings
Perhaps on the brighter side, diminished capacity of all restaurants still in business as well as the closure of so many others could present a boon for places like Bull & Bush, Esters and Blake Street Tavern, as other establishments competing for the dollars of patrons could be at an all-time low. Yet the question remains whether a society that has been cooped up for three months is ready to go out to eat again, or if they are still skittish — content to stay at home and dine with caution.
The Denver Department of Transportation & Infrastructure (DOTI) has elaborate plans for the streets of the Mile High City. These upgrades involve alteration of major travel routes, busy thoroughfares and neighborhood streets in order to accommodate an ambitious, multimodal, city-wide bike lane initiative. According to DOTI’s website, the Denver Moves: Bicycles project is driven, in part, by the fact that many would-be cyclists do not feel safe using two-wheeled, non-motorized transportation in order to get around town. The website infographics demonstrate that a majority of would-be bicycle riders (60%) feel “interested but concerned” about safety for cyclists across the city at large while 25% say “no way, not now” while just 12% are “somewhat confident” and only 4% of those surveyed say they are “highly confident” that riding through the city is actually safe.
A New Beginning
As of January 1, 2020, the Department of Public Works became DOTI, with a modernized mission that is “ … focused on increasing mobility and safety while reducing congestion and fighting climate change.” A fundamental part of creating a remedy for the above statistical disparities involves an overhaul of the existing network of bike routes — with increased signage, more visible lane markers and physical installations in the form of barriers for enhanced safety. Such measures are already in place in some areas of the city, with new lanes, buffered lanes and protected lanes popping up virtually overnight. While these improvements are no doubt paved with good intentions, many neighborhood leaders, property owners and longtime residents have been caught by surprise, with the look and feel of their community having been altered with little notice and without majority consent.
An Old Neighborhood
One such community is the Wellshire district, bordered on the west and east by University and Colorado Boulevards, respectively, and framed to the north and south by E. Yale Ave. and Hampden Ave. This quiet district was built over 60 years ago, and consists primarily of single family, owner-occupied homes. DOTI’s plan is to eradicate all on-street parking on E. Dartmouth Ave. to make way for a well-defined, buffered bike lane that would no doubt increase safety and security for users while creating possible hazards and other negative impacts for homeowners.
Some residents feel that, since there have been no recent crashes reported along this stretch of Dartmouth (already a designated bike route), enhancing the bike lane is an overzealous remedy to a nonexistent problem. This viewpoint also supports the idea that installing a buffered bike lane could create hazards for residents pulling into and backing out from driveways as well as minor inconveniences and major hassles when it comes to available parking for visitors, delivery drivers and service providers. Other residents feel that removing on-street parking can also have a negative effect on value of the homes along Dartmouth, which in turn can decrease property values throughout the neighborhood.
Some bike lanes in Denver are welcome improvements, others are not.
An Exclusive Agenda
The DOTI website lists several dozen bike lane installation sites — complete with the types of lanes to be implemented, expected completion dates and some with documents presenting the details of the neighborhood outreach. Yet, concerned homeowner Richard Davies — who lives just off Dartmouth — explains how City Council members and DOTI representatives seemed to forgo the outreach dimension of the project, using the Coronavirus shutdown as an excuse to push their agendas through uncontested. After the first public meeting was held in early 2020 at an area elementary school, the follow-up meeting on April 22 was scheduled as a “virtual open house” but organizers would only field questions and speaking points from attendees that were submitted and approved prior to the meeting.
Protected or “buffered” bike lanes are part of DOTI’s Denver Moves initiative.
The Political Side
City Councilwoman Kendra Black, who had claimed to be opposed to this particular stretch of the Denver Moves: Bicycles project, was also rumored to have inferred to a concerned resident that the proposed changes were a done deal, and they should not waste their time. Regardless, nearly 200 signatures opposing the measure were submitted with zero acknowledgement from DOTI or the city council.
Wellshire residents may have to get used to new signage along E. Dartmouth Avenue.
In an online interview, Councilwoman Black was neutral on the issue, transferring all blame to the will of DOTI’s traffic engineers. She attests that, “The city’s goal is to create safe alternatives to driving for people who are willing and able to use other modes of transportation. Fewer cars on the roads improves air quality, personal health and traffic congestion.” Black continues by stating “Every bike lane project is different depending on what type of street it is, the traffic count, the configuration of the street and more. The goal is to add safe bike lanes — sometimes, according to DOTI engineers — the designs eliminate parking because there is not enough room to have parking, bike lanes and car lanes.”
Some residents are concerned with collision hazards presented by installing a buffered bike lane.
A Possible Compromise
Meanwhile, Wellshire resident David Sherman offers another perspective, ex-
plaining that “Removing parking can actually increase traffic speed and volume.” Yet, he remains hopeful that a copacetic agreement can be reached between residents and DOTI by “lowering the speed limit by five miles per hour and providing plenty of signage about ‘sharing the road.’” Either way, repaving is scheduled for June and the buffered bikeway installation will coincide. Whether a compromise is part of the outcome or the city gets its way uncontested is still a few cycles away.
“All human beings are my neighbors. We share the same planet.” — Ana Monnar
by Luke Schmaltz
By mid-March of this year, a new reality had descended upon Denver, as the COVID-19 lockdown forced residents to curtail social behavior, forgo daily objectives and divert vocational routines in never-before-seen ways. As thousands of “non-essential” workers were forced from their jobs and directed by government officials to stay at home, the Denver Department of Public Works continued to operate as usual. The ever-elusive “ticket ninjas” crept along their daily routes, issuing citations for meter violations, time-limit abuses and parking in prohibited areas on street sweeping day offenses.
Neighborly Gestures
After grapevine investigation, it was discovered that some of these anti-citation signs were the work of a local artist known as Rez, who explains, “ I decided to make the signs because I know personally that the street sweeping catches me off guard, especially in the spring. I figured I was not the only one, and if I could help out a few neighbors and essential hospital personnel, it was worth making a couple of signs.” Although obstructing street sweeping is a fine-able offense, the actual presence of these machines is an urban mystery. Rez continues, “I think I saw a street sweeper that last day [last year] it was supposed to clean our street.”
With extra time on their hands, some residents of the Baker district decided not to take the untimely, insensitive issuance of parking tickets sitting down. In a bold, First Amendment-inspired move, locals began taking matters into their own hands and warning neighbors, locally employed professionals and other passers-through to be mindful of the cruel, merciless scourge of Denver meter maids. By the time street sweeping day came around in the first week of April, several sidewalks featured homemade signs warning that the citation hammer was afoot and set to drop on anyone and everyone parked on the wrong side of the street.
Residents aim to warn neighbors about costly tickets with fines that can quickly triple.
The Pen Is Mighty
Small Infraction, Massive Price
The consequences for non-payment of a parking ticket can be severe. Essentially, the issuance of a ticket initiates a process that, if not complied with, can result in the city commandeering (impounding) your vehicle with no obligation to return it. Rather, it could be held for months accruing ever-increasing fees and fines, and finally sold at auction for a fraction of its value so that the paltry revenue can be absorbed into a corpulent government bureaucracy.
Rapid Escalation
The average parking ticket in Denver cites the vehicle owner anywhere from $25 to $50. If not paid within 20 days, the fine doubles — making the vehicle eligible to be fitted with a wheel clamp and/or towed away. After 60 days, a collection fee is added and credit bureaus are notified, and after 120 days a default judgment is entered against whomever the vehicle is registered to — stating that all fines and fees must be paid by legal mandate. Finally, after one year, the file is turned over to a law firm which then pursues
aggressive private collection. An article published by The Denver Post in September 2019 reported that annual parking fee revenues for the previous year were in excess of $27 million. Believe it or not, that was the lowest figures reported in almost a decade. With that sort of money sitting in the city’s coffers, all streets should be free of potholes, every stoplight should sparkle, and shine and every street sign should be polished to a squeaky-clean sheen.
Shame Of The City
While Denver is known for many great things such as the Broncos and a certain omelet of the same name, it is also known for the infamous Denver boot. The aforementioned “wheel clamp” is deployed to disable any vehicle linked to unpaid parking violations. This blatant violation of Fourth Amendment rights (unreasonable searches and seizures) has spread to municipalities across the nations, giving the Mile-High City an unfair name among unfortunate motorists nationwide. Parking fines and additional fees notwithstanding, having a boot on a car entitles the owner to pay yet another fee to have it removed.
Supply And Demand
While parking enforcement has its place in keeping bike lanes and jogging paths obstruction-free, the aggressive policy of writing tickets, doubling fines and confiscating private property seems altogether overkill — especially in the midst of a pandemic — thus the vigilant residential blowback. As mentioned above, the issuance of tickets across Denver has leveled out over the last couple of years. The reason being for this? The economy was so good that the Department of Public Works couldn’t find enough people to fill all the parking agent positions — shedding light on what must be a truly lousy job.
Eight months out of the year, parking tickets are issued once a month to cars parked in the way of “street sweeping.”
A Temporary Standstill
Now that one-third of the labor force has been couched, the city probably won’t have trouble filling those empty ticket agent positions. Yet, for every hypervigilant meter maid scuttling about ruining people’s afternoons, there will be several dozen unemployed residents like Rez with enough time on their hands to post homemade signs warning others about being ticketed. Thankfully, by mid-April in this strangest of years, the issuance of parking tickets seemed to have dwindled even further. Perhaps city officials finally gave in to their human instincts to have a bit of mercy for their fellow citizens in the midst of a crisis.
One thing is for sure, though — as soon as things level out and the pandemic subsides — the ticket patrol will be back in full force … but so will Rez.
In the two years since Mayor Michael Hancock’s administration implemented Denver’s Vision Zero Action Plan, the city appears no closer to making its streets safe for pedestrians and multimodal transportation than when it began.
HIN: Reducing crashes on Colorado’s High Injury Network (HIN) of roads is a goal that seems unreachable given current traffic trends.
Even though nearly 70 percent of Denver residents still support Vision Zero, according to a survey conducted by the Denver Streets Partnership, the results of the program, critics claim, are hard to justify.
According to the 2019 Vision Zero Report, traffic-related fatalities increased by 15 percent from 2018 while serious bodily injury resulting from crashes also increased. In contrast, Denver cited several case studies purporting to show that Vision Zero has made a positive impact. Those include setting up automated speed and distracted driving enforcement at the intersection of 6th and Lincoln, adding 24-hour transit-only lanes on 15th and 17th streets downtown, and improving signage at the 20th street and I-25 interchange.
However, these case studies show that Denver is focusing on solving only one side of a double-edged problem. While Vision Zero aims to eliminate traffic deaths by 2030 by focusing on infrastructure improvements and behavioral causes affecting Denver’s traffic-related deaths and serious injuries, Denver is only focusing on the infrastructure.
As an example, the report says the presence of a photo radar van at 6th and Lincoln for five days reduced excessive speeding (10+ mph) by 21 percent. But, reducing the number of overall speeding tickets has not influenced the frequency of accidents occurring at that intersection. Denver still lists the intersection as a hotspot for fatal accidents on its Vision Zero Data & Trends website.
Denver’s case studies also do not address the fact that most accidents do not occur at intersections and are not caused by speeding. In fact, over 40 percent of Denver’s accidents occur because of distracted driving, according to the Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT). The Vision Zero Data & Trends website also shows that most accidents occur in neighborhoods and on arterial streets.
Low-Hanging Fruit
The mixed messaging around Vision Zero has also caused some residents to believe the city is just going after low-hanging fruit to make it seem like it is doing more to protect pedestrians.
In May 2019, Mayor Hancock lamented that not enough was being done to protect Denver’s pedestrians during a memorial ceremony for those who lost their lives in traffic crashes.
“Every one of those lives lost is unacceptable and preventable,” Hancock said before listing the safety improvement projects the city is undertaking. Those include adding 19 miles of bicycle lanes and 12 new traffic signals.
One of the ceremony’s attendants, Michelle Roche, who lost her son after a reckless driver hit him in 2014, told Streets Blog Denver that the ceremony itself seemed like a propaganda campaign to make the city seem like it’s doing more to prevent traffic-related deaths.
“If you ask me, that little trickle of dollars that they’re putting towards the action plan … it’s like in marketing, we would call that greenwashing,” she said.
In its 2019 budget, Denver allocated just $2.6 million to implementing the recommendations of the Vision Zero Action Plan, accounting for less than 10 percent of funds allocated for transportation improvement projects. In 2020, Denver allocated just $1.65 million for the same cause.
Since the ceremony, Denver announced it will add up to 124 miles of bicycle lanes throughout the city and is upgrading 15 intersections across Colfax Avenue, one of Denver’s busiest streets. The Department of Transportation and Infrastructure (DOTI) announced the upgrades consist of adding “bollards and paint to shorten crossing distances for people on foot and to carve out places where pedestrians can stop in the middle of the street.”
But, residents living along Colfax aren’t impressed with the upgrades. The bollards will cost $120,000 alone, and there is no guarantee they will improve safety.
One resident who walks Colfax regularly told The Denver Channel that he worries about his safety because drivers on Colfax don’t watch out for pedestrians.
“My neighbor got hit by a car down the street, I’ve yelled at several drivers because they’re not looking when I’m crossing over, they’re making turns without looking both ways,” he said.
Colfax is one of several streets listed on the High Injury Network (HIN) — the corridors in Denver with the highest number of fatal and injury crashes. HIN roads account for just five percent of the total roads in the city but have seen more than 40 percent of the crashes since 2013. Other HIN roads include Broadway, University and Evans.
Federal Intervention
Denver’s problems with Vision Zero haven’t gone unnoticed by people living outside the Centennial State.
In December 2019, the US Department of Transportation (DOT) sent officials to meet with CDOT, DOTI, and the Denver Police Department to discuss means of improving Denver’s Vision Zero plan.
Among the concerns raised by DOT officials during the meeting was increasing rates of fatalities among pedestrians and bicyclists and other vulnerable road users. DOT found this fatality rate increased by 23 percent from 2018.
DOT’s nationwide data also showed that 76 percent of pedestrian fatalities occurred overwhelmingly after dark, 38 percent occurred when many pedestrians had some alcohol in their systems, and 74 percent occurred when they were outside of intersections. Half of accidents involving bicyclist fatalities occurred after dark, while only 26 percent of such accidents occurred with some alcohol in their systems.
“We clearly have more work to do to ensure that Denver’s transportation safety needs are met,” said James Owens, acting administrator of DOT’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). “I’m confident that with the help of our safety partners, we can make the Denver area one of the safest in America for pedestrians, bicyclists, and motorists.”
In the past three years, NHTSA awarded Colorado $46 million to address its road safety concerns. Even so, nearly 600 people across the state were killed in traffic-related incidents in 2019, according to statistics from CDOT.
So far in 2020, 57 people have been killed in crashes.
Project Expansion
While Denver struggles to achieve its Vision Zero goals, the Denver Regional Council of Governments (DRCOG) plans to expand the program to become more regionally focused. DRCOG claims this approach will help cities and communities in the metro area deal with increasing traffic deaths.
“Vision Zero switches safety from being solely the responsibility of roadway users to a shared responsibility of system designers and roadway users,” the agency said in its announcement of the plan. “It is inevitable that roadway users will make mistakes, so roads should be designed to ensure these mistakes do not result in severe injuries or fatalities.”
However, the principles of Vision Zero and the implementation seem to be out of line with each other. Last year, DRCOG reported 242 fatalities resulting from crashes across DRCOG’s service area which includes Adams, Arapahoe, Boulder, Broomfield, Denver, Clear Creek, Douglas, Gilpin and Jefferson counties. This total is more than one-third of traffic-related fatalities reported in the state.
Denver admits there is still work to be done and plans to focus on improving the HIN in 2020. But, residents are still waiting for the program to make an impact.
Breaking Down Denver’s Rising Levels Of Air Pollution
by Luke Schmaltz
It’s rush hour on a Denver weekday
afternoon and bumper to bumper traffic is making the ride home a frustrating
punishment rather than a jettison to freedom. Then suddenly a jogger flies past
your window and a pang of guilt overcomes you that you are not getting your
cardiovascular exercise for the day.
But is that wannabe Forrest Gump really
engaging in a healthy activity? What the exercise-crazed spandex-clad hordes of
Denver may not be aware of is that hyperventilating amid throngs of automobiles
ain’t all it’s cracked up to be. The air circulating through your lungs is
saturated with elevated levels of ozone. On many a smoggy day, (there were over
100 in 2019) the air hanging over the city is what the Environmental Protection
Agency calls “in serious violation” of Air Quality Index (AQI) standards.
Essentially, by breathing rapidly and deeply next to a busy Denver street, you
may slowly be poisoning yourself.
A Man-made Hazard
Polluted Skyline: The Denver skyline takes on a New Jersey-esque complexion roughly one out of every three days.
A series of circumstances have coalesced to
form what could be considered a perfect storm of pollution across the city.
Increasing volumes of car exhaust due to population explosion, carbon emissions
from oil and gas mining operations, smoke from fireplaces and woodburning
stoves, emissions from power plants and industrial furnaces and sunlight
reacting with molecular oxygen particles has elevated the ozone levels past the
70 parts per billion (PPB) maximum recommended by the EPA. The aforementioned
100+ days in 2019 involved ozone levels past 80 PPB. The national ambient air
quality standards (NAAQS) were redefined in 2015 after extensive research into
the detrimental health effects of common air pollutants such as ground-level
ozone, particulate matter, lead, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide and carbon
monoxide.
In Collaboration With Nature
Smokestacks: Smokestacks may not paint the sky black, but they deliver convincing shades of brown and gray.
What’s more, a global warming-driven
weather phenomenon known as temperature inversions are acting like an invisible
lid — trapping pollution in the troposphere rather than allowing it to
dissipate up through the stratosphere. Yes, the infamous brown cloud of the
1980s that Denver was internationally mocked for is back once again. This time
around, however, like fugly apartment buildings, a whitewashed retail landscape
and gentrification itself — this phenomenon is taking place in metropolitan
areas across the nation.
In a nutshell, ground-level ozone is
volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and nitrogen oxides (NOx) reacting with
sunlight and atmospheric air molecules. The Denver Regional Council of
Governments estimates that every day, between 250,000 and 350,000 cars are
being driven across the metro region. This transportation sector is the second
largest contributor of greenhouse gases next to industrial emissions. Plus,
there are over 23,000 active oil and natural gas wells across the front range
as well as numerous power plants across the Denver metro region.
A New Agency To The Rescue?
As of January 1, 2020, the Denver
Department of Public Works was renamed the Department of Transportation and
Infrastructure (DOTI) in a symbolic display meant to mark a new chapter of
planned environmental objectives. Among DOTI’s concerns is the Climate Action
Plan launched by the City of Denver in 2007 and rebooted in 2015. This “plan”
presents an “80×50” objective — meaning that through new measures and policies
the city aims for an 80% reduction of emissions (from the 2005 baseline) by
2050. A recent heavy-handed screed issued by Mayor Michael Hancock’s office
outlines a protocol of “aggressive and decisive action” for reducing emissions
through new renewable energy programs, energy efficiency and low operational
cost of electric vehicles. This letter celebrates Denver as having “a long
history of trailblazing when it comes to climate change.” If that is so, why do
pollution levels continue to rise? All of the industrial facilities, oil wells
and natural gas mines on operation require permits, correct? It would seem that
progress, when left to bureaucracy, is inevitably hindered by the inherent
sluggishness of government. Either that, or the tax revenue generated by these
facilities is simply too hard to pass up. Regardless, it would seem that the
climate action plan (CAP) is really just a bunch of crap.
It’s Up To You
Traffic: Many are involved but it’s nobody’s fault.
Like traffic jams — where many people are involved but are usually no singular person’s fault, pollution is the cumulative result of many people simply going about their daily business. As willing participants, the responsibility to reduce emissions should be taken up by the populace without being prompted by finger wagging and knuckle cracking from the hand of big brother. The EPA outlines a simple protocol of steps anyone can take at any time to reduce pollution. For example, you can walk, ride your bike, carpool or take the bus instead of driving a single occupant vehicle. Use slow-burning logs instead of wood in your fireplace, properly inflate your times for better fuel efficiency, use environmentally safe cleaning products and paint, reduce use of air conditioners and furnaces and mulch yard waste instead of simply throwing it away. But, and be realistic, you already knew all this, didn’t you? The issue is whether or not you care enough to endure a bit of inconvenience to do your small part, or if you’re going to carry on as usual — assuming that your neighbors and fellow citizens will pick up the slack while you lumber forth in a smog-laden haze. Theoretically, that’s fine enough, but the problem is — they are probably thinking the exact same thing about you.
