Old Colorado City businesses and residents can be scrappy and argumentative, but one thing unites them: Something has to be done about the speeding traffic on West Colorado Avenue.
Pedestrians, law-abiding drivers, business owners and their customers are all at risk. What can we do to reduce vehicle speeds through our historic commercial district? It’s complicated.
To describe automobile-related deaths as “traffic accidents” is misleading, according to the Colorado Department of Transportation. That phrase suggests that crashes are merely an unavoidable systemic problem. In fact, crashes have causes.
“Speeding is one of the most commonly cited contributing factors to the total number of accidents and the number of traffic fatalities throughout the state each year,” CDOT notes.
“Speeding reduces the time and distance a driver has to stop or slow down in time to avoid a collision, and accidents that happen at higher speeds are more likely to cause catastrophic or fatal injuries.”
The city’s exhaustive 55-page Midland Corridor Transportation Study, published in November 2022, took a deep dive into the problems and opportunities of Colorado Avenue. Not surprisingly, speeding was seen as a significant problem.
“The posted speed limit on Colorado Avenue is 30 mph,” the study noted, “except for the stretch that includes Old Colorado City, between 28th and 22nd streets, where the posted speed limit is 25 mph. … A speed study of the corridor conducted in 2017 as part of the Colorado Avenue Mobility, Parking & Economic Opportunity Assessment showed that the prevailing 85th percentile of Colorado Avenue traffic is traveling between 32 and 38 mph.”
Help is on the way.
And that doesn’t include the reckless few, who zoom down the avenue at 50 mph or more.
Given the present five-lane configuration of Colorado Avenue through OCC, there’s no quick solution to speeding problems — but help is on the way.
“There don’t seem to be any immediate short-term solutions to speeding,” said Sara Vaas, president of the Old Colorado City Partnership. “But the longer-term solution of reducing traffic lanes from five to three, widening sidewalks and slowing down traffic is scheduled to be funded by PPRTA (the Pikes Peak Rural Transportation Authority) in two years.”
The reconfiguration would include diagonal parking on the north side of the street, parallel parking on the south, wider sidewalks and much shorter pedestrian street crossings. It would create a more pedestrian-friendly and lively commercial district, according to the Midland Study.
Comparing Manitou Avenue’s historic commercial district to Old Colorado City, the report noted that “Both are popular tourist attractions in the area, but the current roadway cross-section in OCC supports an impression of ‘Fast and Furious’ travel while Manitou Avenue seems ‘Slow and Social.’
“Business owners in Old Colorado City believe that the vibrant and bustling atmosphere seen in Manitou is the aim for this area, not a street where a driver can quickly speed past the shops and restaurants.”
Changing the roadway from five to three lanes, widening the sidewalks and dramatically reducing through traffic would be a boon for pedestrians and businesses alike. It might also have other consequences for the neighborhood, as drivers heading for the mountains seek to avoid traffic jams on U.S. Highway 24 between Interstate 25 and 31st Street.
Westside residential streets could see more traffic, and Highway 24 could be even more crowded. Homeowners close to OCC could see more overflow parking, as OCC businesses thrive. Yet diagonal parking on the north side of the street, as proposed, would add more than 90 new parking spaces.
Urbanists call such projects “road diets.” Sounds good — it’s about time Colorado Avenue slimmed down!