Glendale Active Living

Transportation Solutions is providing technical assistance to the City of Glendale to improve the pedestrian and bicycle environment and multi-modal connectivity within the city through a ”Putting Active Living in Place” project. Transportation Solutions is implementing three inter-related but distinct projects to increase walking, biking, and transit use in commercial centers and other locations of central activity.

Leetsdale as a Living Street

The City of Glendale has committed to installing pedestrian safety improvements at the intersection of Leetsdale and Cherry Street, which sees large volumes of foot traffic from the Greek Orthodox Church, Jewish Community Center and new King Soopers. Safety improvements include countdown timers, improved street signage and embedded lights in the crosswalks. In addition, funding for a covered bus stop on the north side of the street has been identified from the Transit Alliance. Both RTD and the Greek Orthodox Church (where the stop will be located) are supportive. Actual changes to the intersection are delayed due to ongoing negotiations between CDOT and the City of Denver (see ‘Deviations’ explanation in the next section).

 Bicycle and Pedestrian Bridge

This bridge will connect Kentucky Street to the Cherry Creek trail. After the collaboration of both the City of Denver and the City of Glendale and several personal meetings with Transportation Solutions staff, Denver Public Works committed (through an MOU) approximately $100,000 MOU to essential safety improvements at the intersection of Kentucky and Cherry Creek South Dr., where pedestrians and cyclists will access the planned bridge. Glendale’s Mayor Harte used Transportation Solutions’ annual event, The Road Ahead, to publicly cement the agreement with Denver’s Mayor Hancock. The bridge and intersection improvements will begin construction in fall of 2012 and the project will be completed by the end of the year, providing a needed connection to the trail for many Glendale residents.

Cherry Street as a More “Complete Street”

There is a great need to make Cherry St. pedestrian and bike friendly. Transportation Solutions held several meetings with Glendale staff to discuss approaches on how to do this. The project brought in national walkable communities expert Dan Burden in the fall of 2011 to conduct a “walkabaility” audit and to provide recommendations for Cherry Street and other pieces of the Glendale street grid. Recommended improvements include safety improvements at specific intersections and the overall street designs, such as safe crosswalks, bike lanes, and wider sidewalks. In addition, a multimodal facility located within the planned Riverwalk development project has been proposed to further integrate Glendale’s growing bicycle and transit networks within the greater Denver metro system. While the City of Glendale is very receptive to Dan Burden’s recommendations, they see the need to conduct a formal traffic analysis before reducing the number of vehicle lanes on Cherry Street. In the meantime, the City has decided to make Birch Street, the next one over from Cherry, a complete street that will connect to Cherry Creek Drive South, extending the street grid by two blocks.