Commentary: DNC Traffic Closures Promise Chaos

July 16th, 2008 CBentley Posted in DNC Logistics, Media |

If patience is a virtue and virtue is a grace, delegates and media at August’s DNC in the Pepsi Centre are going to need both. In spades.

Finally, the Great and the Good (well, they’re neither but their positions in authority mean we have to be a little bit deferential, or else?) have revealed the road closures imposed from on high for Denver for the week beginning August 25th.

Most of Speer Boulevard and Auraria Parkway will be off limits for a large part of the week. But, neither Mr. Ford, Mr. Gates nor Mr. Dyson have yet invented either teleporting or the flying car so both patience, time, loads of very expensive gas, and cantankerous determination are going to be needed on a daily basis to get anywhere near to the Convention proceedings.

Should we bike? Perhaps it’ll get stolen - there’s nowhere secure to leave the bikes. Apparently.

Should we walk? It’s going to be equatorially hot and might sap all strength making the rest of the day a wipeout. Assuredly.

Should we sleep there overnight, find out what it’s like to doss down in Civic Park? Would guarantee arrest but might be a good way to get insight into police handling of ‘miscreants’. Unlikely.
Light rail? Don’t be silly: they’ve fiddled with that too. There will be no light rail service to or from the Pepsi Center and Denver Union Station stops. Infuriatingly.

Mayor Hickenlooper says “hard work” has resulted in a plan to help the ‘tens of thousands’ of those who live and work downtown to get around without fuss and with ease. The authorities also seek to reassure us that the Secret Service will not add to our woes by throwing additional security wrenches in the works.

“They have never shut down a city,” we’re told.
That’s right. They won’t even need to because it’s going to be so very hard to get there.

The Nitty Gritty:

• About 5,500 feet of Speer Boulevard from Interstate 25 to Lawrence Street will close from 9 a.m. Monday, Aug. 25 through midnight Wednesday Aug. 27. Two lanes in each direction will remain open during morning rush hours each day.
• About 4,000 feet of Auraria Parkway will shut down from I-25 to Speer Boulevard from midnight Saturday, Aug. 23, through midnight Wednesday, Aug. 27. The I-25 ramps to and from Auraria Parkway will be closed.
• Several blocks between 15th Street and Speer Boulevard will be closed to vehicle traffic and limited to resident and employee traffic.
• Bannock Street between 14th Avenue and Colfax Avenue will be closed Aug. 25 - 27 from 10 a.m. until 3 p.m. for the Designated Parade Route staging area. From 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. - which avoids the standard morning and evening commute times - the westbound lanes of Colfax Avenue from Bannock Street to Speer Boulevard will be closed, as will the southbound lanes of Speer Boulevard from Colfax Avenue to Larimer Street. The eastbound lanes of Colfax Avenue and the northbound lanes of Speer will remain open, but some slowdown in traffic flow is expected.

Light rail changes for Aug. 25-27 were also announced:

• There will be no light rail service to or from the Pepsi Center and Denver Union Station stops. Passengers on the C and E lines who want to travel downtown can transfer to the D, F and H lines. All C- and E-line light rail passengers will be required to disembark at the Invesco Field light rail stop.

• Boston was different, we are told? No. Many Denverites, we hear, are planning to get as far away as they can or, failing that, are being lured to Vail with offers of cheap accommodation vouchers and clean air. No gridlock for them. So, instead of the DNC being a “boon for business”, it might just be a bust.

Truly inspired thinking in this financial climate, in our ‘Not a Recession’.

Photo Credit: The DNCC unveiled its new logo on the night of Tuesday October 2, 2007 on the eastern wall of the Denver’s Pepsi Center