David Sachs
David cut his teeth covering transportation, development, politics, education, and art in D.C. He's covered sustainable transportation for Streetsblog since 2015 and has lived in Denver's Cheesman Park neighborhood since 2012.
Recent Posts
How Can the Denver Region Prevent Displacement Around Transit?
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It makes a lot of sense to build walkable development around transit stations. Otherwise, few people will be able to live near transit, and you’ll never have a transit system that enables people to get to work or do their shopping without a car. But as the convenience of good transit access becomes more highly valued, how do you […]
“Happy City” Author Charles Montgomery Talks Colfax, the A-Line, and Bikes
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Charles Montgomery is not okay with the trauma of crossing Colfax Avenue, Colorado’s highway expansions, or bike lanes that aren’t protected from speeding traffic. And though he’s glad voters agreed to pay for it, he’s a little suspect of RTD’s A-Line to and from the airport. Montgomery is the author of “Happy City: Transforming Our […]
Meet RTD District “A” Candidate Mike Cerbo — Running to “Get It Done”
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Even people who use Denver’s transit system daily might be surprised to find out that a publicly elected board of directors oversees the Regional Transportation District. It’s true. The 15-member RTD Board of Directors reps constituents from all over the map, literally, and makes decisions that affect Coloradans — in some ways more directly than […]
Meet RTD District “A” Candidate Regan Byrd — “Not a Seasoned Politician”
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Even people who use Denver’s transit system daily might be surprised to find out that a publicly elected board of directors oversees the Regional Transportation District. It’s true. The 15-member RTD Board of Directors reps constituents from all over the map, literally, and makes decisions that affect Coloradans — in some ways more directly than […]
Fix This! Frequent Transit Service Doesn’t Reach 70 Percent of Denverites
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Good transit isn’t rocket science. If you provide frequent, reliable service that people can conveniently walk to, then they’ll choose to ride the bus or the train. But Denver has a problem: Its frequent transit service doesn’t go where most people live. That was one of the big takeaways at a meeting yesterday of the Denveright Transit […]
No, There Is Not an “Affordable Parking Crisis”
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Channeling Donald Trump’s campaign slogan, the Denver Post ran a column in its Sunday edition titled “Make downtown Denver parking great again.” No joke. Forget all the evidence that the more parking you build, the more traffic you get and the more expensive everything else becomes. What Denver really needs, according to author Teresa Keegan, […]
Eyes On the Street: Champa Street Bike Lane Gets a Buffer From Cars
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Denver Public Works has given people more room to ride bikes on Champa Street. Crews have finished striping the one-way street to better delineate the existing bike lane from the auto traffic lane between Downing and 19th. There, the route connects to the existing buffered bike lane — which still has some gaps — that […]
Denver Can Learn A Lot From Vancouver’s Protected Bike Lane Network
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When it comes to more people biking to get around, Vancouver aims higher than Denver. Mayor Michael Hancock’s goal is to have 15 percent of all commuting trips made by bike or on foot by 2020. Last year just 2 percent biked and 4 percent walked to work in the Mile High City, according to […]
Council President Albus Brooks Calls for New Source of Transportation Money
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If funding for sidewalks and bike lanes continues at the rate laid out in Mayor Michael Hancock’s 2017 budget, Denver won’t see a fully built-out bike network for many decades, and won’t have a complete sidewalk network for nearly two centuries. Hancock proposed a paltry $2.2 million for Denver Moves, the city’s blueprint for a […]
How Denver’s Seminal Planning Document Has Shaped Neighborhoods So Far
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A lot of Denver’s neighborhoods look the way they do today because of “Blueprint Denver,” the first citywide effort to integrate neighborhood development and transportation. Plans like this matter. It makes more sense to build dense housing, retail, and office space in walkable areas near good transit than in unwalkable transit deserts that encourage driving […]
Will Hancock Follow Through on Upgrades to the Speer-Leetsdale Corridor?
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There’s new evidence that Denver Public Works is slowly breaking down the bulwark of car-first planning, but that won’t guarantee better transit, walking, and biking anytime soon along Speer Boulevard and Leetsdale Drive. The department’s planners and consultants are working on a new transportation scheme for the Speer-Leetsdale corridor, branded “Go Speer-Leetsdale,” that puts transit, […]
#StreetFail: The 46th Avenue “Bike Lane” Is Actually a Parking Lane
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Drivers parking in bike lanes are a chronic problem in Denver. Even bike lanes that are supposed to be physically separated from traffic haven’t been designed well enough to keep parked cars out. But this “bike lane” takes the cake. It was literally designed for cars to park in. This street design is on a mile-long stretch […]