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
Eyes on the Street: A Better Bike Crossing at 16th and Broadway
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Denver Public Works is adding a short stretch of raised bike lane, new intersection markings, and a bike-specific signal at 16th Avenue and Broadway, improving a tricky crossing for people biking into downtown. Buses constantly turning into Civic Center Station and drivers turning left onto 16th make for a chaotic intersection for pedestrians and bicyclists. The makeover should smooth things out with a bike-specific […]
RTD Loses Millions on Parking Because State Legislators Wanted It That Way
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Building and running parking lots is a bad way for transit agencies to spend money — giving those parking spaces away for free is even worse. But that’s exactly what RTD is required to do by state law [PDF]. If RTD charged drivers just $1.50 per day, the agency would raise an extra $8.2 million a year, […]
Denver Engineers Finally Have Clear Rules to Make Safe Pedestrian Crossings
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It’s hard for cities to create safe, walkable streets when engineers follow a playbook that prioritizes car speeds above all. During a redesign of Federal Boulevard, for example, Denver Public Works ignored pleas for safer pedestrian crossings because the agency viewed moving traffic as the primary “purpose and need” of the road. Change the playbook, though, […]
Highways Wrecked Cities 60 Years Ago — Has Denver Learned Anything Since?
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Here’s a video by Vox that offers a breezy history of highways and how the government rammed them through cities — usually at the expense of disadvantaged neighborhoods that lacked political power. Denver knows how that worked out. Residents of Globeville, Elyria, and Swansea have dealt with the pollution, noise, and blight of I-70 since the 1960s. Now Governor John Hickenlooper’s […]
The Future of Our Streets and Neighborhoods Hinges on “Denveright”
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As more people come to Denver, will car traffic overrun streets and neighborhoods, or will the city steer its growth to encourage more trips by transit, biking, and walking? Under the banner “Denveright,” Mayor Michael Hancock and his administration launched four new plans Thursday that could shape Denver for decades to come. Most relevant to streets and transportation are […]
Road Builders Withdraw Ballot Measures That Would Have Snubbed Transit
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On Wednesday the Colorado Contractors Association retreated from its bid to subsidize driving even further by asking Coloradans to pay up to $700 million more in sales tax reserved mostly for road and highway projects. In March, the CCA floated 10 ballot measures that focused almost solely on roads. In a statement, the lobbying group […]
Protesters Confront Anthony Foxx About Denver’s Next Destructive Highway
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Secretary of Transportation Anthony Foxx recently delivered a major speech about the harm that freeway projects have caused cities, especially poorer neighborhoods that lacked the political power to stop or divert them. Nevertheless, Governor John Hickenlooper and his DOT are plowing ahead with a plan to double down on the mistakes of the past by widening I-70 by […]
Gabe Klein on What It Will Take to Transform Denver’s Streets
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Here’s part two of Streetsblog Denver’s interview with Gabe Klein, author of Startup City and former DOT chief of Chicago and Washington, DC. Klein is one of the keynote speakers at today’s Live.Ride.Share conference on shared mobility. In part one of the interview, Klein discussed the potential impact of new vehicle technologies on city streets. Here he delves into […]
#StreetFail: Sandwiched Between a Semi and a Taxi Cab in the Bike Lane
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Plastic posts are not enough to keep drivers out of bike lanes, and here’s a #StreetFail that proves it. Reader Sloan Campi sent in these photos from the Arapahoe Street bike lane. She writes: I was riding in the protected bicycle lane on Arapahoe at 14th Street, when I stumbled upon a taxi parked in the […]
Gabe Klein on How New Car Tech Can Make City Streets Work for People
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Streetsblog Denver interviewed Gabe Klein, author of Startup City and former DOT chief of Chicago and Washington, D.C., as part of a series leading up to Tuesday’s Live.Ride.Share Denver conference on shared mobility. Today, it’s not always easy to get around Denver without a car, but Gabe Klein believes it doesn’t have to be that way tomorrow. Denver […]
Peter Norton: History Can Show Us How to Transform City Streets Again
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Streetsblog Denver interviewed University of Virginia professor Peter Norton as part of a series leading up to Tuesday’s Live.Ride.Share Denver conference on shared mobility. Norton will give one of the keynote talks. Most people assume that our nation’s cities are designed for cars because that’s just the way we prefer things. But the story we […]
What Hump Day? Scenes From Denver’s Bike to Work Wednesday
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Commuting by bike on Bike to Work Day is cool, but BikeDenver and Downtown Denver Partnership know that doing something once a year isn’t really habit-forming. So they launched Bike to Work Wednesdays this morning, the first of seven between now and June 22. The idea is get people into the swing of commuting by bike and show […]