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
Complete Streets Expert Rick Plenge on Transforming Denver’s Streets
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Rick Plenge is one of two people in Colorado certified by Smart Growth America to train local governments how to create complete streets, or streets that work well for walking, biking, and transit. He helps cities all over the country figure out how to reclaim streets for people. And he lives in Denver. Before he moved here, Plenge worked in Chicago […]
Denver Can Do Better Than Its Shoddy Connections to Transit
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Denver’s transit network is growing, but no government body has taken responsibility for improving access to train stations and bus stops — not RTD, not Denver Public Works, not the Colorado Department of Transportation, not Denver’s elected officials. It’s the city’s low-income residents who bear the brunt of this failure. Those are the findings from a report released today by the transit advocates at Mile […]
CDOT Spikes Campaign That Blamed Pedestrians for Getting Hit by Drivers
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Well that was short-lived. After less than two weeks, the Colorado Department of Transportation is dropping a social media campaign championed by Hank, the sleazy infomercial character created to scold people for walking. As Streetsblog Denver reported a couple weeks ago, the campaign was a tone-deaf repackaging of discredited ideas that blame people for their own deaths. There was […]
DPW Has Plan for Neighborhood Bikeways, Now Electeds Needs to Fund Them
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The Department of Public Works is trying to make the city’s east-side neighborhoods better for biking and walking by slowing down traffic and setting aside space solely dedicated to people on bikes and pedestrians. Funding for these projects is uncertain, however. If the projects get funded, they’ll pop up in Congress Park, Cherry Creek, City Park, and other areas east of […]
Chaffee Park’s Streets Need an Overhaul to Make Them Walkable
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Chaffee Park is a north Denver neighborhood scrunched between three highways. Like a lot of neighborhoods in the city, it suffers from street designs that prioritize the movement of car traffic over the safety of people. People who walk in the neighborhood know it’s a terrible and dangerous pedestrian environment. Now a new study maps out those problems block-by-block. […]
Today’s Headlines
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Driver Shreds Through Park Hill at 75 mph, Misses Children Playing, Lands in Yard (Fox31) FoCo Government Reacts to Steve Studt’s Death By Adding Share the Road Sign (Coloradoan) Family, Friends Remember Bicyclist Tom Flanagan, Who Was Killed By Driver (ABC7) B-Cycle Network Returns to Normal After Glitch Downs System (DenPo) Westword Says 16th Street Mall Safety […]
Business Journal Editor Westergaard Flubs the Business of Parking
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After reading a column by Neil Westergaard in today’s Denver Business Journal, you have to wonder if he’s ever bothered to brush up on the basic economics of transportation and planning policy. The piece careens from the dread of density to eradicating “the bums” from the 16th Street Mall, then finally settles on the need for more free […]
How Will Car2Go’s Service Changes Affect Denver Traffic?
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The tiny smart cars in Car2Go’s fleet sit unused much longer in neighborhoods outside of Denver’s urban core than inside it, so the car-share company will shrink its “home area” — the places where car2go drivers can pick up and drop off the vehicles — to exclude neighborhoods like Athmar Park, Wash Park, and Park Hill. The change begins September 14. […]
Plan for “Bike Safety” on Federal: Make People Bike Anywhere But on Federal
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As Streetsblog Denver reported last week, Colorado DOT and the Department of Public Works are adding space for car traffic on Federal Boulevard in the name of safer walking and biking. The premise that widening a street will improve safety goes against a mountain of evidence and experience. And in fact, if you dig a little deeper into […]
RTD’s Quest for a Modern Fare Payment System Is 7 Years Long and Counting
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It’s been about seven years since RTD set out to provide its passengers with what the agency calls a smart card — a modern, streamlined way to pay for transit. At least the idea was modern in 2008, when the strange, long trip began. It’s 2015 and Denver transit riders still can’t add, store, and spend money for fares […]
Yes, Timothy Erickson’s Death Was a Failure of Street Design
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The Denver medical examiner has completed an autopsy of Timothy Erickson, who was struck and killed last month while biking on Colorado Boulevard. The autopsy confirmed that Erickson was not impaired by drugs or alcohol when he was struck. Since Erickson was hit while biking against traffic, in violation of the law, the common knee-jerk reaction has been to […]
Meet Hank, the Guy CDOT Created to Scold People Who Get Hit By Drivers
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Ever wonder what runs through the bureaucratic hive mind of a transportation agency still laboring under last century’s paradigm, trying to evade culpability for designing wide, fast, deadly roads? An agency that thinks the key to remaining relevant is to tweak the same old messages for a Millennial audience by posting to the social medias and the YouTubes? Wonder no more: […]