Volume 53, Issue No. 4
A Greater Park Hill Community, Inc. Publication
April 2014
Traffic Spikes By At Least 40 Percent
Growth From Surrounding Neighborhoods Inspires Officials To Urge Ditching Cars For Mass Transit; Some Deem That ‘Solution’ Impractical By Cara DeGette Brian Rodeno is standing on the corner of 17th Avenue at Krameria Street. Cars stream down his residential street. One by one they slow down, long enough for drivers to make sure there is no oncoming traffic. All clear, they skip right through the stop sign – never mind stopping. When they do have to stop or risk getting T-boned by oncoming cars, they line up along Krameria four, five, six, seven deep. This is how it is on Krameria every day, including holidays. “Holy cow, this is a very narrow street that was never meant to carry that amount of traffic,” says Rodeno. Since 2010, city officials estimate a 40 percent increase in the overall traffic flowing through parts of Park Hill. On his 1800 block of Krameria, Rodeno puts that figure at a 75 percent spike. The development of Stapleton to the east and Lowry to the southeast, places Park Hill as an easy route downtown and to other points north and west. And, the redevelopment of the site of the former University Hospital to the south will add to the strain of traffic in Park Hill. The massive increase in traffic shouldn’t be a surprise. But, Rodeno and others maintain that Denver officials have not been diligent in preparing a comprehensive plan to direct and control increased traffic flows – and help alleviate traffic jams. “It astounds me that 30,000 people are going to be living [in Stapleton alone], and
we’ve never had this discussion of how people would get downtown,” he says. Rodeno’s street is one of only a few northsouth streets in Park Hill that directly crosses from the north side across Colfax to the south side. As a result, it has (unexpectedly, at least for Rodeno) become a collector street, bringing a steady stream of cars. Krameria now may be a collector but is still a two-lane residential street. People can still park in front of their homes, but the risk their cars will be hit has increased exponentially. If they park in their driveways, good luck being able to easily back out. Increased traffic negatively impacts property values and creates safety concerns. People, Rodeno points out, no longer spend time in their front yards, getting to know neighbors. He worries a child will get hit. “They have more or less made this a freeway,” says Barbara Redmond who, along with Rodeno detailed concerns during the Feb. 6 meeting of the GPHC. “This started out being all about me, but now I’m worried about the entire neighborhood,” Rodeno says. “This is coming to a 19th Avenue, or a 26th Avenue, near you.”
indeed responded. Four-way stops have recently been added to slow down traffic along Krameria. Signs that restrict right and left turns during high-traffic parts of the day have been added, as well as a sign that prohibits turning into the neighborhood from the McDonald’s on Colfax and Krameria. “It is true that the traffic has increased, by virtue of Krameria being one of the few through streets,” Susman said. “The ultimate solution to stop traffic would be to block it off, which the city will not do.” Susman, along with city traffic planners, maintains the only true solution is to get people out of their cars and use mass transit. “Two-thirds of Los Angeles is roadway devoted to cars and I wouldn’t want that for our city,” says Susman. Denver, she says, has a policy of not widening existing roads. “Our solution is [public] transit; it can’t be more parking spaces and building more roads. We need to make it so people will want to get on transit of some kind. “Denver is a booming place, the No. 1 destination for people ages 25 to 34,” she continues. “The younger generation tends to buy fewer cars,” and uses mass transit.
The ultimate solution
Look in the mirror
In his presentation, Rodeno complained that, with the exception of City Council President Mary Beth Susman and her staff, the city has been largely unresponsive to his requests for help. But, in an interview with the GPHN, Susman noted that, in her mind the city has
Greater Park Hill Community Board Secretary Bernadette Kelly says she and two other GPHC board members recently met with city traffic planners to talk about what can be done to address the flood of traffic into Park Hill. The city is in the process of figuring out
potential options to the clogged north-south Quebec Street arterial on the east side of Park Hill (see sidebar). However, Kelly says the group was told a comprehensive study is not in the cards, as the city does not study traffic by individual neighborhoods. Rather, the citywide focus is the goal to encourage people to walk more, ride their bikes more, and use mass transit. In other words, the response, Kelly said, was to “look in the mirror and change your whole behavior … stop driving your cars.” “I totally understand that as valid, but I don’t think it is realistic,” she said. “Between the time you start that change in behavior, to being successful, you still need to deal with the traffic.” continued on page 9
Ludlow Remembered: A Century of Shame At Least 18 Workers, Women, Children Cut Down in Grisly Massacre 100 Years Ago By Phil Goodstein This month marks 100 years of a slaughter that will long be remembered as a most dark day in Colorado. The standoff started seven months before. On Sept. 23, during a raging blizzard, 12,232 coal miners and their families went on strike in southern Colorado. Staging the walkout at the beginning of
the winter heating season, they protested the miserable way the state’s largest employer, the Rockefeller-owned Colorado Fuel & Iron (CF&I), had treated them. Not only were their wages extremely poor, but the workers, and their families, were forced to live in company towns, complete with the supervision of an omnipresent private security force. Most of all, CF&I bitterly combated unions. The company refused to allow the workers or
"Ruins of Ludlow," a view of the burned out village. Credit: Denver Public Library/Western History & Genealogy
Councilman Chris Herndon weighs in on a unified Park Hill
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INSIDE THIS ISSUE
Follow the cash: Tools to maneuver the political money maze
PAGE 4
April 2014
their representatives to have the slightest say about work and living conditions. Most of the strikers were immigrants. The Pueblo-based CF&I had recruited many of them in the wake of a previous strike in 1903–04. In addition to numerous men and women from southern and eastern Europe, there were a sizable number of Hispanics, some of whom were from Mexico. CF&I also brought in African-Americans from southern states. It cynically employed divide-and-conquer tactics to keep its workers from challenging the company’s complete dictatorship over their daily lives. At this time, the United Mine Workers (UMW) had made considerable advances in the East in gaining union recognition for the men who dug coal. The labor organization had also had some success in organizing workers in the northern Colorado coalfields around Lafayette, Boulder and Louisville. It knew that none of its contracts were secure as long as CF&I could undercut union employers. The Wall Street firm deliberately sold its coal for a loss in certain markets as a way of forcing union firms out of business. From the time the UMW launched the organizing campaign, CF&I was blunt. If the workers walked off their jobs, they would be evicted from the company towns. In re-
sponse, the union leased government lands in barren parts of the Front Range close to the coal mines. It proceeded to purchase camping equipment. In about 10 instant tent villages, the workers stayed for the duration of the strike—many had no other place to go.
Surviving a bitterly cold winter The supporters of the UMW showed an incredible fortitude. In response, CF&I beefed up its security force. It hired notorious gunmen of the Baldwin–Felts Detective Agency, an outfit that had previously shot down striking coal miners in West Virginia. The goons sought to intimidate striking workers while they escorted scabs into the mines. The workers fought back. Before long, violence flared through the strike zone. In response to company pleas, Gov. Elias Ammons mobilized the National Guard to keep peace in southern Colorado. He had won the statehouse in 1912 in an overwhelming Democratic sweep. His only hesitation about sending in the militia was the heavy costs it involved. The soldiers immediately demanded the disarming of the workers. No such constraints were placed on CF&I’s gunmen.
Park Hill Roots: It’s April, time to get your hands dirty
continued on page 8
NEXT GPHC MEETING Thursday, April 3 at 6:30 p.m. 2823 Fairfax St., Denver
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