EDITOR’S DESK: Westsider feedback needed on 24
OK. This is where the rubber meets the road. Pun intended.
![]() If you've felt like you ought to check out what's happening with this year's Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT) Westside Highway 24 public meetings, the one coming up June 21 would be a good time to start. After three gatherings since last November, during which highway consultants dutifully collected virtually every idea under the sun, the June 21 open house will throw most of those ideas back at us in official form and ask us what we think. Did you look at the potential scenarios for Colorado Avenue on Page 1 of this issue? I don't know about you, but I found the full-movement version a little scary, in terms of what something like that would do to the Westside. But seeing it didn't really surprise me. In one of the sub-group meetings I sat in last winter, some citizen proposed cloverleaf interchanges at the highway cross-streets... with a straight face. Many people have been skeptical about CDOT's motives in unabashedly seeking out citizen opinions for the highway upgrade (meetings, websites, contact numbers, etc.). Cynics say it's all window-dressing, that the state will wind up doing what it wants in the end. Maybe... But that's also a slick excuse not to participate. What concerns me is that if enough Westsiders don't take part, outsiders who just want a fast road will hold sway. Granted, a Colorado Avenue with no parking probably won't happen. But do you really want to leave that to chance? - K.J. |