Finally a pedestrian bridge over Wadsworth... except it's going in at Bowles? This seems crazy. How many pedestrians actually walk from the Southwest Plaza Mall to the shops at Bowles Crossing?
What we really need is a pedestrian bridge over Wadsworth at Alameda, in order to connect up the residential and retail complex at Belmar with the Lakewood Civic Center's library, arts center, parks, and government offices.
How is it a bridge gets built at Wadsworth & Bowles, while the residents of Belmar have to play frogger on a daily basis to get across Wadsworth & Alameda?
I believe consideration was given for this location because of the RTD station nearby and the number of pedestrians crossing Wadsworth. If you google wadsworth and bowles construction you will find references to this. That is how I found your blog, via google. Your location suggested seems like a good one to me though!
ReplyDeleteHi-- thanks for stopping by and posting!
ReplyDeleteAnd good point-- there's no doubt a lot of work went into the decision to build the pedestrian bridge at Wadsworth and Bowles. In fact, here's the link to the project home page, for anyone who stops by in the future and is interested: http://jeffco.us/highways/highways_T48_R56.htm#bowleswads
The info there says the number of pedestrians crossing at that intersection over the course of the four days studied ranged from a low of 75 to a high of 252. However, I wouldn't be surprised if pedestrian counts at Wadsworth and Alameda exceeded those numbers by a ratio of 2 or even 3 to 1.
Personally, I think the fundamental reason a bridge got built at Bowles was because it could be rolled into a major highway widening project, and that made it easier to fund. It may have even been required in order to get the funding. But I think this is putting the cart before the horse.
In my view, we need a bridge at Wadsworth and Alameda in order to make the central Lakewood area more walkable. This, in turn, will get more people out of their cars, and head off the need to spend huge amounts of money on highway widening.
I live in this area and drive by that bridge at least ten times a week. I have yet to see more than one person at a time crossing it, even on weekends. In fact, I watched and waited for twenty minutes this past Saturday--a very busy typical weekend day with plenty of traffic--and four people walked over it. Two were kids. This seems like the very essence of waste. It's a monstrosity that rarely gets used.
ReplyDelete