I'm sitting in my hotel room in downtown Denver Colorado. Denver has become a rather progressive and diverse city. There is the 16 street mall, which is a street through downtown closed to cars and only free buses drive up and down it at very short intervals. The center of the street is a pedestrian walk area with trees, plants, benches, lights, and many small kiosks of food and various products vendors. There are several old upright pianos there for anyone to play. Some just pound the keys with garbage, but others are very talented and draw a crowd to enjoy the music. There are artists painting, and musicians playing for dollars in the hat. Most are very good at their music. Many of these gifted people are homeless people, who mix freely with the shoppers, diners, and workers filling the street. It is a very active street, even into the night. The street is lined with cafes, restaurants, shops and department stores. The buses are natural gas and electric hybrid units with several doors that allow easy on and off. There is appropriate police presence to keep order in check. It is a very lively place, even on Saturday. The sounds of people talking and singing, the whirr of the electric buses, the quaint clanging of a bell when the bus close their doors like an old trolley, the smell of food and fun fills the air.
There is a parking lot near the convention center at the 16 street mall that has fenced off part of it for a Farmer's Market. During the lunch hour there are local farmers and vendors setup for the lunch crowd and on weekends they are there all day. There seems to be plenty of people to fill all the eateries, as I seldom saw one empty and during the slowest periods maybe a third filled. It makes you wonder where all the office workers in Salt Lake eat during their lunch break.
Denver has two very progressive transportation initiatives. One is Car Share that are new Toyota Priuses that are driven by car poolers of four or more from the suburbs to assigned free parking spaces on the street in downtown. Of course the users pay a small fee to cover the cost, but it is much cheaper than each of them driving their own separate cars to work every day. During the day, a business can use the car for a short trip, also at a low cost. The benefit of course is the lower emissions to keep the air cleaner and the lower fuel consumption. Another project is bicycle share. Again there are several locations around downtown with bicycles that if you belong to the share system can take and ride to your next location and turn in the bike.
Denver also has light rail and bus service throughout the city and surrounding suburbs. I would not say it is perfect by any means, but very effective.
With this all said, the Tea Party Republican candidate running to unseat Senator Mike Bennett is pointing to these projects as examples of a communist plot perpetrated by the United Nations to socialize America and create a one world order controlled by the U.N. He is attacking Senator Bennett for obtaining some federal matching transportation funds to pay for the cars, bikes, and the light rail, therefore Bennett is a communist socialist under the control of the U.N. This idiot's idea is that any public transportation system is a means to socialism and takes freedom of travel away from the individual. What rock did this brain dead person crawl out from under. How can such nuts rise to the level of running for the Senate??? Wow - America is in trouble.
One can see why Denver has attracted so many businesses and expanded so rapidly compared to Salt Lake. If you visit downtown Salt Lake, it is very quiet compared to Denver, having very few cafes, and of the ones we do have, only a few have open air tables on the street. Nearly every one of them along 16 Street in Denver does. At night Salt Lake is like a ghost town. Salt Lake should look at its sister city in the Rocky Mountain West and emulate some of the progressive ideas they have come up with. But that would require the LDS church to approve such programs and allowing a higher density of drinking establishments within a block than now allowed, as well as more licenses for all the establishments that need them.
I can see why visitors are shocked at how clean our streets are. That's because there is no one on them to dirty them up. I must say though the streets here in Denver are also very clean, except for the many black spots of gum people have spit out. But you find that in every city and it is costly to cleaned up. But if you have very few people on the streets, then there is less of it.
I'm very impressed with the convention center. It is very modern with a lot of high tech features. Much like I proposed to the management of the Salt Palace, but they turned down. They have digital signage kiosks everywhere, touch screens for finding locations within the center and others for what's available around the city. The big ball room is named Korbel for the wine company. There are fixed cafes and food kiosks through out the center. Several serve alcoholic beverages. There are plenty of seating areas to relax between sessions and a huge exhibit hall as well. The light rail system stops right in front of the center as well as the bus system and plenty of taxi cabs and peddle cabs. Built into the convention center is a very large auditorium that can hold thousands with a huge stage and high tech projection screens, lights and audio systems. It was very impressive. The two large ball rooms could be broken down into many small or medium size breakout rooms. It was easy to find your way around, unlike the Salt Palace.
Judy and I are attending the annual American Academy of Family Physicians Scientific Assembly. The attendance is in the thousands, so they need a very large venue and lots of hotel rooms. Salt Lake does not meet their need. One thing about this organization is they have many fun activities for the whole family at night. We went to the Natural History and Science Museum. Wow it was very interactive and used a lot of the high tech display systems I've proposed to many of Utah's museums, but funds did not permit. It was very hands on and museum people with functional displays everywhere to give you more information and interact with the kids.
I must say I'm very impressed with Denver.
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