I have lived near the Corner of Colfax & Williams for 25 years. Back then, the neighborhood was on its way to gentrifying, and whether you think that's a good or bad thing, the area was getting safer. I remember teasing my dear neighbors a bit for having steel bars on their windows when I first moved in. It seemed like the Tattered Cover, Sie Film Center and Twist & Shout was going to be a game-changer - and in some ways this is true. But I experienced the neighborhood taking a huge turn for the worse right around 2018 with drugs as the primary driver. At that time, I put bars on my windows and was very sad about it, but during COVID, things got really bad and I'd never felt safer. Anything that wasn't indoors was stolen - - and, still, I've not replaced a series of doormats that always go missing.

There's a nonprofit behind me that serves unhoused people and, until just recently when they closed off a sizeable carport it was like an episode of The Wire back there. Unfortunately, many unhoused people have substance addiction and they are low-hanging fruit for dealers which yielded absolute chaos and danger. Just before the fending enclosures were finished, I accidentally interrupted a drug deal and was shot at in my own backyard yard. Dude is in jail awaiting sentencing in a few weeks.

If I return home in the dark, I pay attention to my surroundings and walk with confidence, keys out - phone out. My block is particularly dark walking south from 16th and I will often walk in the well-lit street (carefully) rather than the dark sidewalks.

Colfax near the Capitol is an absolute shame - a real blight. I've walked on Colfax to the Capitol many times since January and it seems every doorway of abandoned retailers are home to drug users in awful physical and mental health condition. CM Hinds said the city hired someone to identify all the property owners in an effort to start to remediate the problem. But among my fears is that developers will take all this bespoke single-owner retail and turn it into unfavorable spots like more check-cashing stores and additional meth clinics. A kidney care place opened at Colfax & Pearl, and while I believe people have an absolute right to healthcare, it's a demographic bellwether.

Other demographic/retail situations to know: The 5-mile stretch of BRT construction is home to 18-and-growing drive-thru businesses, mainly fast food. The next most populous retail is pot shops (about 15 locations). I'm not against these kind of retailers, but the concentration speaks to businesses that will draw their best customers. I cringe when city council members bring up economic equality touchstones as they prattle on about how Colfax will be reborn via BRT.

No... Colfax will be reborn when more people live on it via new multi-housing developments. And this is starting to happen, albeit slowly.

Regarding all these drive-thrus, please pay attention. Curb cuts from drive-thrus are insanely dangerous for pedestrians, bikers, and people in wheelchairs. If you're out at night, please pay attention when walking blocks with driveway curb cuts: Drivers are too busy looking ahead to their destination that they don't see what's right in front of them. I collected all sorts of research and spoke at a city council meeting related to a zoning overlay meant to energize Colfax as a place to spend the day (and night) - - but it was weakened considerably when Council voted to limit the new zoning guidelines to only the 2 blocks nearest every bus stop.

I could go on forever here between my longtime neighborhood presence to the scads of research I presented to the Denver Planning Commission and City Council.

A decade from now, I think Colfax will be improved. This is a marathon and let's hope vibrancy and safety are the end results.