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My Side

Chris McGovern

I live in and have commercial properties downtown. For 25 years I operated Threads, a ladies clothing store, on Grand. Approximately 65 percent of my customers were locals, about 35 percent tourists. Regardless of where they came from, more than 95 percent arrived by car.

In the past several years Glenwood has lost a tremendous amount of driving “access” in downtown.

The closing of the west wing street means no ability to travel south on Grand from 7th.



Building the jail removed the entire 700 block of Pitkin from “driving traffic.” Now there is no ability to go south on Pitkin from 7th or north on Pitkin from 8th.

All of the traffic from the bypass coming into downtown is dumped onto 7th Street: the 700 block of Colorado has become a thoroughfare!



Colorado is one-way from 9th to 13th – there is no ability to travel north.

Cooper is one-way from 13th to 9th – there is no ability to go south.

Traffic corners of 8th and Grand as well as 9th and Grand have huge numbers of cars going through those intersections, a situation that did not exist just a few years ago. This has occurred because of the cars from the bypass.

Traffic is increasing by leaps and bounds in downtown and through downtown, yet there are fewer and fewer streets that are being left to handle the flow! The current wing street provides a real service for people trying to maneuver around Glenwood.

Locals, tourists, shoppers, employees, and business owners all need the ability to get around. Yes, they will walk, but they will walk once they are able to park their cars.

One City Council member mentioned that he thought it was city council’s mission to help change people’s driving habits. Well, that very well may be true – people who cannot drive TO and THROUGH downtown will break the habit of going there.

We will eventually lose the vibrancy of mom ‘n’ pop shops, boutiques and restaurants because people broke the habit of going downtown. People will just stay in their cars and drive south or west to a mall.

There have been huge impacts forced upon small business owners in Glenwood: by city, county, and state actions in the past few years. I would request that City Council not add to difficulties. Please do not close the east Grand Avenue wing street.


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