The next 100 years
Three lanes for a year, and one question this desk asks every week: will it still be here in 2126, and do we want it to be?
The avenue went from four lanes to three in June, Limit to 30th, and it stays that way for a year while the city watches what happens. $375,000 of county transportation tax. There's a survey, open until the concrete goes down, and a second phase in 2027 that makes some of it permanent.
One driver's take - and my office is on the avenue at 2320, so grain of salt: it's great to see this much attention paid to people on foot, and it doesn't slow me down at all. I haven't timed it. (If you have, send the numbers. I mean it.) It adds parking, metered, though how much depends on whether you ask the city or the Gazette, and we've asked both. And it gives us something to yap about, and that might be the most Westside outcome possible. If you hate it, this space is yours next issue, same length, your name on it. I'd rather print your side than guess at it.
This desk asks one question a week about one thing over here: will it still be here in 2126, and do we want it to be? Some weeks it's a building. Some weeks it's the creek, or a cottonwood, or a parking rule. I love the old ways, and I'm not going to keep a single one of them just because somebody did it before us. We get to pick things up. We get to set things down. Some weeks the brick wins and some weeks the lane layout does, and I'd rather not decide ahead of time, and I'd rather not decide alone.
What do I want still here in a hundred years? Westsiders. The bastion-of-acceptance, hyper-local, no-corporate-nonsense people who give up the parking out front without being asked. Buildings I can argue about. People I can't replace.
What we know: four lanes to three, Limit to 30th by the city's page (the Gazette says 31st), since June 2026, for up to a year; $375K of PPRTA money. The Gazette counts about 30 metered spaces added; the city's page says parking changes will be minimal; we've asked which. Phase two in 2027 makes some of it permanent. The survey is open.