On hometown historic preservation, car fetishes, and a main drag redesign

Durango’s Main Avenue in 1978, when it was still used as a thoroughfare. Note the lack of trees along the sidewalks and the six lanes for cars (two for parking and four for driving). Though the businesses have mostly changed and the mid-century signs have disappeared, it still looks pretty similar and the street is still very wide.

It has been with some dismay that I’ve read in my hometown paper that people are continuing to stridently oppose Durango, Colorado’s proposal to make its downtown safer and more pleasant for pedestrians. It’s baffling to me that such a benign plan — which at its core is simply widening the sidewalks in places — could generate such vitriol and even fear. 

The opponents give all sorts of reasons — some reasonable, some absurd, some utterly confounding (I’ll get to those in a minute). But ultimately the pushback seems to be sparked by a deeply held fear that the automobile’s supremacy will be diminished, as well as an almost primal fear of change. And that is what makes one town’s fight over wider sidewalks a universal battle that plays out in many different forms across the West.

The proposed redesign would stretch nine blocks along downtown Durango’s Main Avenue. Historically, this was the city’s central business district, lined with hotels and restaurants and bars and banks and gas stations and furniture stores, soda fountains and hardware stores and clothing shops and even a couple department stores (including JC Penneys and Gradens Mercantile). And up until the 1970s it was also the main artery going through the town — a part of the state highway system. In other words, travelers wanting to go from, say, Silverton to the north to Farmington to the south would drive down Main Avenue, turn left on 6th Street (now known as College Drive), and then turn right onto 8th Ave and State Highway 3. 

In the ‘60s, Camino del Rio, or what we always knew as the “Truck Bypass” was constructed along the Animas River, routing traffic around downtown, and later the High Bridge was built south of town, firmly establishing Camino del Rio as Durango’s main through-artery. The downtown segment of Main Avenue gradually shed its role as a thoroughfare, the hardware stores and such shifted over to Camino del Rio and, ultimately, out to the big box-land south of town. 

But Main Avenue did not shed its thoroughfare design. Which is to say it looks like downtown Delta or Montrose, both of which have major highways running through them. Up until several years ago there were six lanes for cars: two for parallel parking, and four for driving. That has been reduced to five lanes, with wider parking areas, two driving lanes, and a middle turn lane/delivery truck lane. That’s an improvement, but still, it’s five lanes for cars on a street that is not a throughway — that isn’t even really necessary (since folks could use side streets and alleys to access businesses). 

So, for more than four decades, residents, business owners, and city leaders have worked to make Main Avenue look and feel less like a major highway and more like a business district. In fact, in the early 1980s my father, who was on the city council, floated the idea of closing a block or two off to cars altogether and convert them into a pedestrian mall — one of a slew of progressive initiatives. It was shot down, in part because people still thought of Main Avenue as a thoroughfare. And besides, it would totally disrupt the teenagers who liked to cruise Main. More incremental, less disruptive efforts continued, however, some taking hold (such as planting trees along Main, also in the 80s), some not. 

When COVID hit, and indoor dining became a no-no, the weakness of relatively narrow sidewalks was driven home. There’s simply not enough room for restaurants to put tables in front of their business, meaning if they don’t have a patio in the back, they’re out of luck. The temporary “bump outs,” which allowed businesses to put patios in the parking zone, were a hit, and gave a push to long-simmering efforts to redesign Main Avenue. That, along with at least three pedestrians being hit by cars, has led to the current “Next Step” proposal that’s stirring up so much ire. 

Downtown’s Next Step preferred concept (which remains preliminary) would widen the sidewalks with bump-outs near intersections and in the middle of the block on some segments, it would include pedestrian crossing “bulbs” on all corners, and there would be a lot more trees along the sidewalks. And that’s really about it. Every block would still have segments with five lanes for cars, and the delivery truck/turn-lane would remain throughout the entire stretch (meaning there are no segments with fewer than three lanes for cars).

It doesn’t sound that scary to me. But some folks seem to think that it would destroy life in Durango. Let’s go through a few of the reasons for opposition: 

• The main gripe is with the net loss of parking spaces along Main Ave. This is important to them, apparently, because they don’t want to walk from their car to whatever business they may be patronizing — even if it’s only a block or two. Some of these parking-space-focused people even imply that visitors will go somewhere else if they can’t park directly in front of a specific business. 

• Others worry about fire trucks or large delivery vehicles being able to navigate around the pedestrian bulbs.

• Opponents are concerned that the narrower street sections will put delivery truck operators at greater risk of being hit by a car. 

• One letter to the editor writer, after maligning the plan without giving any reasons for their opposition, asked: “Wider sidewalks, why? They will steer shoppers away from businesses.”

• And, most head-scratching of all is the claim that it would diminish the historical character of downtown and even “destroy the integrity of this special place,” as one person put it. 

I’ll just take these one by one:

• There are currently 1,641 public parking spaces within a 5-minute walk of downtown Durango, according to the city. Surveys by the city, along with my own observations, have found that even during the busiest times of day, there are ample vacant spaces — from 10% to 50% or more — within a couple blocks of Main Avenue. The Next Step plan would eliminate 47 of those spaces, or about three percent, which is about the same that were lost during the COVID bump-out days. It will not, by any stretch of the imagination, cause a parking shortage. It will mean fewer people jamming up traffic while trying to parallel park on the main drag, but is that really a bad thing? 

• The city says it tested fire trucks on the concept and found that the bulbs could, in fact, be navigated. 

• The main danger to delivery truck drivers who park on Main is being hit by a passing car. By narrowing the road, Next Step will slow traffic, reducing danger, not increasing it. 

• I don’t think I need to respond to the “wider sidewalks steer folks away from businesses” argument. Come on! 

And, finally, we get to the historical character argument. This one is so absurd and so misguided that I shouldn’t even waste time on it, since no one can seem to articulate how, exactly, wider sidewalks would detract from the historical integrity. But the thing is, the point was made by the board of the La Plata County Historical Society, which gives it the illusion of being credible. It’s not. 

In her letter to the Durango Herald in which she decried Next Step’s potential to destroy Durango’s integrity, Sidny Zink reminds readers that downtown Durango is a nationally registered Main Street Historic District and, “It is the intent of the Registry that the Historic District be preserved with the streetscape of the period of the 1880s and ’90s.”

This is where the less restrained Land Desk would make some snarky comment about there being no cars back in the 1880s, so really we’d need to tear up the asphalt, ban automobiles, and bring back the streetcar that ran down the middle of the Avenue. Or maybe I’d ask whether “preserving the streetscape” includes restoring the manure that surely piled up in the gutters, or the sewer or garbage that ended up in the gutters. And what about the thick cloud of coal smoke from homes and the smelter that coated all the buildings with oily grime and reduced visibility of those grand buildings? 

But no, I’m not like that. So I went back and found the 1980 document nominating the Main Avenue Historic District for the registry. It says the district consists of “104 commercial buildings that collectively reflect the late nineteenth and early twentieth century history and architecture of the downtown area.” Eighty-six of those buildings contribute to the historic integrity, it said, and of those, nine were particularly important. 

Nowhere does the document mention streets, parking spaces, sidewalks, or even streetscapes, because they are not architecturally significant nor did they contribute to the overall ambience. They didn’t include those things because trying to preserve the historical integrity of a streetscape by banning any alterations to sidewalks or parking spots is as absurd as depriving the Strater Hotel (one of the nine important buildings) of indoor plumbing in order to maintain its 1880s architectural character. In fact, it didn’t even apply to signs on the buildings: The same city council that pushed for the registry listing also passed a strict sign code that phased out all of the gaudy, if historic, signs in town. 

Historical preservation is not freezing something in time. Nor is inclusion on a historic register meant to block or prevent change or evolution. And yet, this is exactly what opponents of this plan are trying to do. 

I was born in Durango 54 years ago this month and in the ensuing decades have seen a lot of changes, some good, some not so much. Looking through the historic district nomination, and the list of structures and the businesses in them in 1980, really drives this home and stirs up the nostalgia. It’s like a deluxe version of the Used-to-Be Game: While most of the buildings remain, only a handful of the establishments housed in them have survived. 

There’s no more Treasure Tunnel or Franciscos. The Galloping Goose and the Gold Slipper are long gone, as are Alpine Sports, Farquahrts, Woolworths, the Warm Flow (a hippy restaurant with an unappetizing name), Pacesetters, Johnson Jewelry, Main Street Furnishings, Piedras Gallery, The Tannery, Landis Shoe Store, Ski Fritz Sports, Crazy Horse Hair, Mr. Rosewaters, Cat & the Fiddle, Seismos, Lost Pelican, French Hardware, New York Bakery, J.C. Penney, Hogans, Coast-to-Coast, Panhandler Pies, Peterson Office Supply, Penningtons, Model Tire Store, Gallerie Marguerite, Four Faces, Stone House Bakery, Stuarts. I could go on. 

Reading this list is a bit sad for me because it reminds me of my childhood and how far behind me it is and it also reminds me how much has changed in my hometown. Most of the functional, practical stores — places to get a pair of Levis, a new suit, cheap plastic items, or your shoes repaired — have vanished, replaced by big box stores out on the fringe. And many (but certainly not all) of them have been replaced by real estate offices, boutiquey tourist-oriented stores, and overpriced eateries. The actual 1980s-era character and integrity of the downtown has changed dramatically over four decades (as can be expected), even as the architecture and the “streetscape” has remained relatively unchanged. 

When Durango old-timers push back on progressive initiatives like the Next Step plan or the town acquiring open space or establishing new parks or building new boat ramps or extending the Animas River Trail, I don’t think they’re actually worried about losing historical integrity. What they are actually afraid of is this other kind of change, one that’s more fundamental and cultural. And to some degree the fear is justified: If you do things to improve residents’ quality of life in a place, it’s going to make that place more appealing to non-residents, who will then move in, buy property and drive up prices. That, in turn, will push out the less wealthy people and the less profitable businesses. Newcomers will make their own “improvements,” leading to a sort of gentrification feedback loop. 

That sucks. But you’re not going to stop it by trying to lock the dysfunctional, car-centric downtown into place, just as the historical registry listing didn’t stop or slow the changes that have occurred in the last four decades. A community can’t block these sorts of changes, and attempting to do so by shooting down quality-of-life initiatives is futile and a form of self-harm. A community has to accept the changes while mitigating their negative effects, which can include pushing programs and implementing policies such as expanding public transit and improving pedestrian and bicycling infrastructure (to render those parking spaces obsolete), to building affordable housing, to buying locally, to supporting the arts, to raising wages for public employees. Oh, and they can also shed their automobile fetish and learn to love the loss of parking spots. 

Durangotans can lament the changes, while also celebrating them. They can enjoy the Animas River Trail and all the great singletrack and tasty new restaurants, even though they may have contributed indirectly to the breakneck growth and housing crisis. They can take heart in the fact that some of those downtown businesses of old have adapted to survive and even thrive: Gardenswartz is still there, as is Maria’s Bookshop, the Outdoorsman lives on as Mountain Bike Specialists, you can still get a haircut at Tucson’s, a beer at the El Rancho, and some spicy, greasy green-chile at the Diner. And if the Next Step ever happens, you can even enjoy those things out on one of the bumpouts and be safer when walking there. 

In the 1980 national register nomination form, the author wrote: “The Main Avenue Historic District in Durango is significant because it represents the essence and core of both the evolution and development of business and commerce in the most important town in southwestern Colorado.” The key word? Evolution.