Playing Frogger on Colfax

“We need to think about how the walking experience feels, how streets make us feel. This is East Colfax Avenue,” Montgomery said, showing the audience some familiar pictures of people playing Frogger in an attempt to cross the urban highway. “Just imagine how you would feel crossing that street. Super. Scared.”

As part of his research, Montgomery put sensors on people crossing streets like Colfax, and found that people are, in fact, super scared — just to cross a street! “And you know what, it should feel scary,” he said. “Six people killed there in 2015. You have this group here called WalkDenver,” Montgomery said, commenting on the advocates’ push to get pedestrian-friendly streetscape improvements on Colfax into Mayor Michael Hancock’s budget. “I don’t think this intervention is being funded in this year’s budget, and this stuff really needs to be. The city has adopted Vision Zero. That means it’s not okay for anybody to die by car. So you need to get on it.”