If you visited another city or lived in one. What’s something there that seems like a luxury in Denver?
What’s someone that people in other cities have that feels like a luxury in denver?
I would add bodies of water that you are allowed to access without all sorts of restrictions
I was born and raised in Colorado. When I first went to South Carolina I asked the name of a river we passed. They laughed and said that was just a "crick." That was when I first realized Colorado doesn't have much for bodies of water.
Why are there so few lakes in "Lakewood "?
Because all lakes got converted to wood
That's where they store all the lake wood
This!
A good friend of mine got a tapeworm in the CC reservoir while she was paddle boarding. Haven’t been able to bring myself to go into it since.
Woah how did she confirm it was from there? Also I guess she got the eggs on her hand or did she swallow water?
I don’t remember the specific type of tapeworm she had, but based off of the development stage of the worm, they were able to estimate the date she would have gotten it and the only place she had been in that time was CCR (this was 2020, peak pandini). She’s vegan, so they were able to essentially cross off acquiring it from meat
Many vegetable and lettuce fields get watered with irrigation from livestock farms, plenty of cross contamination happens. Salads don’t get cooked, so things can enter your body from them.
I'd suspect this more, followed by cross-contamination from infected hands during food preparation.
Agreed, I love camping and I prefer to do it on a river or lake, alone. Plenty of those where I'm from. Nearly impossible to do in Colorado.
My wife and I like to swim and kayak in the reservoirs but, it's not the same.
Try the flooded forest at chatfield if you haven’t already! It’s new as of this year (they expanded the res) and way prettier than you’d ever imagine being right in Denver
Reliable late night food options that actually have decent food
Aldi
Hell, even a just a non-Kroger/Safeway-Albertsons owned option that isn’t a premium whole grocer. We have zero regional competitors, so Safeway and Kroger can just put shit resources here and charge as they want.
I'd kill for a WinCo out here.
Tell them! I've sent that feedback to them a few times and the most recent time they actually said they're exploring options and asked what part of town I'm in and where would I like to see a first store. All the prior times they said they had no plans to expand to Colorado.
I'll help you dispose of the body. LOVE WinCo!
As I recall, you were both having coffee with me at the time in question.
What about sprouts or Trader Joe’s
Overpriced and low selection. If there were more TJ rather than just two in the city, great!
Wegman’s!
I miss Aldi
Lmao. A discount grocery store is considered a luxury here. How ironic
Not that I disagree. I seriously miss being able to shop at Aldi.
I miss Aldi more than my family
I love listening to music.
Sidewalks wider than 3 feet.
Sidewalks in general.
I see you've never been to Texas. I was there for business last summer and they have cords walks that dont connect to side walks
It's a cross walk that auto correct gets ahold of. But basically there would be the Ada required textured spots for blind people, and then the sidewall just. Stops. You get maybe 5ft of sidewalk.
The hell is a cords walk.
I’m wondering the same thing lol
Have lived in every major city in TX, have no idea what a cord(s) walk is.
This is a USA problem not a Denver problem 😂
There are plenty of US cities with sufficient foot paths.
...and that don't slant.
Road lines that you can see at night &/or in the rain.
Seriously, somehow every other place in America has figured this out, but Denver is just playing dumb like "sorry, reflective paint doesn't exist. Derrrrp"
I absolutely cannot see shit in this city at night, and my eyesight is just fine.
Have always had great eyesight and thought I was losing it when I started driving in CO at night.
I’m night blind so I don’t drive past 430 this time of year 😩
This is the winner. Denver is the only place ive had this problem.
Dude I thought my eyes were failing me
holy shit I thought I was crazy or going even more night-blind.
Part of the issue is deicing and plowing just destroys paint super quickly. They had been installing those recessed reflectors, which are nice, but I haven't seen any new ones recently.
For what it’s worth, it’s really bad in Charlotte, NC, too.
Good public transportation. Lived on the north side of Chicago til I was 36, then I moved here. I was spoiled, thought it was like that in every city.
Edit: never imagined this comment would spark so much discussion and it’s been interesting hearing many different opinions. Thanks to all for chiming in!
YEP
Lived in MA for years and whenever I visited Boston, I could park my car a T stop and then use the public transit to get EVERYWHERE in the greater Boston area with zero issues.
If I want to do anything in Denver the option is drive or spend a ton on an Uber.
I don't mind driving in the city, I've driven around Boston and NYC my share of times and Denver is super simple by comparison. (fuck 25) But sometimes I wanna get my drink on, so Uber it is.
They just gotta elevate RTD or put it underground to create a lot more access.
Agree 100% - I easily lived without a car in Chicago because it was completely unnecessary. I was naively caught off guard when I got here and realized I had to get a car. But I do love living in Colorado, been here almost 30 years now. I’d never move back there.
Someone described Denver’s public transportation system like a bike wheel spokes without a tire connecting them.
If I want to go from Olde Town Arvada to Golden (18 minute drive) it’s an hour and 18 minutes RTD ride and I have to go all the way to Union Station.
If I want to go from downtown Littleton to Denver Tech Center it’s a 20 minute drive or hour RTD ride. Let’s also not forget that the DTC stations (Belleview and Orchard) are awkwardly too far north/south so you most likely need to walk an additional 20-30 minutes to get to your office.
Even downtown is pretty bad. If I want to get from Union Station to the zoo it’s a 40 minute bus ride or a 20 minute drive. Although this claims there is a 10 minute walk involved which I assume is trying to get you into the middle of the zoo instead of the gates.
I’ll take the public transport here over Austin any day
Denver has great public transportation compared to other cities of a similar size. Even Phoenix (~2x as big) has nowhere near the public transit options
Let’s not use Phoenix as our measuring stick. We could do so much better.
Denver has better public transportation than any city south of it.
Respectfully, if most people have to drive to get to it, it’s not “great.” It’s useful and pretty clean.
You mean had great public transport. RTD has somehow managed to fuck up bus frequencies and routing so bad that it really isn't usable for most people anymore.
The infrastructure is almost there - but the lack of security is a major deterrent for use in cases other than going and coming from work in daylight hours. Also - the coverage is limited, and could be so much better.
Yeah, almost any time someone says "Denver's public transit sucks, I moved here from X and they had way better systems", X is a much bigger city.
Don't get me wrong, Denver's public transit is whack, but the root issues there are about America, not Denver itself. Denver does pretty well given its size and the broader state of public transit in the US.
I agree that it’s good compared to similarly sized cities, but that’s not exactly a high bar.
Synced Traffic Lights.
I worked late night event service for years, and driving down north broadway back to our shop was my fav. One way, could cruise through the lights.
I also used to play rec league soccer up at Dicks. Driving down Colorado Blvd at 10pm, with almost no one else out, and still hitting every third light was maddening.
Fuuuuuck Colorado Blvd
I'm convinced Colorado dislikes anyone who needs to make a left turn
That is because turning left is a privilege not a right. ;)
Speer and Broadway are largely timed.
I think they’re synced to slow down traffic. Park has had a bunch of people get mowed down by cars…so it purposely synced that you have to stop every other light, to slow down the flow of traffic so no one gets murked. The lights ARE synced, but they’re all different patterns. If you drive a lot you learn em. Edit to say again: they ARE synced, but not in a way to let you go fast.
But what if they were synced to prioritize going the speed limit? If you knew that driving 30 mph down 17th Ave, for instance, would allow you to drive for a stretch without stopping, but speeding would make you hit every light as a red, I think this would be ideal. Instead, we have people rushing because, among other things, they are always sitting at red lights.
Actually, they are. Some of them. When you cross Speer on 14th going east. And then beat the light at Lincoln, then (race) to beat the light at Logan, you’re in the clear. Same with Colfax. Cross Speer, and then it’s impossible to make both Galapago and Fox (again, this is on purpose). After Fox if you go 30 to Broadway the lights will change without stopping. Once you cross Broadway, if you can cross Grant, you’re in the clear.
Basically, if you’re going up 38th, going about 2 miles under the speed limit, you’ll never see a red light
Preach
Public transit that serves the people
This. Lived in NYC for years. Managed to get around LA by bus when I went for a job interview. Went out with friends downtown and planned to take light rail home at 8. Missed the train by 3 minutes. Next one wasn’t for an hour. That’s not reasonable in a city this size
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4mo
I have only been to a handful of American cities where this is true. I agree with the sentiment but it's the rule rather than the exception that you need a car in the US
NY, Boston, DC, Chicago. That's it really. Denver actually has pretty good transit compared to anything South.
I’m with you. Obviously Denver public transit could be improved, but it’s no worse than a vast majority of American cities. We may not be New York or Chicago, but compared to cities of the same size, Denver is just as good or better
In other cities bigger than Denver. Anything smaller than Denver, and you just about have to have one. I used to live in a city of 2.1 million, and the public transport here is absolutely miles ahead of it, as impossible as it sounds.
Cries in Austin
Itd be nice to have a light rail line in actual neighborhoods like other cities do, instead stations that are surrounded by parking lots. Wish we had a line in cap hill.
Public bathrooms open year round.
More left turn signals at intersections would be great. In general I’m not impressed with the civil engineering here. Like, what is that I-25 & hwy 6 interchange trying to do?
Kill us.
There isnt a logical explanation for that intersection
Yes there is, you replied to it
I'm not sure the public would want to deal with the funding and time it would take to get us out of the spot we're in. Civil don't just arbitrarily make bad shit. It's not designed for the current pop and they're limited by government funding and public will.
More left turn signals at intersections would be great
and if the intersections that do have them could leave them green long enough to clear the left turn lane that would be great.
It was designed for 1/3 of the population
That interchange was last reworked within the last 20 years. I don’t think that interchange’s usage has changed much since then.
It was poorly designed before, and almost equally poorly designed after the expensive modifications.
Pools
a major grocery brand that doesn't suck.
longer left turn filters
municipalities that handle 100% of sanitation pickups. no dogshit companies like Waste Connections.
A police department that does traffic enforcement
Is there something bad about King Soopers that I'm not aware of? I've never had any problems shopping there.
Have you been to heb, Publix, Aldi?
I moved here from Austin, and King Soopers has been the nearest equivalent to HEB that I've found. IMO Kroger brand stuff is on par with HEB's house brand 🤷♂️
I moved here from Austin too and I wholeheartedly disagree. I miss HEB so much.
HEB is far superior dude
I miss a good ole Publix sub…
Was waiting for someone to say this. I don’t know what it is but pub subs and Publix chicken wings are the first thing I get when I get off the plane in Florida.
Reading through the comments tells me that the only thing Denver is really missing is a plan for the future, and that should include great transit options, safe streets, cheap ways to start restaurants, a government that spends resources to attract budget grocery chains, a police force that serves the people, and a government that brings the city into the future instead of catering to people that want to keep it in the past.
I feel this from Denver, for real. The city feels so opposed to the growth it's experiencing. Everything from civil engineering to urban planning. Sprawling suburbs with next to no public transit, neighborhoods without paved sidewalks, a housing shortage that we all suffer from, a strange obsession with single-use zoning. It's the same complaints, year after year, and nothing feels like it's actually being addressed.
They're simply kicking the can down the road unfortunately. And, I bet if we asked them at a political rally, they'd make big promises and do nothing because they know that the well entrenched population here would rather watch people starve to death than change a system that benefits them.
Neighborhood plans are currently being shaped/drafted. The process is much more convoluted than it needs to be but I’d highly encourage you to get involved in your community.
Any regional grocery store other than Krogers
Haven’t seen it commented yet, but bodegas! So much of Denver is a food desert. I wish more strips like Broadway had little bodegas where you could get stuff like eggs, bakery bread, premade meals that were actually good, or a deli counter. There’s a great one by Mercury Cafe, I wish there was 20 more scattered around Denver.
Denver is like 10x smaller than nyc so it kinda makes sense. Everyone lives in suburbs here
There’s one by the ball park called Brothers that is great, I go there all the time. Next door is Hummus which is amazing as well and open hella late usually.
Wait I just remembered there are two! Max’s Deli too
Moisture
Quality Kabobs
Yes please! The best late-night food.
Also: Late night food.
Yeah, we could probably start with that in general.
our music scene is a luxury
Lakes. Growing up in Michigan I was on a lake 3-7 days a week in the summer
Lack of lakes for me is big
Some kind of aesthetically pleasing city planning around new builds. The new builds - both residential and commercial - here look like ugly Lego blocks. What a waste of resources and construction.
For real some of these new modern duplexes look like a Minecraft starter home. The most expensive home in my neighborhood here had corrugated tin shed material on the side as decoration
This I can agree on. they only make the builders do the minimum.
Houses that you can afford without being a millionaire
What other cities of comparable size have that?
Philadelphia is larger and has affordable houses. But you have to live in Philadelphia.
— A Philadelphia home owner.
Baltimore, Columbus, Milwaukee, Memphis, Chicago, Pittsburgh, Dallas just to name a few
Minneapolis.
Seconded on the transit answer. Did 1 month in NYC (Boreum Hill sublease) and used the subway so much, no car. We came back and wanted to meet some friends at a bar on S. Broadway for a Nuggets playoff game and we were like, I wish a train went there. Oh wait, it DOES because we live near the A Line station and can take it to the E Line. Then I looked at the E line schedule. For some reason the headways are every 30 mins even tho its the only way to get from Union Station to most south Denver stations without transferring. The connections weren't timed and we would have had to wait like 24 minutes at union station after getting of A line to connect with the E. We bailed and called an Uber. Some of our transit is so miserable, that even IF you can get there on a train, you still don't want to try it. Now imagine if there was a subway under cap hill and the highlands that ran every 8 minutes.
Plenty of places to eat which are open late
Food worth the price (either the food could be better or the price lower, I'm not picky)
Reliable public transit which is generally clean and safe and which takes residents and tourists to the areas they most need or want to be
A wide variety of Japanese goods and groceries (including produce). We have HMart, and also Pacific Mercantile, which do their best, but it's substantially better in other cities like Seattle
Something like New Seasons Market in Portland (https://www.newseasonsmarket.com/) which is affordable, has good local food, etc
Something like McMennamins (https://www.mcmenamins.com/) which is a brew pub, hotel and music venue all in one
Neighborhoods which have more personality or character outside of the main city center neighborhoods
Bro you just literally explaining Portland lol
I love that we have legit Asian markets here.
Are you really surprised that a landlocked hard americana sort of place doesn't have the same market selections as one of the largest Asian populations in THE WORLD outside of Asia?
I mean, I get you....I want that too, but GEOGRAPHY, dude.
Exactly this. Also looking at this list and I think they belong to the PNW…
Denver demolished its entire Chinatown district in the 70s, it would have been much greater if they had not for sure, and a reason why our options are so shit and we drove local asian populations out
I didn't say I was surprised, just listing things which feel like luxuries here but other cities take for granted. Most of the things on my list I could point to valid reasons we don't have them here.
You know one of the Japanese incarceration camps was close to Denver and a bunch of Japanese folks were sent here after they were shut down.
Agree with the late night/cheap food for sure lll
good bagels
Longer left turn green arrows
A late night scene - food and drink - (the kinds you won't get roofied at.)
Fuckin' cleanliness.
There's so much shit on the highways that I've never experienced in New England. Hell, they don't even remove broken down vehicles on the side of the highway.
Went to a Rockies game in the summer on a windy day and there was literal trash just blowing around on the field.
For as outdoorsy as this state is, the cleanliness just doesn't agree with the lifestyle.
Rain
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4mo
Kind of important to say where that is.
That’s interesting, I used to live in Miami and made way less there and rent was more expensive there. I agree housing is too expensive in Denver, but our relatively high minimum wage helps offset it a little
Late night food
Half these comments are things that mostly only exist in a handful of other cities, and we have some of them better than half the country.
Good boutiques with clothes you actually want to buy
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4mo
Food after 9pm
Good Italian food
You obviously haven’t been to Gallo.
Good food in general. You can find it in Denver but you gotta really look for it.
A decent transportation system.
Housing
Air conditioning. Standard in other cities but considered an "upgrade" in new builds here. Also never fucking knew what a swamp cooler was until I got here.
If it’s dry enough swamp coolers have a SEER rating up to 40. That’s over double efficiency of even the newest standard AC. With humid and hot af summers (like last one) they plummet in cooling effectiveness. Super cheap to operate if the conditions are right.
Air conditioning and dishwashers being pretty much the standard
Most buildings more than 30 years old don’t have AC because it wasn’t needed before climate change really exploded. Ask some old-timers about summers Back In The Day. 90 was considered a heat wave.
Law enforcement
We have law enforcement here, they just are worthless and don't do anything
They’ve been on a Blue Flu strike since the George Floyd protests since the city refuses to buy them anymore war crime gas
It’s unbelievable to me that I never see anyone pulled over or anything. Cops seem to be just avoiding speeders or crime. Maybe I’m crazy
Having lived overseas in a number of cities, I'm gonna have to go with healthcare.
Not walking in dog poop!
Convenient and timely mass transit options.
Trees
Solid public transportation. Why do we have so many DUI deaths when people could take a train
As someone who moved from the South East and left Denver for the North East, grocery stores. 100% King Soopers is trash compared to Wegmans and Publix.
•Moisture in the air
•Food worth the $$$$
•Street cleanliness
•Reliable public transportation
•Organized community events
•Vibrant nightlife
The main reason I live here is the lack of moisture in the air. Humidity and I do not get along.
I never understand the food part. I guess its subjective as to what that price point is because there is a lot of good food around.
Late night food and bars. A fashionable scene. Bodies of water. Drivers that make an effort to keep the flow of traffic moving.
Better grocery stores, Marianos and bigger Whole foods that restaurants and bar in them. Diversity. 7-11s on every other street corner - store to grab pop and snacks.
Diversity? That's Federal.
Discretionary income
Affordable 24/7 diners
RIP Denver Diner. Pete's Kitchen used to be open 24/7 too.
Affordable rent?
Good dance/night clubs.
Money to spend on necessities after paying rent
Oxygen. Humidity.
Boring answer: residential smooth texture drywall. In the eastern half of the us, it’s standard grade stuff. Here, it’s an up charge.
A good breakfast sandwich
Persian restaurants.
Winning baseball team. Or at least one that occasionally contends.
but goddammit do I love cheap baseball tickets because the team is always garbage :)
Decent snow removal. I assumed a city that gets this much snow would have an efficient snow removal program. It does not.
Our snow removal program has always been so terrible and it seem to get worse each year. No clue why.
CDOT is spending less and less per capita every year because of the way their funding is structured. It gets worse because they can't keep up. Colorado has the third-lowest average property taxes in the country and things like that are the result.
It’s crazy to drive on a long street here where you hit multiple counties and you can physically see the county lines because of what is cleared and what isn’t. Even if the sun will melt it tomorrow, doesn’t mean we shouldn’t clear it today.
This turned into a bitch fest fast
Decent roads.
Affordable housing
Usable transit that isn’t just suburbs to downtown
AC that comes with the apartment. It blew my mind moving to Denver that you had to purchase your own AC unit. A parking spot. Every other place I have ever rented around the same price range came with at least one complimentary parking spot. (in city limits, too)
An actual working and serviceable public transportation system. RTD is a joke and the light rail is an absurdity.
Snow plows
Pickleball courts
Breathable summer air
Bodies of water seem like a luxury to me.