To make an urban place exceptional, it all really comes down to the pedestrian. The ease, safety and enjoyment that a pedestrian experiences in an urban setting is perhaps the most fundamental factor in determining how that person will ultimately perceive the place as a whole.

Denver’s Downtown Area Plan identifies seven Transformative Projects. Here’s a description of each taken from the Plan:

Energizing the Commercial Core: Bolster economic development opportunities and enhance the pedestrian experience in the Commercial Core.

Building on Transit: Couple the regional transit network with an equally ambitious local Denver-serving transportation system that provides quick and efficient connections.

Grand Boulevards: Transform Speer, Broadway, Colfax, Park Avenue and Auraria Parkway into memorable, multi-modal boulevards as a complement to Denver’s parkway system.

Embrace Adjacent Neighborhoods: Enhance pedestrian, bike and transit connections between Downtown and the surrounding neighborhoods.

Connecting Auraria: Foster expanded physical and programmatic connections between the Auraria Campus and the rest of Downtown.

Downtown’s New Neighborhood-Arapahoe Square: Redevelop Arapahoe Square as a cutting-edge, densely populated, mixed-use area and center of innovative businesses.

A Rejuvenated Civic Center: Restore and reactivate Civic Center to attract more visitors, residents, workers, and students to the park.

In my opinion, the one thing that ties these seven projects together—the one thing that, if focused on, would facilitate the successful achievement of these seven projects—is pedestrianism. Let’s take a look:

Energizing the Commercial Core: We don’t have to look too far here, as the description above for this project specifically mentions enhancing the pedestrian experience. Anyone who has spent an afternoon wandering around the core part of Downtown knows that there are some great pedestrian experiences, and some not-so-great pedestrian experiences. Unfortunately, there are too many of the latter. Improve the pedestrian realm and you’ll energize the commercial core. After all, when we say “energize” in this context, don’t we really mean “sidewalks abuzz with people”?

Building on Transit: Quite simply, there’s little point in having a comprehensive and dynamic transit system if, once you exit the transit vehicle, you can’t get to where you want to go safely and conveniently on foot. As every transit rider is also a pedestrian at some point in their journey, a quality transit system and a quality pedestrian system go hand in hand.

Grand Boulevards: Why is it that the major Downtown Denver streets listed in the Plan need transforming? Basically, because they all suck for pedestrians. None of them are particularly fun to walk down, and none of them are certainly any fun to cross. Enough said.

Embrace Adjacent Neighborhoods: Here again, the Plan states first thing that enhancing pedestrian connections is key to tying our Downtown-adjacent districts with the core Downtown. For the prime example of the power of a strong pedestrian connection, look no farther than the trio of pedestrian bridges across the Central Platte Valley and how they have fundmentally bonded Downtown and Highland together.

Connecting Auraria: What is the main reason why Auraria and Downtown currently aren’t well connected? Go back to the Grand Boulevards comment: crossing Speer Boulevard. Any Auraria student knows that making the long walk across about a dozen lanes of traffic and Cherry Creek is a less-than-pleasant experience that feels rather suburban despite towering skyscrapers looming just a few blocks away.

Downtown’s New Neighborhood—Arapahoe Square: There certainly is no denying that walking around the Arapahoe Square district is no fun. The streets are unnecessarily wide and at many intersections, crosswalks are nonexistent. Broadway slices through the heart of the district like a dull knife, leaving behind triangle-shaped fragments of blocks and bizarre five-way intersections that are a pedestrian’s nightmare. Of course, right now there’s not much reason to have to walk around Arapahoe Square, but that’s a whole other issue.

A Rejuvenated Civic Center: Civic Center Park faces a number of challenges, but one of them is getting pedestrians to it. Once again, we have a major “crossing the street” problem. Fix that problem, and solving the park’s other issues becomes a lot easier.

So, if we focus our attention on the pedestrian environment in Downtown, that will get us a long way towards our other Downtown goals. To that end, this year’s Downtown Denver Partnership’s Leadership Program focused exactly on this issue. The 70 or so emerging leaders in the 2008 program did an exceptional job, and I had the opportunity to attend the presentation of their final report entitled “Putting Our Best Foot Forward: Enhancing Downtown Denver’s Pedestrian Environment.” The full report is now available at the Partnership’s website. Click here to go to the Leadership Program home page. A link to download the report is right at the top. I highly recommend reading it.