It's time to end the bump-outs. Permanently. There is no intrinsic, historic sense to the collection of DIY'er looking country-fare stalls along Main Avenue. It's a visual mess. Many are unused on any given day. I drove on Main the other day when it was cloudy with showers, and I saw four people using them.
Durango downtown looked closed for business and broken. My favorite one even has a trailer parked on plastic turf. How ironic is that! Taking parking away for . . . parking a trailer?!
How can the city lose the parking revenue ($44,000+/-) and not charge rent to make up for this? Do we not bother to balance the budget anymore?
When did city staff get the authority to recommend a continued “taking” from a city revenue stream, and when did our elected councilors get the authority to change land use without proper public notice and comment? Of course, the restaurants using the bump-outs would vote to keep them – they are getting free lease space! And, yes, while Maria's Bookshop has a nice, landscaped bump-out, that hardly sets a contextually historic example of how streets are used.
Continuing the bump-outs until we spend more money on consultants to entertain ideas of what makes a “better” Main Avenue is no excuse to keep them. The pandemic is over – Joe said so. Time for our elected officials to acknowledge this and return Main Avenue back to its original, intended condition.
Jim Rothwell
Durango
