If there’s a list of must-haves to survive Denver weather in the winter — a warm coat, fuzzy socks and lip balm among them — Harvey Park resident Philip Faustin relies on one specific item for surviving the city’s snowy, icy sidewalks.
Snow cleats.
The web of stretchable rubber embedded with metal or plastic studs straps to the bottom of shoes to keep the wearer from slipping and falling on slick pavement, a milder version of ice-climbing crampons.
Faustin said about 70% of his neighbors regularly shovel snow from their sidewalks, but for the remaining 30%, what doesn’t melt packs into an icy, uneven surface that’s like walking on moguls. He doesn’t walk outside in the winter without snow cleats.
Denver’s patchwork system for removing snow from thousands of miles of sidewalk and countless bus stops leads to a seemingly endless cycle, according to local residents and advocates.
A snowstorm makes part of the city difficult or impossible to navigate. Pedestrians, commuters and people with disabilities file complaints with the city or Regional Transportation District, and the problem might get fixed — or months will go by with no response, and folks are left with little other recourse.
“I can’t imagine a wheelchair trying to navigate all of that stuff,” Faustin said.
Julie Reiskin, a wheelchair user and co-executive director of the Colorado Cross Disability Coalition, doesn’t have to imagine when the sidewalks around the organization’s office at 1385 S. Colorado Blvd. are unplowed and impassable.
“Sometimes you’re going in the street as fast as you can, hoping you don’t get creamed by a car,” she said.
Bus drivers might struggle to lower wheelchair lifts onto snowy sidewalks, or Reiskin is let off the bus and immediately stuck in a pile of snow and must wait for someone to get her out.
“They actually haven’t been really interested in getting better,” Reiskin said of city officials.
Who’s responsible for the snow?
Problems with Denver’s system for snow removal keep coming up year after year, said Jill Locantore, executive director of the Denver Streets Partnership.
“It comes up… every time it snows, how much of a barrier that is for people to get where they need to go, especially folks who are dependent on transit,” Locantore said. “They can be stuck at home for days until the sun gets around to melting the snow.”
Denver’s snow removal policy puts the responsibility for clearing most sidewalks on property owners, so there’s not a single agency or person responsible for shoveling snow from all of the city’s sidewalks, crosswalks and bus stops.
“The city is not especially proactive in enforcing that,” Locantore said.
Twelve city inspectors respond to thousands of 311 reports of unshoveled sidewalks in Denver every year, according to the Community Planning and Development department. Four inspector positions are vacant and on hold until 2026 because of budget cuts.
Denver can receive 500 or more complaints about people not shoveling snow during a big storm, which starts to stack up when inspectors need to check the same address multiple times, said Shea Scott, manager of Zoning and Neighborhood Inspections.
For a first-time complaint, city inspectors remind the property owner to clear their sidewalk and curb ramp, and that’s usually all it takes, Scott said.
When inspectors are able to do follow-up checks, people who still don’t shovel get a $150 ticket and then a $500 ticket.
In 2023, city inspectors did roughly 6,000 sidewalk inspections, issued 3,400 warnings, wrote 430 tickets for properties that didn’t shovel after a warning and 34 tickets to properties that still didn’t shovel after the first ticket.
There are nearly 10,000 Regional Transportation District bus stops across metro Denver, but RTD only handles the snow at a small fraction — around 300 bus shelters, Park-n-Rides and light rail stations.
The people in charge of maintaining the other 97% are a mix of advertising agencies, property owners and municipalities, said Sean Moran, manager of contracted facilities at RTD.
Whenever RTD gets a call about snow at one of the other 97% of bus stops, Moran’s team sends the complaint to the advertising agency or city responsible for the stop. RTD doesn’t keep track of how many of those calls they receive and doesn’t know how other agencies handle snow removal.
For the small fraction of bus stops RTD does manage, its leaders think about managing snow all year long, Moran said.
RTD officials start meeting about snow removal plans for the upcoming season in the late summer, and when the snow starts, there are teams working in shifts around the clock to keep things clear.
But there’s always room for improvement, Moran said, and RTD is open to new ideas and collaborations.
Coordinating with other agencies on snow removal is “not something that’s come up on our radar” and would take collaboration among multiple departments, Scott said. The city doesn’t have a system for keeping track of routes frequently used by people with disabilities, though Scott said inspectors try to prioritize 311 complaints that mention a person with disabilities is having trouble.
“Our city has many challenges and I know the mayor’s office and our department have specific goals as far as what our department can resource and currently that’s not one of the things… but maybe it’s something worth taking another look at,” Scott said.
Snowy solutions
Every year, Denver Streets Partnership staff talk to city officials about snow removal, and those conversations often boil down to limited resources, Locantore said.
“It’s not something they’re prioritizing putting money toward, but I think there’s more and more demand for non-car options for getting around, regardless of the time of year,” she said.
One potential solution is for Denver to remove snow from sidewalks and bus stops the same way the city plows streets, by focusing on major transit corridors. Chicago approved $500,000 for a similar sidewalk-plowing pilot program in 2024, Locantore said.
Another solution could be found a few hours west in cities like Aspen and Vail, which heat some sidewalks and streets to melt the snow. Locantore suggested a pilot program could coincide with Denver’s upcoming buildout and renovation of its sidewalk network.
“I think the tides are changing as far as what citizens are expecting from their cities,” she said.
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