When Is the Best Time to Walk Around Downtown?

After the first pitch is thrown at Coors Field each year, downtown Denver seems to wake up. Patios are packed. Sunburns proliferate. And pedestrians pound the pavement on the 16th Street Mall.

Strangely, though, game days are not always the busiest days for foot traffic according to the “State of Downtown Denver 2015” report, which was published last month by the Downtown Denver Partnership. The top five busiest days for pedestrians last year were:

1. Saturday, October 18, 2014
2. Saturday, May 24, 2014
3. Saturday, December 6, 2014
4. Saturday, August 30, 2014
5. Saturday, May 31, 2014

Notice a trend?

Saturday is day that pedestrians pack the mall. Some of those mega days relate to special events (No. 1 is the Denver Zombie Crawl and No. 3 is the annual Parade of Lights). Rockies’ game days don’t sway the data too much because the automatic tracker is located away from the ballpark on 16th, between Curtis and Arapahoe streets. That 24-hour counter (which was installed in February 2014) also logged August as the busiest month and found that (you’ve probably guessed it) noon is the busiest time of the day for foot traffic.

Emily Brett, Downtown Denver Partnership’s research coordinator says that there are plans to install three more automatic counters in coming months, so we’ll have even more data about the area’s pedestrian traffic—an average of about 21,000 pedestrians on a block each day—next year.

Our favorite takeaway, though, is that we should apparently make lunch reservations downtown on Wednesdays, the least popular day to go out for lunch. (Fridays and Mondays are the most popular).

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