Walkable Main Street brings pedestrians, street art, and social distancing to Breckenridge
Main Street in Breckenridge looks a lot different than it did this time last year. Retail shops have set up in the street, diners eat where cars used to park, and messages of hope and solidarity are painted on the asphalt.
What started as a dirt road for prospectors on horseback 150 years ago is now an open-air walking mall, and this transition would not have happened without the pandemic. Matt Neufeld is the President and CEO of Breckenridge Creative Arts. He says the idea for the project, dubbed Walkable Main Street, came from the town.
“It came with two objectives,” Neufeld said of the initiative. “One, to create more safe distancing for people navigating downtown Breckenridge at a time when social distancing was going to be really crucial to keeping everyone healthy, as well as an opportunity to create more space for local businesses to expand into the street.”
Breckenridge Mayor Eric Mamula also supported the move. He says Main Street’s narrow sidewalks made social distancing virtually impossible, so the town decided an open-air walking mall would be the best solution. The town also allowed restaurants to expand their seating into Main Street.
“We started with four tables for each restaurant with a little barricaded area, and by the next week we had moved that to eight tables,” Mamula said. “I think we have 28 to 30 now in Walkable Main Street.”
Once the town was able to block off the street to motorists, they had another issue: how to make it look nice. That’s where Neufeld’s organization came in.
“They’re not that interesting to look at,” Neufeld said of the plain concrete barricades blocking Main Street. “It was an opportunity to invite some of our local artists to participate. We gave them a prompt and said, ‘What do you love about Breckenridge?’ And so we got a wide range of responses. Everything from Isak Heartstone the troll to incredible wildlife and flowers and flora.”
Neufeld says even some young people were involved in the process. Two students from Summit High School each painted their own 10-foot concrete barrier.
"I think they all just turned out wonderfully," Neufeld said.
Latasha Dunston is an artist whose work is now featured on the busy thoroughfare. She hopes that the message of her art--which she says is her form of activism-- can create a “less aggressive” dialogue about sensitive topics like racism.
Dunston’s piece on Main Street depicts three aspen trees whose roots come together to form the words “We are all in this together.” Below a multi-colored fist, the middle tree has the word “Solidarity” painted on the trunk.
“Artists, since the beginning of time, have been the means of communication with society’s feelings,” Dunston said. “It allows for heavy topics to be portrayed in a way that can be more relatable to people, and more digestible. And I think that is what a lot of my work does as a Black woman. I take my experiences and I make them into beautiful art, and that resonates with people and allows for safe space conversations to happen.”
Walkable Main Street started in mid-June and there’s a chance that it will continue into September. A recent poll conducted by the Breckenridge Tourism Office found that a large majority of businesses in the area supported continuing with the walking mall model until at least September.
Overall, 83 percent of the poll’s respondents supported the extension of Walkable Main Street. The poll also found that restaurants have benefited the most from the project. Almost 80 percent of restaurants that responded to the poll want to continue with Walkable Main Street.
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