"Nobody wanted the paid parking." That's Nina Hamilton, bar manager at Thunder and Buttons, talking about the meters that now line the block she's worked on for years. A few doors down, Nick and Brandi Haskins opened FFO Goods back in March and have watched the same street change under completely different eyes. They like what they see.
Both are talking about Colorado Avenue. Neither is entirely wrong. What's missing from most conversations happening on the sidewalk this summer is that Old Colorado City didn't get one change. It got two, landing in the same six blocks within about eight weeks of each other, funded by different sources, run by different city departments, and reversible on completely different timelines. If you live on the Westside and you're trying to figure out what to actually complain about, or what to expect a year from now, it helps to pull those two projects apart.
Two Projects, One Street, Same Summer
The first is the Colorado Avenue Improvements Project, a voter-approved, PPRTA-funded overhaul that began restriping the street between 8th and 31st Streets on June 1, 2026. It converted the four-lane stretch through the historic district into three lanes: one travel lane in each direction plus a center turn lane. City engineers frame it as a safety fix first, a parking fix second. Capital Improvement Manager Ryan Phipps has pointed to the data driving the redesign: a stretch of road with a documented pattern of rear-end and T-bone collisions tied directly to the old four-lane setup.
The second is the city's "Now You Know" parking campaign, which officially launched July 28, 2026. It replaced individual parking meters on Colorado Avenue with multi-space kiosks, added tap-to-pay and text-to-pay options, and introduced color-coded pricing zones. This one isn't a PPRTA project. It's run by the city's Parking Enterprise, funded by the meters themselves, and it has nothing to do with lane counts or crash data.
Because both landed on the same stretch of pavement within two months of each other, most people experience them as a single event: the street feels different, parking costs money now, and traffic moves slower. But the lane project is a 12-month test that could be reversed or redesigned before permanent construction begins in late 2027 or 2028. The parking kiosks are not a test. They're the new normal, city-wide, and Old Colorado City just happened to be one of the first places to get them alongside downtown's Tejon Street.
What The Lane Diet Actually Changed
On the ground, the visible difference is straightforward. Where you used to have two lanes moving in each direction, you now have one, with a center lane reserved for left turns. That reconfiguration freed up curb space for roughly 30 new parking stalls along the corridor, according to city officials.
The effect on speed is the part residents notice first. Phipps has described watching traffic slow to something closer to the posted limit inside the three-lane section, then pick back up the moment it exits into the older four-lane configuration heading toward downtown. "It's a very perceivable notice in speed increase," he said of that transition point. If you've felt like your commute through Old Colorado City has a distinct beginning and end, that's not imagination. It's a measurable seam between two different road designs.
The city is still gathering data on whether that slower speed is translating into fewer crashes, and won't have a full year of numbers until sometime around June 2027. Until then, the design stays fluid. Bike Colorado Springs has been submitting feedback throughout the summer specifically because the demonstration period is designed to be adjusted based on what people report.
The Parking Zones, In Plain Numbers
The kiosk rollout replaced a patchwork of aging meters with a three-tier pricing system that applies to both downtown and Old Colorado City. Rates increase the longer a car stays parked, and color-coded stickers on each kiosk tell you which zone you're in before you tap your card.
| Zone | Rate | Where |
|---|---|---|
| Yellow | $1.50/hour | Closest to the commercial core |
| Green | $1.25/hour | One ring out |
| Blue | $1.00/hour | Outer edges of the corridor |
| City garages and lots | $1.00/hour | $12 daily max, $6 after 4 p.m., free Sundays |
Meters run 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Saturday and 1 p.m. to 8 p.m. on Sunday. If you're headed to the Old Colorado City lot on Cucharras Street or one of the on-street kiosks along the avenue, the ParkMobile app lets you extend a session remotely instead of walking back to feed a meter.
Here's the number that complicates the "everyone hates this" narrative you'll hear on the street: the city logged around 150 meter-related complaints over the past year, but only seven came in during June and July, after most of the new kiosks were actually installed. The loudest frustration predates the fix. That doesn't erase what Nina Hamilton and other longtime merchants are feeling at Thunder and Buttons, but it does suggest the technology itself isn't the main source of the friction. The friction is that parking now costs money where it used to be free, full stop, and no interface change fixes that particular complaint.
Why Sweetwater Moved Instead Of Leaving
The clearest evidence that this summer's changes are reshaping real decisions, not just moods, is what happened to Sweetwater Flower Market. The shop was sitting right where the restriping altered the lane and parking configuration directly in front of its door. Rather than leave the neighborhood, owner Anna Holloway relocated the business roughly half a block away and across the street, choosing to stay inside Old Colorado City on purpose.
"We wanted to make sure that we were staying in Old Colorado City to make sure that we didn't change up the vibe of our store too much."
From the new storefront, with its full glass front facing the avenue, Holloway has a front-row seat to the same traffic pattern Phipps describes from the data side: cars moving noticeably slower than before.
The Bike Lane That Isn't Coming
If you ride to the farmers market or bike downtown for coffee, there's a detail in this plan worth knowing before you're surprised by it. Despite the safety framing, there are no bike lanes planned for Colorado Avenue itself between Limit Street and 30th Street. Cyclists are instead routed one block north to Pikes Peak Avenue, which Bike Colorado Springs has pointed out is currently pothole-heavy with a stop sign at nearly every block.
The organization's advocacy has surfaced the actual tradeoff baked into the plan. According to the city's own Midland Corridor Transportation Study documentation, public input during the planning process showed a stronger preference for more parking over dedicated bike infrastructure on Colorado Avenue, so the design followed that preference. Old Colorado City & Downtown Development Authority president Adam Stapan has framed the broader stakes in terms of a different kind of access. "A recent study showed that a third of visitors to our region have some sort of mobility issue," he said, arguing the corridor can't afford to lose that share of foot traffic to physical barriers even while it works out cycling connectivity separately.
What This Means If You're Actually Here
If you live on the Westside, the practical version of all this is manageable. Parking now costs $1 to $1.50 an hour depending on which color zone you're in, kiosks take tap-to-pay so you don't need coins, and Sundays are still free in the city garages and lots. Traffic through the historic core moves slower than it used to, which is the point, and it picks back up once you're past 31st Street heading toward downtown.
The neighborhood's actual rhythm hasn't changed underneath all of this. The Bancroft Park farmers market still runs Saturdays from 7 a.m. to 1 p.m. through October 17, with more than 80 vendors and food trucks set up in the same spot they've used for years. First Friday ArtWalk still happens monthly, galleries still open their doors from 5 to 8 p.m., and the walk from a kiosk to a gallery door is no different than it was in May.
The city is still collecting feedback through its online survey at coloradosprings.gov/ColoradoAve, and that input genuinely shapes what gets built permanently starting in late 2027 or 2028. If the slower speeds, the new stalls, or the missing bike lane affect how you use the avenue, that's the place your opinion actually lands on someone's desk.
Whatever the permanent version of Colorado Avenue ends up looking like, it's being decided in real time by the people who drive it, park on it, and run businesses along it right now. That's worth knowing whether you're headed to the market this Saturday or just trying to figure out why the block in front of your favorite bar looks different than it did in May.
If you're weighing a move to the Westside, or you already live here and have questions about how corridor changes like this tend to affect property values over time, Colorado Springs Collective has been watching this neighborhood long enough to give you a straight answer. Reach out anytime.
