It was a cool early November in West Denver. My roommate at the time and I were worried about the results of the November 2020 election, as Donald Trump, regardless of whether he was going to win or lose, was sowing doubt as to whether the election was legitimate. Already having secondhand experienced the George Floyd protests that made me fear riding my bike into a sea of teargas everynight, I made the purchase and bought Soviet-era gas masks out of fear that civil unrest post November 3rd would make the events of the protests seem like small potatoes.

My acting theory on the night of the elections was simple: Trump acolytes, using alternative networks such a Parler and Telegram, would use the slow counting that typified election week last year to disrupt things, usurping election divisions throughout the country and throwing everywhere into chaos. I remember distinctly telling my roommate that a Latin American style coup would play out before our eyes. Along with ordering the masks, I got every item in FEMA’s disaster preparedness checklist, and rigged an old phone to act as a closed circuit camera in front of my apartment door.

Election night 2020 in Denver came and went. Early on in the night, the state was called for Joe Biden, and outside of myself and a small group of people, things seemed relatively calm and peaceful outside. I leaned a little bit into election news, but it played out in the background of my everyday life, with my roommate moving out and my future living plans eclipsing it at most points. The one bright spot about the election week for me personally was the flipping of Georgia. At the point, I made the decision to return the masks, as any coup attempt that Trump would try at that point would be more focused on the swing states, not necessarily focused towards dark blue Colorado.

Thought I ultimately decided to return the gas masks I was proven right.

Multiple lawsuits in every state from Nevada to Georgia. I watched the news, fearing for my Nevadan and Georgian friends that would see the blunt end of a successful lawsuit by the Trump Campaign. They all failed, with Trump’s attempted coup culminating for that election season in the January 6th attacks on the Capitol.

That being said, the coup attempt, and the attempt to rewrite its history, isn’t over. Right wing pundit Tucker Carlson’s latest special is a revisionist history of this attack, stating that it was a “false flag” and a “honeypot” in much of the programming. The Governor-elect of Virginia, Glenn Youngkin, spoke at an event prior to election night 2021 where a pledge of allegiance was held with a flag that was at the January 6th insurrection. To this day, former President Trump has not conceded the 2020 race, choosing instead to use most of his post-presidency to attack the Biden administration and build a social media network for his far right followers.

So, while Trump’s party is out of power in Washington now, the ease at which it was able to regain much power in Virginia and New Jersey by slightly pivoting towards the center should be disturbing, and the coup on democracy is just beginning. While the gas masks and protection against street mobs may not be needed now, it may not matter when they are no longer on the streets, but in the halls of power democratically elected.

featured image is a stock photo of a gas mask

When I did my RTD infrastructure ride for the N-Line, I took a short diversion into Riverside Cemetery. As I rode into the cemetery from a road scarily close to traffic, it felt as, for a moment, the city disappeared. The graves started out small, increasing in size while I road into the cemetery.

The final resting place of territorial governors, mayors, and civic leaders, Riverside was built in conjunction with the celebrations of the Centennial by the new State of Colorado.

Flash forward 145 years, however, and Riverside feels a bit like an anachronism compared to the surrounding area. To get to the cemetery, I had to take a journey under a dangerous freeway underpass, go by the headquarters of the infamous Suncor Corporation, and ride right by a giant impoundment lot. On the horizon of the cemetery, the smoke stacks of a power plant billowed with the strangling smell of industry that defines much of North Denver.

But, at the cemetery, I felt peace and solitude, save a handful of cars that were around.

I thought about the cemetery a lot on my RTD ride. October is the month where the dead and the cemetery as an area of horror and unnatural monstrosities come to rise is glamorized.

Yet, out of any of the places I rode that day, riding through the cemetery was a welcome distraction from traffic and difficult navigation.

If I find more solace in the resting place of the dead than the surroundings creations of the living, is the setting of long dead monsters worse than the living monsters we have created around us?

*Featured image is a shot from Riverside Cemetery*

One of the largest non-COVID stories in Colorado has been the expansion of In N Out to several locations in the Front Range. The story is the same at each of them upon opening: Long car lines that stretch for miles with people waiting hours to try the cheap burgers, milkshakes, and fries that Californians are often nostalgic about, often with police involvement. In fact, Lakewood PD tweeted directions to get into the In N Out line when it opened.

In-N-Out location: 150 S Wadsworth Blvd. Opening Drive-Thru Queue Plan summary below in picture or online at: https://t.co/itXoCFnlQ1
Follow all signs and police & flagger instructions. Your goal is to get to Teller St at Alameda from W 1st Ave. Join line at end of queue. pic.twitter.com/bHF3bB3RT5

— Lakewood Police (@LakewoodPDCO) July 12, 2021

On Monday night, I decided to take a bike ride and see how the pedestrian experience is like at In N’ Out.

The Ride Out

After passing through the core of downtown, I took the Lakewood Gulch Trail until I had reached Knox, a street that had a painted Bike Lane. From Lakewood Gulch until 1st , it was a steady uphill climb with a descent near the end. 1st Avenue had a unprotected bike lane, which I took roughly until S Pierce Street, which acted as a vein to Alameda, a location where a multi use patch was along.

Approaching the Restaurant

As I got closer and closer to In N Out, a sea of orange cones started to appear. After going through them, I realized that I was in the car line to the restaurant. I proceeded slowly, making myself as visible as I could to drivers.

As I got closer, I started to notice the police presence. From when I got to In N Out to when I finally left, at least 4 Lakewood Police Cruisers were monitoring the line along with Orange vested guides.

There was no real wayfinding for cyclists, so I cut through a nearby bank’s parking lot to get to the corner of Wadsworth and Alameda and approached from that side. I found one bike rack near the front of In N Out, using it to lock up.

Ordering and General Impressions

From the time I ordered to the time my food was ready, it took about 20 minutes. I entered the restaurant, got my ordered in, and went outside due to how hectic and large the crowd was. The one upshot of the non-food experience was the fact that the outdoor patio was really spacious, with walls facing Alameda that acted as a buffer for the noise of the street.

Behind the one bike rack, there was a roughly 20-30 spot parking lot filled to the brim with cars. As I waited for my order, I struck up a conversation about motorcycle helmet laws with an employee on his break, connecting over the fact that we both had family in my birthplace of Oxnard.

I won’t talk too much about the food suffice to say that it was what I remembered it being quality wise when I was a boy growing up in Southern California. For $8, I was able to get a full meal out, unheard of in many parts of the Metro at similar peer restaurants.

Leaving and Concluding Thoughts

As I left the restaurant to head back towards Denver, a weird feeling came upon me.

For me, the T-shirt that I had bought with the image above encapsulated the problem that I have had with In N Out since I have moved towards cycling as my primary form of commute. In the impressionist image above, the highway is seen as a natural extension of the beautiful mountain landscape. The In N Out I went to, save the extended patio and single bike rack, seemed to conform itself to the car culture that the chain itself had grown up in since it’s founding in 1948.

For In N Out and many of the fast food restaurants established in the late 40’s/50’s postwar boom, they had to conform to the car culture at the time, coming up with jingles, advertisements, and ways to get peoples attention during the early days of car radio. One ad that I remember on the long trips I would take to Los Angeles with my parents as a kid captured the infectiousness of jingles of the early automobile era.

As I reflect on the fact that air quality has significantly declined, pedestrians are getting killed by careless drivers throughout the Front Range and United States at large, and obesity’s co-morbidities kill thousands of people a year, I get the uncomfortable feeling that fast food writ large is a symptom of our decline. And, to steal from the In N Out Jingle, maybe that is what a hamburger is all about.

“This was unexpected. … And it hit the world. And we’re prepared, and we’re doing a great job with it. And it will go away. Just stay calm. It will go away”

– Donald Trump, March 10th, 2020

“Bottom line, it’s going to get worse.”

– Dr. Anthony Fauci, March 11th, 2020

Thursday, March 12th, 2020 was the end of the world as I knew it. It was the last time I was inside a restaurant for an extended period of time, the end of a steady stream of interviews I was getting for the job search, and the final day that any major concert would occur in Denver. Post Malone’s Thursday night show at Pepsi Center was widely panned for the proximity to what would be the last major event before the Stay At Home orders were put in.

At the time, I expected it to be merely a two week quarantine. I was naive thinking that beating a pandemic would simply mean staying at home and not going to restaurants, which were takeout only, during this time period. At the same time I was afraid. Rumors began to swirl in some circles online that the National Guard was going to be enforcing travel along I25, and I would have to carry papers around to justify getting to my job as an essential worker. At the same time, the internet was inundated with articles from various sources and scientific papers that made COVID-19 out to be a behemoth.

In a lot of ways it was, but not just because of the large reproduction rate coupled with the large amount of people that were asymptomatic and potential spreaders. It was an unstoppable behemoth because our country did little to combat it until the beginnings of the Biden Administration. When Trump began to use press conferences as de facto campaign rallies, relied heavily on rapid response tests to avoid social distancing and mask usage, and even downplayed the fact of COVID-19’s effect on him when contracted, I knew that it would take a sea change at the federal level to take this seriously.

Blaming everything on the Trump-sphere in DC shouldn’t acquit the rest of our leaders, however. Locally, the mayor of Denver, Michael Hancock, closed down dispensaries and liquor stores for 3 hours, sparking lines that could have potentially acted as superspreader events. His travel plans in December despite telling Denverites to stay home sparked further outrage. A “stop the madness” rally was held at Bandimere Speedway, as conservative figures such as Patrick Neville and Michelle Malkin championed their ultimately failed lawsuit against Governor Polis for his Safer at home orders. When our state legislature returned to session, Republican lawmakers refused to wear masks, with some even mocking the practice across from their Democratic colleagues.

And yet, as I reflect on the one year anniversary of this tragedy, my mind flashes back to the two week quarantine. In retrospect, it was a testament to our arrogance as a country, the exceptionalism and piecemeal response that we as a country have had in regard to our healthcare system going back to the days of the debates over its overhaul under Truman, Clinton, and Obama. It was a naïve proposal that received blowback from hyper-individualists and a segment of American society that believed things raging from herd immunity, a virus destroyed by a hot climate, or wrongly believing it was a hoax. For me, however, it continues to be the longest 2 week quarantine of my life.

Years ago on my 24th birthday, I was riding the bus the wrong way down Colfax to meet a friend at a bar. I was drunk, not completely aware of my surroundings, and realizing an unfortunate fact that would change the trajectory of my journey.

I needed to pee.

While I was able to pee that fateful night by buying fries and a shake at Burger King and using their restroom, I recognize that I had the privilege because I had the money to essentially buy access to the bathroom, which many people don’t have.

One thing I have noticed in Denver since moving here over five years ago is the lack of public restrooms. Outside of a handful of parks with public restrooms and the mobile restroom maintained by the city, its a fairly patchwork network that is Lower Downtown-centric and has about 15-16 facilities at any given time. A full map of the system can be viewed at the embedded map below.

As things stand right now, the one RTD facility in the city of Denver with a public restroom is Union Station, which has come under fire recently in tandem with RTD as a whole for implementing safety protocols that are seen by some as restrictive to the unhoused population.

With RTD looking to hire a homeless outreach coordinator to engage in a more meaningful way with the largely unhoused populations and the board to set to vote on a measure to allow more affordable housing at their facilities, it makes sense to throw an olive branch towards folks from all walks of life that have lost faith in RTD.

A public restroom along a handful of stops.

Given the fact that there are many stations that act as multimodal hubs, such as the Broadway Station in Denver or the Oak Station in Jefferson County, there is often a large amount of idle time that people have between waiting for a transfer. Rather than trying to find a nearby business to buy something from and hope to use their restroom or duck in a corner and hope a security guard doesn’t find you, wouldn’t it be better to have a semi-regularly maintained public facility that could be used?

Some may argue that building and maintaining public restrooms along light rail line is something that shouldn’t be a priority at this time and would be a drag on the system. After all, shouldn’t restoring lines and schedules lost to the pandemic be a priority?

While I would agree that recovery of lost service should maintain the top priority of RTD, building trust with ridership that returns after the pandemic by prioritizing rider experience and keeping passengers healthy and safe is invaluable. Public restrooms would be a facet of this, adding something that would be an extra “push” to get someone to use public transportation versus a single occupancy vehicle to get to their destination. At the very least, the RTD Board of Directors should research systems that have restrooms along their stops to see if its a viable option, as ridership increases once vaccination has been completed.