It's funny what you notice when you live with, travel with, and work with architects, designers, urban planners and landscape architects. Larry Gilland and I came to Grand Junction for him to attend some classes, and me to wander the streets, (and get some work done too).
I don't know the urban planner "lingo," but the streets of downtown Grand Junction were designed in a way so that the traffic moved from one side of the street to the other in a serpentine fashion with bits of diagonal parking on one side or the other depending on which way the way the traffic was flowing.
There were lots of great sculptures along the way, and it made for a very nice, pedestrian friendly downtown (except for the 100 degree temperature the day we were there). John Olson and Colorado Springs Urban Intervention would be proud of me for noticing that you could sit either way on the benches, facing into the street, or into the shops.
It's always fun to explore what other cities have done with their downtown areas, and I'm excited to see what is happening in Colorado Springs.
While we were there we drove to the Gateway Canyons Resort for dinner, and the scenery was stunning. There is only ONE who could design the structure shown behind Larry in this photo.