By: CONOR MCCORMICK-CAVANAGH | Westword Published: January 12, 2023 at 6:00AM

For Phyllis Mack, who lives in Walsh Manor, a Denver Housing Authority complex located where Athmar Park meets Ruby Hill, getting around her immediate neighborhood can be a complete hassle.

“The sidewalks are small, so I have to go out in the street,” says Mack, 75, who uses a motorized wheelchair to get around. “It’s very dangerous.”

Mack lives in a DHA complex that caters to senior adults and people with disabilities, and when she and her neighbors leave their apartments each day, they are forced to rely on Denver’s treacherous pedestrian infrastructure to navigate a path to the nearest RTD bus stop.

“This is a senior disabled building, so a lot of people are on scooters or on walkers. When it snows, no one goes out because the streets are so bad. And the sidewalks, you can’t go down because they’re so small. And then when it snows, you can’t even see them,” Mack says, noting that she isn’t even able to leave her apartment complex when it snows.

But in the future, the route that Mack and other senior adults take to the bus stop from their complex on the southeast corner of West Mosier Place and South Raritan Street will look much different, because the sidewalks will be getting an upgrade. And that’s thanks to Mack.

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