Save the last dance for me! Denver, the city that popularized the pedestrian-friendly all-walk diagonal-crossing Barnes Dance, is considering phasing it out of the busy downtown grid as part of a larger evaluation of signal timing within the central business district.

You’re going to be seeing a new style of shuttle bus on the 16th Street Mall come next spring. Faced with the need to replace the current fleet of mall shuttles as well as having to add to their numbers because of the FasTracks program’s extension of the mall for three more blocks, RTD has approved a contract with a Charlotte, N.C., bus manufacturer for two prototypes and an option for up to 57 more if they work out.

While the public is reacting to proposals that could radically restructure the famous 16th Street Mall, RTD plans to test different methods of fixing recurring problems with the mall’s infamous and recurrently loose granite pavers.

The Denver Business Journal reports that a consultant team has proposed three alternatives for changes to the 16th Street Mall. One leaves the transit lanes in place, a second pushed them together in the median, as the upper and lower mall already are configured, and the third puts northbound shuttles on 15th Street to create more pedestrian space.

Two of the refurbished mall shuttles cross Cleveland Place on the way to Civic Center Station. Photo by Matthew Roberts, Rocky Mountain Independent.

RTD’s two-year program to refurbish its fleet of three dozen shuttle buses that work the 16th Street Mall came in more than 25 percent under budget, through such techniques as in-house fabrication of new components and substitution of less expensive materials.

The 36 buses are the most used vehicles in RTD’s inventory, accelerating and braking to a stop 15 times during each trip up or down the granite-paved mall.

The transit agency expected to spend $3 million on the effort. The last bus recently came out of the District Shops facility at 31st Street and Ringsby Court, and the tab comes to $2.2 million.