- Part 1 - A Century of Parking in Downtown Golden
- Part 2 - The Unslakable Thirst for Parking in Downtown Golden
As traffic levels grew in Golden, the City began to regard diagonal parking–a great solution in the 1920s–as a waste of lane space. In 1973, City Council gave serious consideration to changing back to parallel parking, though it would have meant losing 56 spaces downtown. Public opinion favored parking spots over traffic lanes. so they stuck with diagonal parking.

In the meantime, businesses began to move out of downtown–or to the fringes of downtown– in order to have their own parking lots. Increasingly, businesses would advertise “Plenty of Free Parking!” Likewise, the church congregations also moved out of downtown, in search of properties big enough to include parking lots.
Residential neighborhoods were also changing to include off-street parking. In 1971, council passed an ordinance (#650) requiring that multiple family dwelling units provide two off-street parking spaces per dwelling.

The Golden Downtown Improvement District continued to acquire and demolish old buildings to make way for parking lots–as did Mines, and Coors, and Jefferson County, and the rest of the country.
In 1971, the GDID acquired the Astor House, planning to demolish it and turn it into a parking lot. For some Golden residents, that was the last straw. In the past few years, we had lost the Courthouse, South School, North School, several churches, and many old houses. People didn’t think that trading the Astor House for 8 parking spaces was worth it.

The Golden Landmarks Association was formed to fight the demolition. What followed was an amazing display of grassroots advocacy, and in 1972, the citizens of Golden voted to have the City purchase and preserve the building.
The endless search for parking slowed in the 1980s. Downtown Golden was in an economic decline, with many empty storefronts, and we actually reached a point where our parking was adequate to our needs. We had plenty of other things to worry about (notably the dying downtown), but for a few years, we had enough parking.