Denver

RTD will cover the first mile of any Veo scooter or bike ride ending at two Denver stations, starting Oct. 1, no sign-up required. The two-year pilot, born from a grad student's class paper, aims to subsidize more than 40,000 trips.

— via Westword, Hannah Metzger

A year-old Wash Park deli is ditching its name entirely after its original owners quietly sold out to a partner and manager. Also this week: a 40-year-old Chinese spot's replacement surfaces in state filings, and a Bear Valley bakery jumps to the Broadway space Azucar left behind.

— via Westword, Antony Bruno

Colorado hikers settled the big trail debates by poll: parking etiquette, right of way, bikes versus walkers and whether to say hello. A Colorado Parks and Wildlife spokesperson weighs in, and 70% call smoking on the trail rude.

— via Westword, Kristen Fiore

Denver and Boulder's best new tracks this week span old-school R&B, Boulder bands with Chris Stapleton-grade rasp, and a Pink Floyd riff buried inside a horn-and-piano opener. Joshua Jewellz's "Brunch at Midnight" leads the pack, with PorchFest sets from Gestalt and Amy Martin on deck for Saturday.

— via Westword, Dave Herrera

Sage Francis calls Colorado his biggest market, and he's proving it again with a small-room date at HQ on Nov. 14. Expect a preview of his new album alongside a lineup of Strange Famous labelmates.

— via Westword, Dave Herrera

MLB is dropping Grand Teton National Park as a possible game site, Commissioner Robert Manfred told local officials, after backlash over a Washington Post report. The league insists it never had a formal plan, just early "due diligence," but backed off once the community objected.

— via Colorado Sun, Angus M. Thuermer Jr., WyoFile

New federal rules leave Colorado stuck in Trump's tax credit scholarship program for at least a year, even if Phil Weiser wins the governor's race and keeps his vow to pull out. There's no process to exit early, and donors can already claim credits up to $1,700 for scholarships starting in January.

— via Colorado Sun, Erica Breunlin

Matchstick Productions once sold 70,000 ski-film DVDs at $30 a pop, then watched the format collapse along with the rest of the industry. Its founder explains why keeping a live tour on the road, not the films themselves, is what actually kept the 30-year-old company alive.

— via Colorado Sun, Betsy Welch

Amazon's Zoox is sending driverless cars to Denver this winter, but don't expect a ride yet: the vehicles will be human-driven, carry no passengers and exist purely to train on rain and snow. That puts Zoox behind Waymo and Tesla, both already testing or operating in a city still sorting out crashes and traffic snarls from its first robotaxi.

— via Westword, Hannah Metzger

Denver Summit FC broke ground on its permanent stadium Thursday, two years behind schedule and 1,500 seats smaller than first promised. The team now expects fans waiting until 2029 to use it, even as the city kicks in $70 million toward the $150-200 million project.

— via Colorado Sun, Lincoln Roch

Colorado voters get the final say on trans athletes, with a ballot measure that would scrap schools' confidential eligibility reviews and force teams to split strictly by sex assigned at birth. Jefferson County schools already face a $50 million funding threat over the issue, and 27 states have passed similar bans.

— via Colorado Sun, Jennifer Brown

A Denver bar owner built a photo booth that pairs strangers as soulmates for $10, after a four-minute AI phone interview on money, kids and problem-solving. Nearly 200 people have tried it in a month, and matches keep coming even after you leave.

— via Westword, Hannah Metzger

Colorado's pension fund benchmarked its investment staff pay against giants like CalPERS and CalSTRS, funds up to seven times its size, and used that comparison to justify a 128% jump in bonus spending. A new study says the gap persists and recommends raises up to 27%, even as lawmakers push to rein in payouts averaging nearly $300,000.

— via Colorado Sun, Brian Eason

Before he was Dean Moriarty in "On the Road," Neal Cassady was a Denver kid getting arrested for joyriding at 16th and Court. A free panel Oct. 3 at History Colorado, featuring Cassady's own son, digs into the city that shaped him and the Beats.

— via Westword, Evan Semon

The Denver Post's newsroom shrank from 311 people at its peak to just over 50 today. Dean Singleton, who ran the paper for decades, explains how the internet gutted the classified-ad business that once funded it all, and why radio, TV and newspapers never really recovered.

— via Westword, Michael Roberts

36 years at Westword, roughly 200 freelance pieces deep, and a trove of vintage interviews still sitting in the archive: James Brown, Brian Wilson, Johnny Ramone, a very drunk Shane MacGowan. One editor's rundown of the phone calls that defined a decade on the music beat, Ted Nugent slur included.

— via Westword, Michael Roberts

Denver and Aurora just banned lawn watering until spring, with fines up to $1,000 a pop for repeat offenders. The crackdown follows the third-hottest summer on record and the lowest snowmelt in 110 years of record-keeping.

— via Westword, Sage Kelley

A Denver baker switched to Colorado-milled heirloom grain and kept prices the same, betting flavor alone would sell it. Now Rebel Bread has nearly tripled its space, and the mill behind it, Dry Storage, is riding the same wave to grow beyond one restaurant group.

— via Colorado Sun, Gabe Toth

Fifty years of bound volumes, old staffers and a cartoonist named Patricia Calhoun hiding in a Westword box: that's the anniversary package. Inside, decades of Denver restaurants, music and culture get ranked, reconsidered and explained by the people who covered them.

— via Westword, Kristen Fiore

Colorado voters face a constitutional fight over gas stoves: Amendment 82 would enshrine a "right" to natural gas, needing 55% approval, just as the state pushes utilities to cut emissions 22% by 2030. Backers won't disclose their donors; the state's own analysis warns it could gut future regulation.

— via Colorado Sun, Mark Jaffe