Denver has come a long way since the summer of 1978, when wheelchair activists surrounded Regional Transportation District buses for two days, bringing traffic to a standstill and shining a national spotlight on the city’s then-inaccessible public transit system.

Seven years after that protest, RTD became the first metropolitan region in the country to provide wheelchair-accessible service on all local buses and sparked a nationwide disability rights movement.

District 10 City Councilmember Chris Hinds, who also uses a wheelchair for mobility, supports local efforts to rename Denver’s Civic Center Station after disability activist Wade Blank, who is credited with spurring the historic Denver transit protest.

While there are no official plans to rename Civic Center Station at this time, there is significant interest.

In October of 2024, RTD announced it was accepting applications for proposed honorary names of its stations and property, inviting individuals, community organizations and local governments to submit honorary names in a new, first-ever proposal process.

According to RTD, an adopted honorary name would be added as a secondary name to the station or property’s primary wayfinding name.

RTD’s station naming policy has historically focused more on customer wayfinding, RTD Board Office Executive Director Jack Kroll said, explaining that the agency’s priority has been to work directly with city planners and local municipalities to select names that tell riders where they are and where they are going.

Hinds said the renaming of Civic Center Station after Blank could be an RTD first.

For consideration, Kroll said honorary names must be appropriate and equitable, and they must have the support of the local community through City Council resolutions or proclamations and letters from community members, business districts, and other elected officials.

Additionally, significant contributions to transit or RTD or a significant event occurring within the vicinity of the property under consideration of a designated honorary name would also be required.

Hinds said RTD’s honorary renaming process intentionally has a high bar.

It’s meant to be thoughtful, well-researched and historically accurate, as well as methodical and with considerate buy-in from the community “so that we’re not just renaming things to rename things,” he said.

Denver’s Atlantis Community, an independent living center for disabled adults — and the legacy organization of Wade Blank — is among those who support the effort, Hinds told members of the city’s Land Use, Transportation and Infrastructure Committee (LUTI) in early December. He presented a draft of a proclamation supporting the renaming at that meeting.

Committee members asked for further discussion on the matter.

The Denver Gazette reached out to the Atlantis Community for comment, but a response was not returned by press time.

“It (a proclamation) is not going to compel the RTD board to change the name of Civic Center Station,” Kroll said. “It is going to lend support to a broader movement that will culminate in the board considering an action to add an honorary name.”

For Hinds, renaming the station after Blank makes sense, as it is the location where the historic protest took place.

On Wednesday, July 5, 1978, Presbyterian minister Blank led a handful of protestors — who would become known as the “Gang of 19” — to the intersection of Colfax Avenue and Broadway Street, where they crawled out of their wheelchairs and onto the pavement, blocking buses and chanting: “We will ride!”

According to RTD’s website, qualified proposals would be reviewed by the Honorary Property Name Proposal Review Committee, comprised of a “diverse cross-section of select community members” and RTD staff, and proposed names require a two-thirds majority vote from the agency’s Board to be adopted.

Honorary names approved and adopted would be “implemented for an indefinite period at RTD’s Board of Directors’ discretion and at no cost to the proposer(s).”

Hinds told The Denver Gazette that he is continuing to gather feedback on the proposed renaming. He plans to share that information with his his colleagues and plans to schedule a new time to bring the matter back before LUTI.