The city is reviving an old idea for an Animas River Trail extension that could lead to an overpass or underpass across U.S. Highway 550/160 south of downtown Durango.
City officials are reconsidering the option after meeting with some concerned residents on Trestle Lane, who live along another potential alignment, said Kevin Hall, assistant director of community development.
“We had discounted it years ago, when the landscape was different,” Hall said.
Instead of starting construction at the current terminus of the Animas River Trail at River Road, the new option would pick up at the trail spur that connects to Baker Lane. It could skirt Escalante Middle School’s campus and run behind Home Depot back to the highway. It would then cross the highway by way of an overpass or underpass.
An underpass would lead up some switchbacks to an old railroad alignment above the highway. This option is estimated to cost $6.5 million.
Another alternative would be for the trail to continue from its dead end at River Road along the river behind some industrial buildings and cross Trestle Lane.
The trail would then cross the highway by an overpass west of the Farmington Hill intersection. This option is expected to cost about $6.8 million.
The city plans to discuss the alignments with property owners before the parks and recreation and Multimodal advisory boards make a recommendation this fall about the preferred alignment.
In particular, city officials will be talking with property owners near the Escalante Middle School alignment, said Cathy Metz, director of parks and recreation.
“We have just begun to do outreach,” she said.
This fall, city officials hope the advisory boards will have enough information to choose a trail alignment to design, Metz said. Right now, the trail alignment is only at the conceptual level.
The Federal Transit Administration is providing $400,000 for the design of the trail extension to Farmington Hill.
As part of this process, the city hopes to finish trail design work all the way to the Grandview interchange, also known as the Bridge to Nowhere, with supplemental city funding.
mshinn@durangoherald.com
