While I applaud Durango’s investment in Parks and Recreation and specifically the Animas River Trail, the renderings of the proposed new pedestrian bridge at 32nd Street are simply horrible.
It’s made up of multiple disparate parts, clunky concrete pylons and looks like it’s a cut-and-paste from the 1950s.
For $4.1 million, can we not create a design that is more inspiring and speaks to the river and railroad that it crosses?
Can we not create an image more relative to and respectful of our community?
At face value, the bridge is a waste of money we don’t have.
Wouldn’t more miles of trail, better lighting and security and better connections of the trail to downtown seem a better use of the money we don’t have?
How about connecting to Three Springs to support minimizing auto use? How about a dozen other good uses to expand and improve our current park resources in lieu of a single (bad) project?
Supposedly, the city cannot transfer approved voter money from one budget line to another. I’ll accept that as a legal technicality. That’s unfortunate, as I would vote to spend it elsewhere, or simply shelve this (bad) project.
If we proceed (can’t we just say no?), let’s at least create an object d’art that the entire community can be proud of.
Jim RothwellDurango
