Dear Action Line: Will the city ever build a pedestrian bridge across Camino del Rio near 12th Street to connect downtown with the Animas River Trail? Then we wouldn’t have to deal with the confusion of the blinking red light. Speaking of which: If we’re driving and stop several cars back at the blinking red light, and the pedestrian has obviously safely crossed, do we need to stop again when we get to the light? I always assume one stop is enough, but it feels slightly illegal to drive through it. All in all, a bridge would solve many a confused local and tourist – and it may even decrease road rage during the 8 a.m. rush to work. – Bridge Advocate

Dear B.A.: Action Line can’t be the only one around here who played Frogger. That thing was so fun: cars rushing past, sinking logs and turtles, open-mouthed alligators. Action Line feels alive again just conjuring up memories of standing at the video screen at the arcade next to Casa Bonita. And the inevitable, dreaded “blurp” when you got run over or drowned.

The city’s plans for a safe crossing at this spot will remove the last best place to play real-life Frogger.

This nugget from Action Line Emeritus and current city spokesman Tom Sluis: “I watched two drunken fairies play Frogger last week at that intersection, presumably on the way to a Snowdown event. Their little drunken wings flapped as they ran laughing across the highway. Good times.”

My gosh people, is that really what you want? No more city-street Frogger?

Really?

OK. …

To answer the first part of the question, the city has begun a public process of gathering input and designing an underpass. It won’t be a bridge. A 2020 study concluded that 12th Street was the best place for this underpass. Camino Crossing Design project meetings are being held among various city boards and commissions and partnerships and districts. The first one was scheduled for Jan. 11 but was postponed because of, well, you know, that pandemic thingy.

Devin King, the city of Durango’s multimodal administrator, said a new first meeting date will be set soon.

For more information, visit DurangoGov.org/CaminoCrossing. Also, to receive email updates, you can email multimodal@durangogov.org.

Now, the blinking red light. The crossing light is triggered by a pedestrian, who then waits patiently (or not) for traffic to stop. Frogger did not have this safety feature, making the game much more fun and challenging.

Action Line contacted Lisa Schwantes, regional communications manager for the Colorado Department of Transportation, for clarification about what all the yellows and reds mean. She noted that it will be upgraded when median construction starts back up around mid-April with a new mast and pole, although it will still function the same. As far as functionality, here’s what you, the conscientious driver, are supposed to do. Let’s break this down and do it in order of the actual cycle:

That’s it. Once the flashing red ends, traffic can flow freely.

So simple, when everyone knows the rules. If not, it’s like in Frogger when you land on the log and suddenly an alligator pops up and comes at you. Then you have to quickly find a place to jump, and – oh no! – it’s the submerging turtles.

Quick: Back across the log and onto the road and …

“Blurp.”

Did NOT see that truck coming.

Several readers offered alternative viewpoints to recent Action Line items.

Win Wright, a local hydrologist with four decades’ experience, said that the water bubbling up through the stacked rocks along U.S. Highway 550 comes from a different source than the one that formed Pinkerton Hot Springs, and is not a natural hot spring. It comes from an improperly abandoned bore well drilled around the 1950s, before the highway existed. This well was drilled hundreds of feet deep into another water source.

“For decades, hot mineralized water discharged from the improperly abandoned well, precipitating iron and minerals in the roadside ditch, clogging the ditch and the culvert that ran under the highway,” said Wright, proprietor of Southwest Hydro-Logic. (This discharge was called a “bog of orange goo” by another reader.)

CDOT ultimately piped the water under the road, as explained in last week’s Action Line, and placed a pile of rocks over the discharge pipe on the east side of the highway.

Also, know that those stacked rocks are indeed 100% limestone. The CDOT supervisor in charge of the 2001 project had crews take limestone boulders from the rockfall across from Tamarron (now called Glacier Club), a reader in the know reported.

∎∎∎

Meanwhile, Carl Stransky recalled a story he heard about Oppie Reames, a former schoolteacher and bird lover whose memorial path parallels the Animas River Trail. Oppie taught a whole bunch of Stranskys, including Carl and his brother, Kip, quoted two weeks ago, at Animas School. The story goes:

Decades ago Johnny Carson, the famous NBC late-night TV host, was in Durango, perhaps vacationing at Tamarron. He was also supposedly an amateur bird-watcher and asked around for a local birder who might give him a tour. Carson was referred to Reames. When he called, you’d think she’d be delirious. The glitch was that Reames did not own or watch a TV. She had no idea who this stranger was. Oppie Reames said she had better things to do and promptly hung up on the King of Late Night.

“Hi-yo!”

Email questions and suggestions to actionline@durangoherald.com or mail them to Action Line, The Durango Herald, 1275 Main Ave., Durango, CO 81301. Johnny Carson died in 2005, Ed McMahon in 2009, if you’re keeping track of those things.