New pedestrian bridge connects Riverbend, Skyland communities

It’s in place but plan on it opening next spring

It was a speedy ride with a slow start for the Slate River pedestrian bridge, but it came on a truck and was set by a crane on Tuesday, November 24, and by next spring the pedestrian commute between Skyland and Riverbend will be much safer and easier.

The steel bridge is the final piece of a joint project between the Skyland Metropolitan District and the Riverbend Home Owners Association to link the two communities and to keep people from venturing onto Highway 135 to get across the river.
But while the bridge might look like the finished product right now, it still needs some finishing touches before it will be ready for traffic. Skyland Metropolitan District Manager Mike Billingsley anticipates an opening next spring.
“It was challenging, but the bridge is installed,” he said. “It’s not usable right now so it will be closed until we can pour the concrete decking in the spring. That’s when the path will get finished and we’ll open the bridge to the public.”
Once fully installed, the 85-foot-long, 14-foot-wide bridge will connect Brush Creek Road and Skyland’s paved trail system to the New Deli trail on the north side of the Slate River.
Gunnison County Trails Commission Chairwoman Joellen Fonken is thrilled to have the bridge in place, and says it will be an important part of a trail system that could reach some of the best hiking and biking in the valley.
“This is an awesome amenity for the trails component of recreation in the area,” Fonken says, adding that details are still being worked out that would give the Crested Butte Nordic Center permission to groom a skiing trail over the bridge and into the Skyland neighborhood sometime in the future.
Billingsley isn’t sure when the Nordic Center could start grooming, since the Slate River is pretty much the end of the line of maintained trails.
“The grooming probably won’t start next year. It’s a matter of funding and feasibility,” he said. “If we lay a track across the bridge it would go into Skyland and that would be it. Eventually the county plans to connect the trails all the way to Crested Butte South and that would open up a lot of options.”
The Trails Commission and the town of Crested Butte recently submitted an application to the Colorado State Parks Trails Program for a grant to fund part of an extension of the town’s recreation path that would complete the trail system between Mt. Crested Butte and Brush Creek Road.
The bridge is just a small, but important, part of that long-term plan.
Last June, the county announced a plan to build the bridge during the fall that would keep pedestrians off Highway 135 and budgeted $78,000 to buy used components from a temporary Colorado Department of Transportation bridge for the project and improve the trail leading to the river.
Members of the Skyland and Riverbend communities were hoping for something more aesthetic and capable of supporting a snowcat and grooming equipment.
Considering the differing standards of the county and the communities, Director of Public Works Marlene Crosby told the Board of County Commissioners that she would be happy to get the Slate River bridge project into someone else’s hands, and said she would be willing to offer help if she were asked.
With that, the pedestrian bridge became the responsibility of Skyland Metropolitan District, which had generated some funding for the project. There was also help from the Riverbend HOA and contributions from private and public donors to cover the $100,000 cost of preparing the site and installing the bridge.
There is still some site improvement work that needs to be done to bring the grade of the trails up to the level of the bridge, and to build retaining walls that will help keep the backfill under the bridge and out of the wetlands.
Crosby is happy to see the project so near completion, saying it would be a “great asset” to the community when complete.
“The county finished its portion of the trail leading up to the bridge from the Riverbend side and turned the project over the to Skyland Metro Association,” Crosby said. “We will probably go back in the spring and refinish the trail.”
Crosby said the trail would probably have a crushed stone surface and that it would be built to handle all types of traffic.
Crosby added, “We will be working closely with Chris Hensley at the Adaptive Sports Center,” which caters to people with disabilities, “to make sure that whatever the trail turns out to look like, it is also conducive to their uses.”