SAFE PASSAGE – The newly opened tunnel linking the west end of the Valley Floor to Lawson Hill was high on San Miguel County Assistant Open Space and Recreation Program Coordinator Kari Distefano’s to-do list when she came onboard in that job back in 2001.

But although a tunnel was “part of the original plan for Lawson Hill,” she said, back in the early 1990s, when that subdivision was still on the drawing boards, the tunnel connecting it to the west end of the Valley Floor was slated to go through “the existing culvert of the river.”

And while that was “a good idea,” she said, it stalled in the midst of the Town of Telluride’s ongoing battle with San Miguel Valley Corp., owners of the Valley Floor, because “to get back up to the subdivision, you would have to cross SMVC property,” and developers had not obtained an easement allowing for that use.

Given SMVC’s subsequent reluctance to allow an easement that could possibly restrict the company’s plans for developing the property, Distefano said of her hope for a tunnel, “I tabled it for awhile.”

Then a notice from Colorado Department of Transportation crossed Distefano’s desk announcing “some grant funding was available,” and two years ago, she got to work.

For Lawson Hill residents, visitors and students at the Telluride Mountain School, the aboveground crossing at the intersection of Colorado State Highway 145 and its eastward stretch into Telluride known as the Spur was becoming increasingly dangerous – especially considering, as Distefano pointed out, that the Town of Telluride’s assessment of 10,000 vehicles coming into Telluride every weekday was made in 2004.

So “once I got the grant” of $138,000 from CDOT, Distefano said, “I started piggybacking.” Soon she had raised $588,000 for the roughly $1 million project, thanks to an impressive $300,000 grant from Great Outdoors Colorado, another $140,000 from the Department of Local Affairs and $10,000 from the Town of Telluride, and the tunnel got a green light.

Cyclists were using the tunnel, built south of its originally envisioned location, even before its official opening at the end of October.

“I know, because I could see track marks,” said Distefano, who uses the tunnel in her weekday commute to county offices from Lawson Hill.

And at long last, “it’s done,” she said, “thank God.”