A $2 million grant has been awarded to Steamboat Springs from the Colorado Department of Local Affairs for Phase II construction of the West Steamboat Trail, a westward extension of the Yampa River Core Trail, city officials announced Thursday morning. 

The West Steamboat Trail plan is to connect current and future workforce housing, as well as westside neighborhoods, with Steamboat Springs via the existing Core Trail.

When complete, the West Steamboat Trail will extend the concrete sidewalk from Snow Bowl Plaza to the nearby wetlands on the city-owned Fournier Open Space parcel, where it would then merge into a 10-foot-wide shared-use trail that runs along the Yampa River and the Steamboat Springs KOA Holiday. This is known as phase one, which carries an estimated price tag of $4.1 million. 

“Phase one has not been built yet,” explained City Engineer Matt Phillips. “It has been designed, it is ready to go to construction and it is fully funded. It has an array of other funding sources applied to it.” 

The path would then continue with phase two, taking pedestrians under U.S. Highway 40 via an underpass near the Sleepy Bear Mobile Home Park to Brown Ranch. The underpass extension is estimated at $5.7 million in cost. This phase is currently approximately $1 million short of funding. 

The second phase of the project, the portion which the DOLA grant will fund, will include the 866 feet of trail and trail approaches to construct the pedestrian underpass. It will also include retaining walls, a dewatering system and lighting through the pass.

“If we get that fully funded, we will take both phase one and phase two and put them out to bid at the same time and award it to the same contractor,” Phillips said. “Basically it will be one large project, for practical purposes.” 

Both of the first two phases will offer a hard surface of concrete, much like any sidewalk or route on the Core Trail already offers. 

The purpose of the underpass is to create a safe off-highway option for pedestrians to reach downtown Steamboat Springs and the east side of town from western neighborhoods including Steamboat II and Silver Spur. 

Phase three of the project will make all that possible by extending the trail through the Brown Ranch property and connecting to those neighborhoods as well as Sleeping Giant School. Phase three has gone through the design process but has not received funding for construction. It will be an unpaved trail considered as a soft surface. 

The trail extension project as a whole will add 2.4 miles worth of trail with approximately 1.7 miles of soft surface to .7 miles of hard surface. 

“The West Steamboat Trail has been a community priority for over a decade,” City Manager Gary Suiter said, in a news release. “The project will provide multi-modal access to the west for current and future residents through a safe means of travel that avoids U.S. 40 Highway.” 

A 2018 community survey indicated to the city and Parks and Recreation department that extending the Core Trail was among the top priorities voiced by residents. 

In addition to the $2 million DOLA grant, the city has drawn several other grants for project funding from the Colorado Department of Transportation Multimodal Transportation and Mitigation Options Fund, CDOT Transportation Alternative Program Fund, Congressional Directed Spending and Colorado Parks and Wildlife Non-Motorized Trails Grant. Additionally, the project received $500,000 in partnership funding from Routt County. 

“Council’s priority goals – Affordable/Attainable Housing, Transportation & Mobility and Environmental Sustainability – will all benefit from this essential community project,” said Steamboat Springs City Council President Gail Garey, in a news release. “This was a huge team effort to secure this valuable funding.”