The project will connect Montrose’s principal parks, trails, and recreation facilities via the community’s first two underpasses that both utilize existing bridges to safely and comfortably cross the two busiest roads in Montrose: U.S. Highway 550 and U.S. Highway 90. The project will construct 11,800 LF (2.25 miles) of new 10’ concrete trail with 2’ soft surface shoulders as well as two underpasses, one on the northern end of town and one on the southern end. The southern trail section will connect the recently opened (January 2017) 80,000 square-foot Community Recreation Center (CRC, Montrose’s first and only Recreation Center), located east of Highway 550, with 282-acre Baldridge Regional Park and the existing four-mile-long, regional Uncompahgre River Trail, both located west of Highway 550. This critical connection will enable access by 86% of Montrose’s population residing east of U.S. Highway 550 to the best and most extensive parts of the parks and trail system on the west side. The northern trail section will extend the River Trail north to the lowest socioeconomic areas that are currently cut off from the entire parks and recreation system. With these built, the River Trail would connect nearly all of Montrose from north to south, entirely separated from traffic.