Long-awaited Evergreen Lake North Trail construction to start

BY DEB HURLEY BROBST DBROBST@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM

e Evergreen Lake North Trail construction is ready to begin.

e work will start in earnest the week of April 17 — including a detour through downtown Evergreen from the beginning of May until Labor Day — and when the project is completely done in October, Evergreen will have a beautiful two-tier trail that won’t fail and will help with water quality in Evergreen Lake.

O cials from the many entities helping build the trail answered questions at a community forum on April 11 to try to make sure everyone knows about the project and its impacts.

While many of the project’s details have been made public in the last several months, Evergreen Park & Recreation District o cials wanted a one-stop shop for the community to learn the details. About 50 people, both in person at the Evergreen Lake House and on Zoom, listened to a presentation from Chris Vogelsang with OV Consulting, EPRD’s project manager. e $5 million project is being funded primarily by grants obtained by EPRD and help from community partners such as the Evergreen Legacy Fund and the Evergreen Metro District. Denver owns the

He said the project’s culmination has been a long time coming since plans started in 2016 after that section of the trail failed and was closed for 19 months.

Evergreen Lake property, so it has been on board with the project since the beginning.

Trail construction and detour e two-tier trail will be a 10-footwide concrete trail along Evergreen Parkway with a curb and gutter, and a soft-surface trail along the lakeshore with cutouts into the lake for shing.

ESCO Construction, an Evergreen business that built the trail in the 1980s, is doing the work. So far, ESCO is not planning to work at night and not planning to work seven days a week, Vogelsang said.

He cautioned the public that the trail would be closed to pedestrians beginning April 17, and pedestrians need to heed the warnings and not go through the area because it will be dangerous. No shing will be allowed in the construction area either. However, the remainder of the trail will be open. e detour, which will be in place 24/7 starting in May, will have southbound tra c traveling on Evergreen Parkway and northbound tra c moving through downtown Evergreen and up Meadow Drive. Flaggers will be positioned at the east end of downtown Evergreen at Meadow Drive from 2-7 p.m. daily during the detour to help vehicles turning left, and the contractor is working on ways to help tra c turning left from Douglas Park Road onto Evergreen Parkway.

Drive time through Evergreen is expected to take an additional 10 minutes, and Vogelsang said a task force is available to create a better plan if the delays become onerous. e detour will not bother the Evergreen Rodeo Parade on June 17, which will be able to get through the detour and into downtown Evergreen, according to Bryan McFarland, chairman of the board for the Evergreen Rodeo Association. He said he originally was concerned about the parade’s fate this year but now is con dent the parade will go on without a hitch.

Environmental considerations

Vogelsang said ESCO Construction has a wildlife biologist under contract to help with mitigating impacts to the elk calving on the island near the construction area in June, migrating birds and raptors. He said the elk-calving area has not been identi ed as an area that will be impacted, but it will be monitored.

Storm water drainage has been designed so less water goes into the lake, helping to keep the water cleaner, he said.

Safety, emergencies

Construction o cials are talking with Evergreen Fire/Rescue and the Je co Sheri ’s O ce about emergencies and evacuations if they are necessary. Vogelsang said the detour can be reversed to help get emergency vehicles or evacuated vehicles through the area if needed.

“If there’s a community-wide event, we will stop work and get out of the way,” Vogelsang said.

Workers will be careful to not create sparks during welding, and kits will be on-site in case of a fuel or hydraulic uid spill.

Benefits e new trail will be long-lasting, and connect both pedestrians and bicyclists from the Pioneer Trail that starts in Bergen Park through downtown. e trail is ADA-accessible.

Vogelsang said o cials believe speeds will be slower through that part of Evergreen Parkway once the work is done because the road will appear to be narrower, and it will feel like people have arrived in the downtown area.

Home alone

EVERGREEN – It was still two hours to sunup on March 19 when the agitated man dialed 911, breathlessly reporting a burglary in progress and abruptly hanging up. Lights blazing, sirens screaming, deputies raced to the scene to nd the house quiet and phoned the man to get some inside intel. e man reiterated his belief that a burglar lurked somewhere inside, and hung up again. Hoping for a more substantive conversation, deputies called back several times, each time getting the same panicked statement and the same precipitate dial tone. Shifting gears, o cers approached the house and quickly identi ed a broken front window, which wasn’t as concerning as one might think since it had clearly been broken from inside and was too small, and too, high to crawl through. Puzzled, but still on high alert, deputies hailed the house until a woman responded. e woman assured the o cers that “nothing happened,” that nobody had broken in, that she and the man were perfectly well, alone, and in no danger. After satisfying themselves that the woman was giving them the straight poop, the o cers departed more quietly than they arrived.