"If we were to stop and redesign the infrastructure now, we would be putting off fixing Florida Road by several years," La Plata County Commissioner Elizabeth Philbrick told the Durango Herald in an interview published October 1.
That sentence explains most of what will happen on County Road 240 between now and the end of November. Anyone who drives into town from Edgemont knows the climb past Rosetta Circle, the thin shoulders, and the brief backup behind a cyclist on the uphill. This fall the road gets a new surface and a new set of painted symbols. It doesn't get wider, and the reason has more to do with property lines than with paving.
Philbrick told the Herald the county does not own much of the easement on either side of Florida Road leaving Durango. Bike lanes would mean working with private landowners to widen the road onto their property. Everything else this season follows from that constraint. The repave was scoped to fit inside it, the resident campaign for bike safety ran up against it, and the painted bike symbols are the one change that fits.
Two and a Half Miles, Already Spoken For
The county's bid is titled "County Road 240 Paving Mill and Overlay." It covers the stretch most Edgemont households use to reach town. The solicitation went public on September 17, and bids close October 7, 2026, at 10:00 a.m. MDT. A summary of the bid posted on GovTribe lays out the scope.
| Item | What the bid summary describes |
|---|---|
| Limits | 2.5 miles, from Copperbell Road at Edgemont Ranch to the Durango city limit at Rosetta Circle |
| Surface | Mill the full length 2 inches deep, then lay one 2-inch lift of SX 75 hot mix asphalt |
| Asphalt removed | 45,500 square yards |
| New asphalt | 5,200 tons |
| Shoulders | Rebuilt with Class 6 aggregate base course, 535 tons of shouldering |
| Traffic control | Single-lane operations with a pilot car |
| Contract term | Execution runs through November 30, 2026 |
The pilot car line matters most for daily trips. Expect one lane at a time, with traffic led through the work zone in alternating directions. The summary also says the county reserves the right to reduce the scope to meet budget constraints.
Much is still unknown. No contractor has been named, since bids were still open as of today, October 5. There is no published start date, construction duration, set of work hours, or delay estimate. The Herald describes the timing only as "later this fall." Watch La Plata County's announcements for the schedule once a bid is awarded.
The "shoulder reconstruction" item can sound like a wider shoulder. The bid summary doesn't say the shoulders get wider, and the county's statements point the other way. When residents asked for changes, county spokesperson Emily Spencer told the Herald that larger bike and road improvements could not be folded into the resurfacing because of time and cost, and that the county had already scheduled, budgeted, and planned the fall repaving.
Why the Road Stays the Width It Is
The push for something more came from Florida Road itself. Peter Bradley is a cyclist, bike commuter, and driver who lives just off Florida Road. He made a flyer with a QR code that lets residents email the county commissioners in a couple of taps. By the Herald's September 20 report, commissioners had received more than 50 resident emails asking for changes to the Florida Road plan.
He wasn't asking for a capital project. Bradley described his ideas as low-cost, "creative" tweaks to make during a repave that was already happening. They included:
- more signage
- lower speed limits
- adjusted lane and stripe placement
- moving the stripe so the uphill shoulder gains a foot and the downhill shoulder loses one, giving climbing cyclists more room
The last idea would shift space without adding pavement. Philbrick wrote back that the county did not believe the proposals would align with state road safety standards or engineers' recommendations, and that improvising them was a risk the county would not take. She also said Florida Road isn't the only place asking. "Requests for bike lanes, wider shoulders, and more signage have come in from several areas of the county for a long time," she wrote. Those requests compete with washed-out roads, debris removal, and bridge replacements.
The county's general Road & Bridge funding comes from property tax mill levies, the 2025 voter-approved sales tax measure, highway user tax funds, and grants. No project-specific allocation for CR 240 turned up in the county's public material.
Spencer suggested a public awareness campaign on bicyclists' legal rights. She noted that cyclists may ride three abreast and take the lane. Bradley called that impractical given how much faster cars are than climbing bikes, and said more riders in the lane would likely mean more congestion and frustrated drivers.
Paint Is the Fix That Fit the Budget
Between the September 20 story and the October 1 story, the county moved. Commissioners approved having the Road & Bridge Department paint bicycle symbols on Florida Road to raise driver awareness. Bradley called it a positive first step. He said the county is "legitimately hamstrung by budgetary constraints."
Philbrick's own numbers show why paint got through when other ideas didn't. She said resurfacing projects generally can cost up to $1 million per mile. That was a general figure, and she said she couldn't give an estimate for this project. A double yellow centerline alone, she said, runs $9,000 to $11,000 a mile. After talking with Road & Bridge, she said, the bicycle symbols would cost little enough that they wouldn't affect the county budget.
Paint doesn't depend on who owns the land beside the road, doesn't need a redesign, and doesn't delay the repave. The October 1 article doesn't say when or where the symbols will be painted. It does say Philbrick and Bradley's conversations have started discussions about future policy for bicycle safety signage on Florida Road. "It's part of our culture, and personally, I think we should be considering bicycle infrastructure as we go forward," Philbrick said.
The Work Window Overlaps the Corridor's Wind-Down
The repave is due to happen in the same weeks the upper corridor closes for the season. Florida Road is the way up to the Florida River and Lemon Reservoir. The San Juan National Forest's directions to Transfer Park Campground follow Florida Road/CR 240 for about 13 miles, then CR 243/FR 596 for about 8.5 miles, passing through Florida Campground. Every late-season trip up the drainage from town crosses the 2.5 miles being milled.
Florida Campground, above Lemon Reservoir, is listed as closed. Its normal season is May through September. Transfer Park, one mile farther on, is listed open from the end of September through November 15, 2026, with limited services and no water. The same page's general amenities section still lists potable water, so plan on hauling your own. The Columbine Ranger District can confirm before you go.
Closer to home, Meadow Market at 688 Edgemont Meadows Road sits just off the CR 240 corridor that the Herald describes running out toward Vallecito. Here is how October lines up, according to the market's calendar and the county bid listing:
- October 7: CR 240 paving bids close at 10:00 a.m., and Meadow Market starts its fall clean closure.
- October 7 to 11: Meadow Market is closed for the fall clean.
- October 16, 6 to 8 p.m.: Tapas Night at Meadow Market.
- October 23, 4:30 to 6:30 p.m.: Burgers and Nashville hot chicken sandwiches at Meadow Market.
- October 24, 5 to 7 p.m.: Shafer's Lumber Wagon plays live at Meadow Market.
- November 15: Transfer Park's listed season ends.
- November 30: The CR 240 contract term ends.
Paving could start anywhere in the gap between the October 7 bid deadline and the November 30 contract end. When it does, crossing the stretch between Copperbell Road and Rosetta Circle will mean single-lane traffic behind a pilot car. Trips into town for errands, school, or work will feel it more than an evening at the market, since Meadow Market sits on the Edgemont side of the project's upper end.
Once the work is done, the 2.5 miles from Copperbell Road at Edgemont Ranch to Rosetta Circle will have a new 2-inch surface, rebuilt shoulders, and painted bicycle symbols, on a road as wide as it was before.
If you live along Florida Road and want to know how a corridor project like this one, or a future conversation about shoulders and easements, fits into your property's long-term picture, Alicia Romero can walk you through it. Start your move by requesting a home valuation.
