Collaboration leads to Riverfront Trail completion

If you’re one of the many community members who use our beloved Riverfront Trail every day, you were likely very excited to hear that we’re currently embarking on the final segment of a 40-year project — acquiring property to build the final section of the Riverfront Trail through the City of Grand Junction!

No longer will you have to jump over to C½ Road on your way east, with this newest segment scheduled for completion in 2026. This is a collaborative project between Mesa County, the City of Grand Junction and Colorado Parks and Wildlife, with each entity paying one-third of the cost for the property acquisition. After decades of work, this final portion of the trail was also made possible by the Skinner family’s willingness to come to the table and sell the last piece of property required for this segment; our thanks goes out to them for this important legacy that will be left for our community, and for generations to come.

The completion of the Riverfront Trail is truly a snapshot of the history of our community. Once a literal junkyard, with thousands of broken-down cars sitting atop uranium mill tailings, the cooperative efforts of countless community advocates, volunteers, state and federal agencies, and local elected officials have turned our riverfront into something to be immensely proud of.

They had a vision that the river could be something more than a radioactive junkyard, and today we now have the beautiful Las Colonias Park, the Dos Rios development and a scenic Riverfront Trail that someday will stretch across the entire Grand Valley, facilitating recreation and transportation for hundreds of thousands of trail users every year from Palisade to Grand Junction to Fruita.

The identity and heritage of our community is and always has been intrinsically linked to the Gunnison and Colorado (formerly Grand) rivers; it’s in the name “Grand Junction.”

But it’s also a part of our way of life, our connection to the land, a reminder of our history and why the area’s founders chose to create a settlement in this wonderful place and a reflection of the resilience and independent spirit that makes us who we are. The Riverfront Trail itself is a reminder of the connection between our cities and towns in Mesa County and the collaborative spirit and sense of community that makes us all greater than the sum of our parts.

When you walk or ride along the Riverfront Trail you can smile at your neighbors, say hello and feel a part of something greater than yourself. This spirit of the West and our shared identity is also a part of how we interact as municipalities and with the county; where other communities oftentimes see butting of heads between the local governments, we as electeds in the Grand Valley are more accustomed to a joining of hands and we understand that we all have a shared future, together, that’s more important than any single issue we deal with on a day to day basis.

So let this final segment of the Riverfront Trail be a reminder of who we are, where we came from and where we’re headed, as well as the necessity of working together toward the big, 100-year goals. It’s easy to get lost in the day-to-day work of policy making and running a city or a county — it takes effort, foresight and intentionality to create and bring to fruition projects like this one, which will affect so many lives for decades to come, and to finish the legacy started by so many who came before us.

Thank you to our respective bodies, the Grand Junction City Council and the Mesa County Board of Commissioners; thank you to both our staff members who did so much work to get us to this inflection point; a huge thank you to our partners at Colorado Parks and Wildlife for their support and involvement in this project that’s so important to our local community; and thank you to the Skinner family and other property owners who’ve had the vision to be a part of creating something that will improve countless lives, long after each of us are gone. We couldn’t finish this project without all of you.

There is also currently a process underway to identify a route and work toward construction of the very last segment of the complete Riverfront Trail, from Clifton to Palisade. Please take the time to weigh in on this important next step at https://inputcentral.

com/riverfront-trail Abram Herman is the mayor for the City of Grand Junction and Bobbie Daniel is the chair for the Mesa County Board of Commissioners.

D ANIEL

H ERMAN