Dear Action Line: Why are there no county roads in the 400s in La Plata County? They skipped right over them and went right to 500! – Jumbled
Dear Jumbled: The 400s were not forgotten, said Megan Graham, spokeswoman for the county.
“Back in the olden days, there were county roads among the 100s, 200s, 300s, 400s and 500s, but sometime in the 1940s or ’50s, the five county road districts got combined into just four – largely to streamline the maintenance structure for La Plata County’s vast and far-reaching road system,” she said.
“At that time, the 400s got divvied among the 300s and 500s to even out the districts. Why not just get rid of the 500s, you ask?”
Hey Megan, why not just get rid of the 500s?
“Good question – and the institutional memory is not long enough to know for certain, but it is a reasonable assumption that there were fewer addresses on the 400s, therefore making it easier to change those than the larger number of addresses among the 500s that would have required an identity change.”
There’s also the unreasonable assumption that the 400s were just the weaker roads and the stronger 300s and 500s absorbed them like the Borg on Star Trek. Resistance was futile.
Dear Action Line: What’s with the black plastic the city installed a while back along the river trail behind River City Hall? – Like My Trails
Dear Trails: That was silt fencing installed for stormwater management during the reconstruction of the Animas River Trail in Iris Park and Riverfront Park (behind River City Hall), said Cathy Metz, director of the city’s Parks and Recreation Department.
“The project also included a root barrier to prevent the tree roots from pushing up the new trail surface,” she said.
Dear Action Line: The north barrier fell down to the gigantic hole in downtown Durango that will eventually house a new hotel (?), and I’m wondering: Will anything ever go there? – Stumped.
Dear Stumped: The fence is back up, and the hotel project slated for East Second Avenue between Fourth and Fifth streets is still moving along, said Nicol Killian, assistant director of the city’s Community Development Department. The city hopes to issue a building permit within the next 30 days, she said.
In the meantime, the hole looks like aliens surgically excised a city block and its inhabitants before teleporting them to their home planet for medical testing; kind of like the 1964 episode of “The Outer Limits” called “A Feasibility Study.”
First person to put up a sign at the hole that reads “Missing – City Block. Please return. No questions asked,” gets a free copy of today’s Herald.
Dear Action Line: Can I have that red tractor in the 900 block of Florida Road? – Caught My Eye
Dear Eye: You cannot have that tractor. It is not yours. It is owned by Bob Brinkerhoff, who politely asks everyone to please not trespass.
Brinkerhoff said the tractor is a compressor used to power mining drills, and his dad bought it way, way back. The compressor was last used in the mid to late 1990s to drill holes in a boulder on which a bulldozer had high-centered. Dynamite was packed in the holes to blow up the boulder which freed the dozer, he said.
Email questions and suggestions to actionline@durangoherald.com or mail them to Action Line, The Durango Herald, 1275 Main Ave., Durango, CO 81301. Baby Action Line, now 17, wrote the headline and removed a gratuitous dad joke. He thinks he’s funny (he is).
