Until the Gondola Returns, Lawson Hill Is Closer to Telluride Than to Mountain Village

"There really isn't a connector at this point," Lawson Hill Property Owners Association board chair Alex Martin told San Miguel County commissioners last month, as KOTO reported. He was talking about 0.18 miles of pavement that hasn't been built yet.

The same gap shows up in the bus schedule. The gondola stops running after Sunday, October 25, and for the following three and a half weeks, getting from Lawson Hill to town stays the same as it was all summer. The direct bus up to Mountain Village runs on weekdays only, during business hours. Both changes are short-term. Underneath them is a neighborhood that serves as the county's parking and transit hub, while the walking link from its Park & Ride to the valley path is still a line on a bid document.

Telluride stays on its usual schedule

The Town of Mountain Village lists the gondola's summer season as running through October 25, 2026. Winter service starts November 20, 2026 and runs through April 4, 2027, with hours of 6:30 a.m. to midnight once it reopens. That leaves October 26 through November 19 with no gondola, and SMART's off-season route changes cover exactly those dates.

In its October 13 announcement, the San Miguel Authority for Regional Transportation says regular Lawson Hill to Telluride service "will remain unchanged." SMART's Lawson Hill schedule shows that route running daily, with buses about every 45 minutes between Upper Lawson Hill and the Telluride stops. The Lawson Hill Park & Ride also serves the Down Valley and Norwood routes.

So the trip into Telluride for groceries, the post office, or a weeknight dinner on Colorado Avenue doesn't change this fall. The trip up the hill is the one that does.

Mountain Village becomes a weekday trip

During the gondola gap, SMART is replacing its Lawson Hill to Mountain Village route with an express that leaves from the Lawson Hill Park & Ride. According to the off-season flyer, the express runs Monday through Friday on a fixed hourly loop. Each bus starts at Town Park, stops at the Lawson Hill Park & Ride, climbs to Blue Mesa and Market Plaza, comes back through the Park & Ride, and finishes at Town Park.

From the Park & Ride, it's 16 minutes to Market Plaza and 10 minutes back. The schedule is built around a workday. If you have an 8 a.m. shift in the Village Core, the 7:37 departure gets you to Market Plaza at 7:53. The last bus down leaves Market Plaza at 6:53 p.m. and reaches the Park & Ride at 7:03 p.m. The flyer lists no express service after that.

The flyer adds that the off-season loop "will no longer travel through Lawson Hill." That gives riders from the Meadows a more direct trip between Mountain Village and Telluride. That loop runs on weekdays until late evening, with its last departure from Town Park at 11:05 p.m. After the express stops for the night, the posted schedules offer one way between Lawson Hill and Mountain Village. You ride the loop into Telluride, then take the regular Lawson Hill bus home.

Weekends run through town

The flyer's Saturday and Sunday timetable has no express at all. It shows only the loop, which runs Town Park, Courthouse, Meadows, Market Plaza and Centrum, then back again, with no Lawson Hill stop. The weekend loop also runs less often than the weekday one. Town Park departures go out at 6:25, 7:55, 9:25 and 10:55 a.m., then roughly every 90 minutes until 11:05 p.m. On weekdays the loop runs about every 45 minutes.

On the published timetables, a weekend trip from Lawson Hill to Mountain Village takes two buses. First is the regular Lawson Hill route into Telluride, then the loop up from Town Park or the Courthouse. Mountain Village notes that SMART runs free bus service between Telluride and Mountain Village during shoulder seasons when the gondola is closed. The free part is easy. Timing it so a Saturday breakfast in the Village Core doesn't turn into a 90-minute wait takes some planning. SMART's flyer adds that buses don't wait at flag stops and asks riders to arrive early, and its phone line is (970) 239-6034.

Where the bus stops, the path doesn't quite begin

With fewer buses, more Lawson Hill trips happen on foot or by bike, and that's where the neighborhood's layout matters. SMART lists the Lawson Hill Park & Ride at 130 Society Drive, open for parking from 6 a.m. to midnight. The lot has bike parking and access to the bike path into Telluride and the Galloping Goose Trail. Visit Telluride describes the paved Valley Floor Bike Path as a 6.6-mile out-and-back that runs beside Highway 145 from Telluride's west end and connects to the Galloping Goose Trail in Lawson Hill.

The weak spot is the short stretch between the lot and that path. San Miguel County's request for proposals, dated August 12, 2026, describes a multi-use path of about 0.18 miles. It would run from the county-owned Park & Ride to the existing CDOT and county underpass beneath State Highway 145 that leads to Telluride. The county calls it one of the "missing orphan trail segments" in the planned SH 145 Down Valley Connector Trail. Deputy County Manager Jarrod Biggs told commissioners that the asphalt trail now "kind of" connecting Lawson Hill to the Valley Floor isn't what a fully CDOT-compliant, ADA-compliant trail would look like, according to KOTO.

Martin's case to the board focused on what moves through that corner each day. KOTO quoted him saying the intercept lot "has created even more traffic than we had five or six years ago." He added that the Conoco has expanded, Telluride Tire is there, and Alpine Lumber "has big trucks coming in and out, and what we've created is a very unsafe zone."

The busiest stretch of road in Lawson Hill is the one where the trail is missing, and that stretch carries more walkers and cyclists in exactly the weeks when the gondola is closed.

Half the bill now sits with the neighborhood

Here's how the money has added up, based on KOTO's September 23 report and the county's bid documents:

1. 2023. The project received roughly $740,000 in Colorado Department of Transportation funding, against a total estimate of about $1 million.
2. August 12, 2026. The county put construction out to bid as a CDOT and Federal Highway Administration funded project under the Transportation Alternatives Program, with design already finished.
3. September 2026. Two bids came in. The apparent low bid was $1,966,198, "about double what the original budget was," Biggs said. Construction management and other costs widened the funding gap to about $1.4 million.
4. September 2026. In coverage dated September 23, KOTO reported that commissioners voted to contribute $700,000, which left the other $700,000 to Lawson Hill. KOTO reported that a cheaper design was possible but would likely disqualify the project from CDOT funding, and that the cost to the Lawson Hill POA would be about the same either way.
5. Early October 2026. A Citizen Portal summary of the October 7 commissioners' meeting reports that the board approved a cost-sharing agreement with the Lawson Hill POA. The board also authorized the chair to sign a CDOT concurrence-to-award letter, which the grant process requires before a contractor can be hired.

The commissioners who backed the full-standard design did so on cost over time. Commissioner Gleason said a packed-gravel trail might be cheaper up front but would need more maintenance, and "might actually cost more in the long run." Commissioner Lance Waring said the trail connects the county intercept lot to the East End's multimodal trail system, which made him "confident about partnering with Lawson."

On the timeline, the county's bid schedule lists a tentative contract date of October 28, 2026, and the project kickoff as "TBD." The county notes that dates may change. The county's bid page still lists the project as open, with no contractor named. For now, the connector is funded and approved but not under contract.

Next door, Society Turn keeps building

Gleason tied the trail to what's coming across the highway. "As medical center construction at Society Turn moves forward," KOTO reported, she sees an even greater need for safe pedestrian paths, because "the commercial area is highly utilized by people well beyond those that live in Lawson Hill."

That construction is already underway. A March 13 county notice said Genesee Properties and Williams Construction would begin Society Turn infrastructure work, including widening and turn lanes on CO 145 and an extension of the paved trail. Highway work was expected to wrap up in fall 2026, and some trail work could carry into spring 2027. Internal subdivision work is scheduled to continue through spring 2028. The notice also warned that parts of the seasonal Remine Creek Trail would be reconfigured in stages, with possible temporary relocations or short closures, though it gave no specific dates. In Telluride News coverage, the medical center's CEO said the center expects to take possession of its site in late 2027 or early 2028, before its own building work starts.

So the stretch of Highway 145 around Lawson Hill will keep changing well after the gondola reopens on November 20. The express bus is a fall-only arrangement. The 0.18-mile connector, once a contractor is hired, will be permanent.

At JW Group, we follow these changes because they shape everyday life in Lawson Hill. That includes which bus reaches the Village Core on a Saturday and when the walk from the Park & Ride to the underpass gets safer. If you'd like a local's read on how the Society Turn work and the connector trail could affect the neighborhood over the next few years, Ben and Drufur are happy to talk it through.