A pedestrian tunnel may soon connect previously separated stretches of San Diego County. 

The Poway City Council recently voted on an interconnected trail system to be built underneath state Route 67. The tunnel would connect Poway’s trail systems west of the highway to the east, linking it to the Iron Mountain trails system.

But that is only the beginning.

The next step would be extending the trail system to Ramona in Dos Picos County Park by buying 800 acres worth of privately owned land. The owner of the private land, developer and hiking enthusiast Jim Hagey, was the brainchild of the trail connection. In 2015, he partnered with Poway Mayor Steve Vaus and County Supervisor Dianne Jacob, using a $200,000 grant to purchase 160 acres of land in the area.

According to San Diego Union-Tribune, construction is estimated to be considerably less than $6 million and would be cheaper than the originally proposed (and denied) idea of a pedestrian bridge.

“That tunnel will connect Iron Mountain to Lake Poway, and then they’ll have another little offshoot that goes over to Mt. Woodson and up to the San Diego River trail,” Hagey said. “So it’s a crucial thing, that tunnel … you really will have a countywide trail network.”

All of this is contingent on the California Department of Transportation making funding for the project available.