If you drove out to McLain Flats this spring and breathed a little easier once Slaughterhouse Bridge stopped closing on you, you filed the right story under the wrong ending. That project wound down, mostly. What almost nobody who lives out this road has flagged is that a second, unrelated project is about to start at the other end of the same commute, and it runs straight through the three weeks when this corridor sees its heaviest local traffic all year.

Two different governments are digging into Cemetery Lane in 2026. Pitkin County handled the river crossing. The City of Aspen is about to handle the intersection at the top of the road. One of them told residents well in advance, with a project page and press releases. The other got a single local news writeup in July and then went quiet, which means most of the people who'll be sitting in single-lane traffic this fall found out about it by accident, if they found out at all.

The Bridge Story Everyone Already Watched

Slaughterhouse Bridge, also known as the Cemetery Lane Bridge, carries Cemetery Lane over the Roaring Fork River at Stein Park, right where the road becomes McLain Flats Road on its way out of town. Built in 1993, it hadn't seen a real overhaul since, just repaving. This spring, Pitkin County brought in Rifle-based contractor Frontier Paving to fix that, starting April 6 and originally targeting a June 12 finish.

County Engineer Andrew Knapp's team found the bridge railing in worse shape than a routine job usually turns up: corroded through in multiple spots, with holes worn straight through the tubing. That pushed the scope from a repave into a full deck rehab, sandblasting the surface, laying a new waterproofing membrane, testing the concrete underneath by dragging chains across it to listen for hollow spots. Rain delayed the final surfacing work into May, which meant the multi-day full closures locals had circled for spring actually landed later than planned, with the bridge shut from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. on the affected days.

That part of the story is largely behind McLain Flats commuters now. A smaller piece, replacing the new bridge railing and guardrail, was expected to wrap under single-lane control once the steel fabrication was finished, later in summer. If you've still seen a lane closure at the bridge these last few weeks, that's likely the tail end of it, not a new problem.

The Project Beginning This Week

The piece almost nobody's talking about sits about a mile down the road, at the Cemetery Lane and Highway 82 intersection, right at the RFTA bus stop most McLain Flats residents use to get into town without a car. The city's own staff report on the project flags that stop's visibility as limited, with no real drop-off zone, and calls the intersection one of the busiest of its kind, with a documented accident history.

The fix is a roughly $621,000 package: new rapid flash beacons, concrete islands to shorten the pedestrian crossing distance, and a guardrail. It's one of more than 200 capital projects the city folded into its 2026 budget, and construction is set to begin in August, running through the end of Aspen's 2026 construction season, which closes out in late October. With August nearly over, that start date isn't a future headline anymore. It's this week.

"The bus stop located at this intersection is one of the most used in this area"

That's not a project anyone can wave off as background noise. It sits at the single choke point every McLain Flats resident who drives, bikes, or catches the bus into town has to pass through, and it's starting right as the road's other seasonal traffic is about to peak.

Why the Overlap Actually Matters

The reason the timing is worth flagging isn't the construction itself. Single-lane control at a stoplight is an inconvenience, not a crisis. It's who else is on this road at the same time.

Sunnyside Trail's main trailhead sits directly off McLain Flats Road, with a small paved lot for about ten vehicles across from where the trail starts. When that lot fills, and it does, overflow parking is at Henry Stein Park, right where Cemetery Lane crosses the river. Aspen Trail Finder tags Sunnyside for both "Leaf Peeping" and "Most Popular," and it's easy to see why: the trail climbs Red Mountain with sweeping views back toward all four Aspen Snowmass ski areas, and the Aspen Cycling Club adopts it for annual maintenance to keep it rideable. Aspen Snowmass's own fall hiking guide pegs peak color for early October, the same window the city's intersection work is scheduled to be running.

Layer on the Rio Grande Trail, which meets Cemetery Lane at that same river crossing and carries the valley's heaviest fall foot and bike traffic between Aspen and Woody Creek. Anyone doing the classic evening loop, out McLain Flats, up Sunnyside to the Four Corners junction and back, or just riding the Rio Grande out to Woody Creek Tavern for dinner, is funneling through the exact intersection getting rebuilt, during the exact weeks that loop gets the most use all year.

None of this closes the road. Single-lane control at a signalized intersection usually means a few extra minutes, not a detour. But a few extra minutes at 6 p.m. on a Friday in the first week of October, with a trailhead lot already full and cyclists queuing at the light, adds up differently than the same delay in a quiet week in November.

A few things worth keeping in mind if you're out this way through October:

• Check Pitkin County's project page before a weekday commute if you're still seeing lane control near the bridge, since the summer railing work hasn't been confirmed complete.
• Expect single-lane control at the Cemetery Lane and Highway 82 light from August through late October as the city's pedestrian project runs its course.
• If the small Sunnyside lot is full, Henry Stein Park at the river crossing is the established overflow, though it sits closest to whichever project has active equipment that week.
• Early morning or later evening rides avoid both the construction traffic and the worst of the fall crowds heading to the same trailhead.
• The trail itself isn't part of either project. Sunnyside stays open and maintained by the Aspen Cycling Club regardless of what's happening at the road level below it.

Living out McLain Flats has always meant tracking more than one calendar at once, the mountain's and your own. This year it means tracking three: the county's, the city's, and the one written by the aspens turning color on Red Mountain, whether or not the intersection below them is ready for the extra traffic.

If you're weighing a move to this stretch of the valley, or you already call it home and want a local read on what's actually happening here beyond the headlines, David Baer has been tracking the Roaring Fork Valley closely enough to know which construction stories are actually finished and which ones just went quiet for the summer. Let's Connect.