A new pedestrian bridge connecting the Boulder Canyon Trail to Chapman Drive is now set to open as soon as next month, after construction delays pushed the project past its original June completion date, according to a Boulder County official.
The $1.4 million project, funded by the City of Boulder and Boulder County, began earlier this year and prompted a months-long closure of an underpass beneath CO 119 that allowed people to safely cross the highway. The underpass has since reopened.
Remaining work on the bridge includes fabricating and installing a section of railing, according to Andrew Barth, a spokesperson for Boulder County Public Works. That work is expected to be completed in September.
Additional construction work will expand the trailhead with more parking, a trailer turnaround and a picnic area. Parking at the base of Chapman Drive will remain closed during this time, though the trail itself will stay open and accessible from the bottom.
The project has drawn criticism, particularly over whether the new bridge was needed given that a vehicle bridge already exists next to it, at a time when the city faces a budget shortfall and uncertainty around federal funding. Pushback intensified earlier this year after city officials initially suggested access to the base of Chapman Drive would be closed all summer.
The idea for a pedestrian bridge has been in the works since the early 2000s, according to a county official. Officials at the time, some of whom have since retired, sought to complete a trail connection fully separated from vehicle traffic along Boulder Canyon up to Chapman Drive.
City and county officials said they are not aware of any collisions between drivers and trail users near the existing bridge. Boulder County crash data from 2021 through May 2025 shows no serious crashes in the area, including since the underpass was closed in March.
Chapman Drive, a 2.6-mile historic trail built in 1935 by the Civilian Conservation Corps, connects Boulder Canyon to Flagstaff Road. In 2023, the city recorded about 36,000 visits to the trail, an average of nearly 100 per day.
Waste of money.
The bridge is a painful waste. It’s lucky that nobody was killed when they had to ride on Canyon when the underpass was closed as one had to cross close to some blind corners.
This project will make me think twice about voting for Open Space funding in the future. The fact that nobody at Open Space, or the City/County didn’t stop this waste of money before it started, is beyond me. At $100 per night, this could have housed homeless folks in hotels for 14,000 person-nights.
This is the poster child for why many folks don’t like government. I’m a proud lefty, but this has my head spinning.
What are you proud of mike 😄
And I wonder what the carbon footprint of this entire project will turn out to be…
I have ridden to the Chapman Trail many times, and not once was there even the perception of any type of car/bike user conflict while using the existing bridge. This project seems to me to be the perfect example of an answer to a question that nobody was asking.
I think most of the cost of this project is in the restroom, parking, and picnic area. Not sure where I heard it, but I recall that the bridge component was around 400 k$. This portion I feel is unnecessary as the existing vehicle bridge provided fine access. But the rest of the project will be a nice amenity, especially the restroom. Certainly moving forward city staff (and approving boards, which included the Open Space Board of Trustees and the Planning Board) need to apply a more critical eye to projects like this as the city and county face funding shortfalls. These joint projects seem to take forever to organize and then take on a life of their own once the agreements have been signed. One going on now is the north 28th St. widening project (https://bouldercolorado.gov/projects/28th-street-improvements-project), which will add a bus-and-right-turn lane and wide sidewalks to 28th St. between Pearl and Iris. This is a joint CDOT, RTD, and City project that took more than a decade to plan and fund and is now being implemented with obsolete bike infrastructure design because it was planned and agreed to so long ago. I wish government at all levels could be more nimble and flexible.
As a cyclist – I’ve had a handful of close calls with vehicles at the Chapman bridge over the past few years alone. I’m sure I’m far from the only one. IMO this bridge is necessary for cyclist safety. Drivers get impatient trying to turn left (especially on weekend afternoons) and gun it first break in traffic they get. It’s only a matter of time before somebody gets killed there.
Um – aren’t you looking for cars turning left and also for cars coming down the canyon turning right? I’ve been a cyclist for 50 years and there is nothing about that bridge that is nearly as risky as what a cyclist typically deals with. And with the new bridge, you’ll still need to pay attention to cars entering and exiting the new parking lot. It might even be that the parking lot entrance/exit and path let-off may create a more dangerous choke point. Be careful out there!
This project was not necessary for cyclist safety: I bike Chapman on a weekly basis and the number of cars turning into the parking lot is minimal. The bridge and parking lot were beautifully done, and although 1.4 mil seems reasonable for a project that size, it seems like a waste of $ that could have been allocated for protected bike lanes in other parts of the city or county.