Pitkin County commissioners hear multi‑department budget pitches, including McClure Pass trail, Redstone bridge and airport modernization

Pitkin County elected officials spent a full day on Oct. 28 reviewing 2026 budget requests from a wide swath of county departments, with staffers emphasizing a handful of large capital projects that would shape county work over the coming years. The most prominent items presented were Open Space & Trails plans for the Redstone‑to‑McClure Pass trail and trailhead improvements; Road & Bridge’s Redstone Southbridge replacement and multi‑week closure plan; the airport’s runway and modernization program; a large water‑infrastructure ask tied to the Phillips affordable housing project; and a set of staffing requests from the sheriff’s office.

Open Space & Trails director Gary Tenenbaum told the commissioners the department is presenting “all of the requests whether they made it into our proposed budget to the board or not, just out of fairness,” and laid out several planned projects. The largest single trail item is a proposal to complete a single‑track trail from Redstone to the top of McClure Pass that would use the old McClure Pass Road for much of the corridor and include a new, safer trailhead and an underpass beneath Highway 133 to reach the other side. Tenenbaum said the underpass design is about 8 feet wide and is intended for people — not wildlife — and that the trail is already being used by the public in parts.

Road and Bridge engineer…