In 1969 eight decades of rail transport to Aspen came to an end when the Rio Grande ran its last train from the city, a development that attracted less local attention than the first trains had. The tracks were removed and its depot demolished, leaving the bridge as the only significant remnant of Aspen's railroad era. When the railroad finally turned its Rio Grande Zephyr service between Denver and Salt Lake City over to Amtrak in 1983, the last private intercity rail route to do so, Amtrak did not restore service to Aspen. Service along the branch was finally abandoned completely when the last coal train left Carbondale in 1994, ending the Roaring Fork Valley's railroad era. By that time the bridge was showing its age. Traffic across the bridge grew at an average annual rate of 4.4% during the 1980s. In 1990 the Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT) released a plan for a new bridge at the site. The twin three-span steel box girder concept did not meet with public approval due to concerns about its aesthetics, environmental impact and effect on other roads of traffic diverted during construction, since its closure would necessitate a long detour on local roads through Woody Creek. Drivers on the bridge also had to contend with pedestrian users. The roadway was too narrow to install a sidewalk or walkway. In 1998 a pedestrian bridge of eight segments was built immediately to the north. It was a temporary solution to the increasing traffic problem and was never very popular locally. In the first years of the 21st century its sufficiency rating slipped to 9 out of a possible 100. It was temporarily closed to trucks while cracks in the masonry at the piers' base were repaired, restoring it to a sufficiency rating of 24. In 2004, after the municipal governments of Aspen and Snowmass decided to fund the design work, CDOT announced that it was expediting the planning process and hoped that construction would begin the following year. Traffic could continue to use the old bridge in the meantime. There were some objections to the disruption that would be caused pedestrians, since the old pedestrian bridge would have to be dismantled. Ultimately, a cast-in-place segmental concrete box girder design was decided on. The piers were tapered to echo the pinched-waist appearance of the old trestle next to it. Construction began in late 2005. Environmental considerations required that no more than of the protected wetland below the bridge be disturbed during construction, and half that area be permanently disturbed for the bridge piers.