The stretch of SR-224 between Holiday Ranch Loop Road and McPolin Barn has new landscaped medians, fresh paving and striping, and drainage underneath that wasn't there in the spring. Much of that work was scheduled for next summer. It got done this year, so for the next several months Thaynes Canyon has a mostly quiet highway and reopened paths beside it.
The quiet won't last past spring. The two pieces of the Bobsled Express that will change how this neighborhood meets SR-224 are both scheduled for 2027. One is widening northbound SR-224 between McPolin Barn and Kearns Boulevard. The other is a new bus rapid transit station at Thaynes Canyon Drive. The McPolin segment was the easy part. The stop at the neighborhood's own entrance comes in the next round.
Why McPolin Finished a Year Early
High Valley Transit is building the Bobsled Express as a seven-mile bus rapid transit line from the Kimball Junction Transit Center to the Park City Old Town Transit Center. The agency's first season of construction ran from April into November. It moved faster than planned.
KPCW reported in June that crews had reworked the schedule to pull 2027 work into 2026. Gabe Shields, High Valley Transit's chief development officer, told the station that "some of the work that they're doing near McPolin Barn, that median work that was also scheduled for next summer" was among the pieces brought forward, along with the stretch between Canyons and White Pine.
By October the list of finished work was longer. TownLift's Oct. 8 recap reported completed roadway construction at the Park Avenue and Deer Valley Drive intersection and along the McPolin Barn segment. It also reported significant work between Olympic Boulevard and Canyons Resort Drive, plus early drainage work between Kearns Boulevard and White Pine Canyon Drive. TownLift noted that the Kearns-to-White Pine drainage work is scheduled for more intensive construction next year. That corridor runs right past Thaynes Canyon.
So what finished near the neighborhood this year was mostly at road level: medians, irrigation, paving, striping. The station, the canopy, and the extra northbound lane are all still to come.
What Comes Off for the Winter
High Valley Transit's winter plan is short. Crews will keep working on local bus stops as weather allows. Otherwise traffic control will be removed and trails will reopen. For anyone who spent the summer reading detour signs along the highway, that means a few months without them.
This summer's trail restrictions were mostly away from McPolin. The closures High Valley Transit published named McLeod Creek Trail segments near Silver Springs Drive, Cutter Lane, and Canyons Resort Drive. They also named a west-side stretch of the Millennium Trail between Landmark Drive and Olympic Parkway, and the Park Avenue sidewalk between Lame Dog Lane and Empire Avenue. The agency's project FAQ commits to fully re-establishing paved trails wherever construction affects them. It also says work will stay on one side of SR-224 at a time, so trail users always have access to one side. That commitment matters most next year, when construction moves onto the McPolin-to-Kearns stretch.
McPolin Farm stays the city-owned landmark it has been. Park City notes a trail along the upper edge of the property, and the farm itself is used only for city-sponsored community events. The farm's calendar includes Full Moon Snowshoe, Your Barn Door Is Open, and Barn and Farmhouse Tours. Check the city's McPolin Farm seasonal events page for winter dates before planning around them.
The buses change before the highway does
Park City Transit's winter service usually starts in early December and runs through mid-April. At the City Council's Oct. 1 meeting, staff said only "early December" for this season, without an exact date.
The schedules will be built differently this year. Until now, many routes used the same scheduled runtime all day, even though winter congestion can change travel times a lot. This winter, Park City Transit will use last winter's data to set runtimes by time of day and traffic. Routes may get slightly longer scheduled times at peak congestion and shorter runtimes with more frequent service at other times. Buses will stop aiming for strict 30-minute clock intervals. Instead, frequency will depend on how long a full loop actually takes. Each bus will also stay mostly on one route or corridor, so a delay on one route doesn't carry over to another. Schedules will still be published and will not change from day to day.
The route that names the neighborhood is Route 2 Green, labeled Park Meadows/Thaynes on the city's Spring 2026 schedule, effective April 1, 2026. The winter timetable hadn't been posted as of this writing, so the city's routes and schedules page is where the December version will appear. The council also put a proposed new 10-Pink route to Quinns Junction on hold for now.
What Spring Brings to Thaynes Canyon Drive
When construction resumes in spring 2027, the work moves to the neighborhood's front door. High Valley Transit's construction page lists two jobs for next year that matter here: widening northbound SR-224 between McPolin Barn and Kearns Boulevard, and building BRT stations with canopies, real-time information boards, lighting, and landscaping.
The Thaynes Canyon Drive station is one of four new stations on the line. The others are Bobsled, Cutter, and Snow Creek. According to High Valley Transit, the station design came out of three public workshops and includes:
- Level boarding platforms, so riders step straight on and off
- Covered weather protection
- Real-time arrival boards
- Seating and energy-efficient lighting
- Enhanced landscaping
The agency's project page includes renderings of the Thaynes Canyon station and before-and-after views of both Thaynes Canyon Road and McPolin Barn. If you want to picture next summer's construction from your own driveway, the SR-224 BRT project page has the clearest images.
Here is the order of work for this stretch:
- 2026: McPolin Barn segment finished, from Holiday Ranch Loop Road to McPolin Barn, with medians partly pulled forward from 2027.
- Winter 2026-27: Traffic control removed and trails reopened, with bus-stop work as weather allows.
- Spring 2027: Construction resumes, with northbound widening from McPolin Barn to Kearns Boulevard and station construction. More intensive drainage work also comes between Kearns Boulevard and White Pine Canyon Drive.
- 2028: Bobsled Express opens. TownLift reported a fall 2028 finish, and the HVT FAQ says the end of 2028.
What the Stop Connects To
Once the line opens, the station at Thaynes Canyon Drive joins a system High Valley Transit describes as running every 10 to 15 minutes throughout the day, seven days a week. It will use zero-emission electric buses and stop at four stations and three transit centers. The three transit centers are the existing Kimball Junction and Old Town Transit Centers and a new one at Canyons Village. The design mixes dedicated bus-only lanes with stretches where buses share lanes with cars, using signal priority at intersections. The agency puts capacity at up to 5,000 riders a day.
Riders won't board at Thaynes Canyon Drive until 2028, and the construction to build that stop starts in spring 2027. Until then, the neighborhood gets the finished McPolin medians, the reopened paths, and the reworked winter bus schedule starting in early December. The barn looks the same as ever. The closest piece of the project to Thaynes Canyon, the station at the neighborhood's entrance, is the one still to be built.
At Jensen and Company, we track projects like the Bobsled Express because they change everyday life along SR-224 long before they open. If you'd like to talk through what the 2027 construction season and the Thaynes Canyon Drive station could mean for your home or your plans, our team is glad to help.
