The Keystone Trail closed between Blondo Street and Maple Street on October 15, and the City of Omaha lists it as closed through November 30. The underpasses at Blondo and Maple are closed too, which matters more than the closure itself. Those two underpasses let you cross both arterials without stopping for traffic.

This gap is one of four on the same trail this fall. The City of Omaha's October 2026 trails update gives the same reason for all four: "the NRD's Culvert Repair work," meaning the Papio-Missouri River Natural Resources District. These closures are one repair program spread along the creek. Once you see that, the fall comes down to a simple rule for Keystone. If you head north past Maple, the trail opens up. If you head south, the detours keep coming until December.

The closures have one cause

The city's page lists the trail as "Under Construction" and gives four culvert-repair windows. Here they are in order, north to south, with the underpass status the city lists for each.

Look at the last two rows together. The Mercy-to-Pine and Pine-to-Pacific segments touch at Pine, so the trail is effectively closed from Mercy Road to Pacific Street until the start of December. Of the four windows, the Blondo-to-Maple closure near Keystone is the shortest at about six weeks. It is also the one with no open underpass at either end.

The 72nd-to-Cass closure is the exception, and it is scheduled to lift on Saturday, October 31. "Scheduled" is the right word, for reasons the next section covers.

Getting around the Blondo-to-Maple gap

The city's detour sends you west, away from the creek, and onto streets. Here is the route as the city maps it:

1. Leave the trail at Blondo Street and head west to North 90th Street.
2. Go north on 90th toward Maple Street.
3. Turn east on Maple and follow it back to the trail, rejoining north of Maple.

The city says barricades and signage are in place, and it posts a closure map with the update. The detour adds street riding and arterial crossings to a stretch that normally has neither. That's the real cost for anyone pushing a stroller, walking a dog, or riding with kids. For a loop on foot with no road crossings, the simplest option through November 30 is to start on the north side of Maple.

Why the dates deserve a little slack

The listed dates are plans, and this trail has a recent record of plans slipping. In July, WOWT reported that the Keystone Trail near 72nd and Pacific had been blocked in the middle since the previous fall. Two separate government projects caused it. The city was rebuilding the section under the 72nd Street bridge, and the Papio NRD was doing federally mandated levee improvements a few hundred yards away.

WOWT reported that the city's contractors ran into five unforeseen problems. One was a storm sewer that wasn't on the engineering maps. Another was a drain from a private business that had to be reconfigured. Jake Lindner of Omaha Parks Development described the cycle to the station:

"Every time you come across one of these issues it takes a design, pricing and approval. Just delays after delays we found on this project."

John Winkler, general manager of the Papio NRD, told WOWT his crews had found two more pipes of unknown age the day before. He said then that the whole section should reopen by the end of October. The city's current update has since added NRD culvert work near Pacific and Pine that runs through December 1. Treat that July end-of-October estimate as history. The December dates are the current plan.

The other reason for slack is that the culverts are being repaired in the creek corridor itself. Work under a trail tends to turn up things nobody mapped. The city's October update also opens with a warning that recent floodwaters affected many parks and trails, and that temporary closures will stay in place until flooding recedes.

North of Maple is the open direction

When the city's detour ends, it puts you back on the Keystone Trail north of Maple. From there, the trail heads toward its northern start.

A September 2026 history of Omaha's trail system on Omaha Exploration describes the Keystone as starting at Cunningham Lake and running 27 miles along the Little Papillion Creek, then along the Big Papillion Creek after the two meet. Its southern end continues toward the Missouri River and American Heroes Park on the Bellevue Loop Trail. The same piece includes a 2026 photo of the trail south of Democracy Park.

That article explains why this trail draws such a big crowd and why closures on it ripple so far. The Keystone opened in 1990 as the first piece of what is now the "Paths of Discovery" system, and the author calls it the system's backbone, its longest trail and likely its busiest. These trails branch off it:

• The Big Papio Trail, 10 miles from Hefflinger Park along the Big Papillion Creek
• The South Omaha Trail, which connects the Keystone to the Field Club Trail, and the Field Club Trail ends at 38th and Leavenworth across from UNMC
• The Boulevard Trail, about 3 miles to Metcalfe Park
• The Sorensen Parkway Trail, about 5 miles to Fontenelle Boulevard
• The West Papio Trail, which joins in Bellevue and continues through Millard, La Vista and Papillion

The same writer visited the new Girard Trail Connection, a half-mile path on the old Chicago and North Western Railroad line. It is the first step toward a trail that would link the Keystone Trail and Cunningham Lake to the Omaha Riverfront Trail. It's short for now. It's also the one change to the network this fall that adds trail instead of closing it.

South gets harder before it gets easier

If your usual ride goes south toward Aksarben or past Pacific, the culvert closures aren't the only problem. On October 10, the city also closed the Keystone Trail from Q Street to Harrison Street. Flash flooding left storm debris that made the trail unsafe at the railroad bridges. The city says it is working with BNSF and will post a timeline when it has one.

The suggested detour for that stretch goes west on Q Street, south on 72nd Street, and east on Washington Street. It then runs south through Seymour Smith Park on the Big Papio Trail and rejoins the Keystone at Harrison. The Q Street and Harrison Street underpasses remain open.

Riding south from Keystone this fall can mean leaving the trail at Blondo, again between Pacific and Mercy, and again between Q and Harrison. Only the middle closure has a firm end date of December 1. The Q-to-Harrison closure has no posted date at all.

The last Wednesdays on Military Avenue

Not everything near the closed stretch has stopped. Keystone Center at 7803 Military Ave. has hosted a weekly Wednesday cruise night from 4 to 9 p.m. An event listing for Keystone Center Cruise Night describes the season as April through October, weather permitting, and lists October 21 and October 28 as dates. By that schedule, Wednesday, October 28 was the last listed night of the season. The listing suggests checking with the organizer before you go, and that's good advice for anyone hoping to catch a late fall night if the weather holds.

The city lists the Blondo-to-Maple closure through November 30, and the city's trails page is the place to check whether that date and the December 1 dates to the south hold.

If you live near the Keystone Trail and want to know which nearby blocks have the easiest trail access once the underpasses reopen, that's a conversation we enjoy having. Reach out to SK & Ren and we'll talk through the streets and access points along the Little Papillion that fit how you use the trail.