Gypsum traffic study foresees the need for millions in spending in the next 20 years
Just redoing the railroad underpass could be $30 to $40 million
Scott Miller/Vail Daily
The Gypsum Town Council recently adopted a master traffic study that includes some expensive upgrades.
The study includes ideas for projects ranging through 2040 and addresses items from roadways to transit to trails. The study addresses the anticipated growth of traffic as the town’s population grows, and as the Eagle County Regional Airport becomes busier over the next couple of decades. The study also addresses issues of evacuation in case of wildfires or other emergencies that might close Interstate 70.
The town of Gypsum recently authorized spending roughly $800,000 to update old permits for a potential Interstate 70 interchange to serve the Eagle County Regional Airport. That project would require mostly federal funding, and lots of it. The project in 2009 carried a cost estimate of $80 million.
All of that work will be expensive.
In just the next five years, potential projects have an estimated cost of $37.7 million. That doesn’t count an additional $30 million to $40 million to either realign U.S. Highway 6 under the existing Union Pacific Railroad tracks or rebuild the railroad overpass.
At a recent meeting of the Gypsum Town Council, Paul Brown of Felsburg Holt & Ullevig, the firm that conducted the study, said all the alternatives are expensive to improving or replacing that stretch of highway. It seems every alternative is more expensive than the next, he noted.
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The plan also envisions widening Highway 6 from two to four lanes from Interstate 70 to Schoolside Street, a project that would improve the existing pedestrian underpass between Valley Road and Oak Ridge Drive, adding a trail crossing of the Eagle River and building a new two-lane roundabout at Highway 6 and Railroad Avenue. That work, along with other projects, would be an estimated $17.5 million and would require work to the railroad overpass.
Other big-ticket items in that five-year plan include:
- $3 million for a single-lane roundabout at Cooley Mesa Road and Jules Drive
- $2.1 million to widen Cooley Mesa Road to four lanes from west of Buckhorn Valley Boulevard to McGregor Drive
- $2.26 million to upgrade the Cooley Mesa Trail to a 10-foot-wide concrete path.
Brown noted that improvements to Cottonwood Pass Road weren’t included in the study. Those improvements carry expensive price tags of their own.
Jacob Rivera, the town’s engineer, noted that just improvements on the Blue Hill section of the road could be $80 million. That road is “something we’ll keep on the radar,” he said.
