We’ve all been there. You’re rushing to get out the door. You’re headed to work, school drop-off, or trying to catch that first chair on the mountain. You know that if you miss your window by five minutes, you’ll be stuck in traffic.

Every year, that window shrinks, and the delays grow. You find yourself thinking, “If there was just another way to the interstate, I’d make it on time.”

We are blessed to call the Eagle River Valley home. Naturally, many others want to be here too, which has resulted in the population more than doubling in western Eagle County since 2000.

This rapid expansion, along with increased visitor traffic — including a record number of enplanements at the Eagle County Regional Airport in 2024 — has strained our roadway infrastructure. The existing interchanges in Gypsum and Eagle are overloaded, creating bottlenecks, slowing emergency response and delaying local transit.

Even worse, whenever a crash closes I-70, heavy traffic floods our local roads, paralyzing our towns. This raises critical safety concerns. A wildfire near an interchange could threaten one of only two evacuation routes for the nearly 20,000 people living between Eagle and Gypsum.

That is why the town of Gypsum has relaunched the I-70 Eagle Airport Interchange project.

This effort aims to create a new interstate access point halfway between the existing Gypsum and Eagle exits. It is designed to do more than move cars; it is intended to secure our region’s long-term future. The project will ensure faster emergency access, provide vital alternate routes during disasters, decrease heavy truck traffic on our local roads, and improve our quality of life.

By reducing congestion on U.S. Highway 6 and enhancing overall connectivity, the project will allow guests, recreational enthusiasts, and local workers to travel more safely and efficiently, supporting the region’s vital tourism industry.

The data is promising: With the addition of an interchange between Gypsum and Eagle, traffic is projected to drop by roughly 20% at the Gypsum interchange and 30% at the Eagle interchange, extending the lifespan of both by up to 15 years and saving taxpayers the significant cost of expanding those interchanges in the near future.

This isn’t just a Gypsum initiative. Eagle County, a valued partner on this project, has included the interchange in its 2024/2025 Strategic Plan. The Intermountain Transportation Planning Region (a coalition of municipalities across five mountain counties) lists this as a priority project, and the Colorado Department of Transportation and the Federal Highway Administration are active partners on the Project Leadership Team.

Projects of this magnitude do not happen overnight. In the years ahead, the town of Gypsum and its partners will finalize the design and secure funding, targeting a construction start date of 2029. Completion of the interchange will be another step in Gypsum’s goal of delivering infrastructure investments to provide a safer and more connected future for everyone who lives, works, and travels in our community.

To get the latest on the project’s progress, visit the Town of Gypsum's website. 

Jeremy Rietmann, Gypsum Town Manager

Jeff Shroll, Eagle County Manager

David Reid, Eagle County Regional Airport Director of Aviation

Chris Romer, Vail Valley Partnership President & CEO

Peter Dann, Project Leadership Team