Summit County Safe Passages

Summit County Safe Passages

Summit County Safe Passages works to make Summit County’s roads safer for both people and wildlife. As a collaborative, volunteer-driven partnership, Summit County Safe Passages brings community stakeholders together to build safe crossings for wildlife. Our efforts aim to restore habitat connectivity, reduce wildlife-vehicle collisions, and ultimately create safer travel conditions for everyone.

Our current priority is East Vail Pass which has long been identified as an ecologically significant area for restoring connectivity along the spine of the Rocky Mountains for a variety of wildlife including elk, mule deer and one of the few known breeding populations of Canada lynx outside of southwest Colorado. The I-70 East Vail Pass Wildlife Crossings Project will install three wildlife crossings, and wildlife exclusion fencing on I-70 between Vail Pass and Copper Mountain to restore landscape connectivity along the spine of the Southern Rocky Mountains in central Colorado. The project leverages existing wildlife infrastructure to reduce project costs and maximize gains and offers a cost-effective solution to wildlife-vehicle conflict with far-reaching human and ecological benefits.

2025 saw incredible progress towards this goal:

• We've secured new funding to move our project from 30% design through the final design and environmental review phases. This includes $250,000 from Eagle County and $60,000 from the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation. We’re working with CDOT to complete the engineering design plans in 2026 so that the project becomes eligible for construction funding.
• The national Wildlife Crossings Across America road trip made a stop in Colorado, bringing significant attention to wildlife connectivity efforts across the state, including our East Vail Pass project. Led by Beth Pratt, the renowned advocate behind California's Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing, the tour brought together National Geographic photographer Steve Winter, writer Sharon Guynup, and wildlife connectivity experts from ARC Solutions to document Colorado's pioneering work in wildlife-vehicle collision mitigation. The Colorado leg of the tour included a special visit to I-70 at East Vail Pass, where the team was joined by Colorado's First Gentleman, Marlon Reis. This visit provided an opportunity to showcase the critical importance of the East Vail Pass Wildlife Crossings project, which was recently designated as a 2025 priority project by the Colorado Wildlife & Transportation Alliance.
• The Colorado Wildlife & Transportation Alliance (CWTA) has officially designated the I-70 East Vail Pass Wildlife Crossings project as one of six priority projects for 2025. This recognition comes through CWTA's comprehensive data-driven prioritization process, which evaluates projects based on criteria including landscape connectivity, benefit-cost ratio, partnership opportunities, and public support. The Alliance's endorsement strengthens our position as we continue to advocate for this important wildlife connectivity solution.

Investing in wildlife crossings creates safer roads for wildlife and people. Your donation will help advance the project design and unlock new funding. To learn more about Summit County Safe Passages, Click Here!

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Summit County Safe Passages is a project of Rocky Mountain Wild.