Gypsum Widens Cooley Mesa Road to Handle Airport Traffic Boom

“Cooley Mesa Road construction is slated through the summer as airport traffic keeps booming.”

That’s the headline locals have been seeing on their morning commute, but the reality on the ground is a lot more visceral. If you’ve driven down to the Eagle County Regional Airport in Gypsum lately, you know it’s a rough ride. The road is stripped down to the base, widening between Costco and the Buckhorn Valley subdivision, while crews dig in for utility work and prepare for the influx of new homes in the Siena Lake neighborhood.

The question is whether this expansion is enough to handle the traffic, or if it’s just a temporary bandage on a growing wound.

“We’re just trying to make Cooley Mesa Road all consistent because that was starting to bottleneck in that little section,” said Kyndal Emerick, the town of Gypsum’s Communications and Marketing Coordinator. “We’re expanding it to match the other two sides — just adding additional lanes. Then we’re also going to be adding some turn lanes into the new Siena Lake neighborhood.”

The project started in mid-March. It hit a few weather-related delays, but according to Emerick, the milling is done. The paving is happening now. They’re aiming for completion by fall.

It’s a timing gamble. If the weather holds, the road will be ready for peak-season visitation. If it doesn’t, neighbors are looking at another summer of construction dust and detours.

But the traffic isn’t just coming from vacationers. It’s coming from the airport itself, and the pressure is mounting.

Friday at EGE — typically a slow day, the short-term parking lot was full. Travelers were hunting for spots in outlying lots. Part of that is due to the annual closure of the Aspen/Pitkin County Airport, which shuts down for airfield work every spring. But the root cause is simpler: more people are flying into Gypsum.

“Every time they do that [close Aspen], even in May, our parking lot just goes to capacity with all those folks coming up here,” said Eagle County Regional Airport Director David Reid.

Reid estimates that 12% to 15% of everyone flying through EGE is headed to or from the Roaring Fork Valley. That’s a significant chunk of the local economy, but it’s also a significant chunk of congestion on County Road 6 and the access roads leading to it.

The situation is set to get tighter. Aspen is planning an eight-to-ten-month closure next year to reconfigure the airfield for larger aircraft. That means fewer flights out of Aspen, more demand into Gypsum, and more cars on the road.

“We’re trying to get ahead of it and prepare for it,” Reid said. “We’ll definitely be keeping our eye on that process as well.”

The data supports that assessment. Summer hotel bookings are already ahead of last year’s pace. Airport officials are hopeful that enplanement numbers will keep climbing, even as jet fuel prices rise. The goal is to have the road fixed before the ski crowds return, assuming the snow does too. Last season was low-snow; this year’s outlook is uncertain, but the traffic patterns are already visible.

For folks living along Cooley Mesa, the immediate concern is the disruption. The road is narrower in spots, the lanes are shifting, and the utility work adds another layer of complexity. But for the broader community, the expansion is a necessary step. The airport is booming. The road needs to keep up.

“We’re kind of in the thick of it right now,” Emerick said. “Construction is going to be going into the summer, so it should be done going into the fall.”

The timeline remains uncertain. But for now, the focus is on getting the pavement laid and the lanes widened, so the next drive to Costco doesn’t feel like a Jeep tour.