Editor’s note: This article has been updated to clarify the scope of a planned project to replace culverts on I-70.

Colorado Department of Transportation staff members attended the Summit Board of County Commissioners work session Tuesday, Sept. 30, for a biannual joint meeting.

Discussion topics included Interstate 70’s Exit 203, the roundabout at Colorado Highway 9 and Fairview Boulevard in Breckenridge, rockfall mitigation at Green Mountain Reservoir and more.

The department has been planning its Exit 203 project for years with the goal of making the exit and its connection to Frisco safer. Region 3 engineer Grant Anderson said it recently received the final engineering plans for review. 

The project is fully funded, Anderson said, though final right-of-way property acquisitions pose some challenges. Austyn Dineen, the department’s I-70 mountain corridor communications manager, wrote in an email that the Exit 203 project’s expected cost is $44 million.

Anderson said the department plans to “go out for advertisement” in January 2026 to find contractors to perform the construction work. 

“Most likely, we’ll have a couple right-of-way restrictions until we get our parcels acquired,” Anderson said. “That’s not going to delay our ad schedule right now, so that’s good news.”

The project will span two construction seasons, Anderson said, with a “full stop” in the winter of 2025-2026. It could extend into a third if needed. The first season will involve widening the westbound and eastbound exit lanes from I-70 and building an underpass structure that will take a new extension of North 10 Mile Drive under Highway 9.

“That’s a big push for that first season,” Anderson said. “But we’re pretty confident that we can get there and then have four lanes (of Highway 9) open for the winter shutdown.”

The second construction season will involve replacing the roundabout on the north side of I-70 with a stoplight and building two new roundabouts, one at the intersection of Lusher Court and Meadow Drive and the other at Dillon Dam Road and North 10 Mile Road.

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Anderson said the department has some concerns about utility relocations, but it expects it will be able to complete the work without that causing delays. The work crews have done on Dillon Dam Road near its intersection with Highway 9 this summer has involved moving a high pressure gas line out of the way for the underpass, he said.

“That was successfully done,” Anderson said. “We’re getting ready to finish that up and restripe (the road).”

The commissioners expressed concerns about traffic management and communications during the Exit 203 construction seasons. 

Commissioner Tamara Pogue said the county plans on having construction crews on Swan Mountain Road during Exit 203’s first construction season, and when Swan Mountain Road and Dillon Dam Road both had limited access at one point this summer, it presented “major challenges.”

Dineen said the department can make adjustments to construction plans and talk with the county communications team to avoid having both roadways impacted simultaneously. 

Anderson said he thinks the impact of simultaneous Exit 203 and Swan Mountain Road construction will not “be a disaster” with the lanes the department plans to have open during the exit’s reconstruction.

“I think our biggest concern with that impact is people self-detouring down to (Exit) 201 and then trying to use Frisco Main Street,” Anderson said.

The department will put signs to tell truckers to head back east to Exit 203 if they do try to use Exit 201 to get into Frisco.

Andi Staley, a Region 3 traffic operations engineer, spoke about the roundabout at the intersection of Highway 9 and Fairview Boulevard in Breckenridge. She said improvements have been made to make the roundabout safer, but the department is interested in partnering with the town or county to perform larger improvements.

“We’ve tackled all the low-hanging fruit that we can,” Staley said. “We’d love to do a more substantial improvement — to change some of the entry angles and do some larger improvements, some of the things that we’ve learned about roundabouts over the years.”

East program engineer Karen Berdoulay said the department has used cameras at the roundabout to capture “near-miss” incidents to have a better understanding of “what is happening out there.”

Staley said crash data since the department made changes to the roundabout has not yet been processed, but the department has heard from law enforcement partners that there have been fewer crashes at the roundabout.

Transportation department representatives also discussed a project planned for 2025-2026 that involves replacing culverts from Exit 205 to Exit 213 on I-70. They mentioned several future projects, including wildlife crossings over I-70 at Vail Pass, paving on Highway 9 in Breckenridge planned for 2027, reconstruction and paving on Highway 9 near Green Mountain Reservoir planned for 2028 and paving on I-70 between mile markers 190 and 202 in 2029.