"These aren't fender-benders. They're high-speed impacts that total vehicles and injure people." That's how Cecily DeAngelo, executive director of the nonprofit Roaring Fork Safe Passages, described what happens when a car meets an elk on Highway 82. She wasn't talking about the crowded roundabout at the edge of Aspen or the tight curves through the canyon toward Independence Pass. She was talking about the open, unremarkable six miles that run past Woody Creek's own turnoff, the stretch most residents drive without a second thought because it looks like the safest part of the commute.
It isn't. And the numbers behind that stretch, quietly assembled over the past two years of engineering studies and county budget fights, tell a story that runs against what anyone driving it every day would assume.
The Stretch Everyone Underestimates
Roaring Fork Safe Passages, the citizen-led nonprofit behind the mapping, named this exact corridor its top priority for a reason: it's the stretch along Highway 82 between the Aspen/Pitkin County Airport and the Woody Creek neighborhood, the same run of pavement residents use to reach downtown Aspen or connect toward Snowmass and Basalt. Between 2014 and 2023, wildlife strikes accounted for 55 percent of all reported crashes on this six-mile section, with elk responsible for 34 percent of them, according to data the group presented to Aspen City Council. The Colorado Department of Transportation's own count is narrower but no less specific: from January 2020 through December 2024, CDOT logged 41 reported animal-involved crashes between Brush Creek and the airport, two of which sent motorists to the hospital.
Here's the number that reframes the whole picture. In its own valley-wide prioritization mapping, Roaring Fork Safe Passages found that this segment averages 6.1 wildlife-vehicle collisions per mile every year, the highest rate the group logged anywhere in its study of Highways 82 and 133 combined. The instinct to relax on the quiet, undeveloped stretch and save your attention for the congested parts of town has it backwards. Fewer buildings and fewer cars means more habitat pressed right up against the asphalt, and that's exactly where elk, mule deer, and the occasional moose are trying to cross.
Roaring Fork Safe Passages identified five priority locations across the valley when it released its mitigation strategy in 2025:
| Segment | Primary Concern | Design Status (as of mid-2026) |
|---|---|---|
| Airport (near Sky Mountain) | Undersized culvert, frequent elk strikes | Most advanced, feasibility study underway |
| Brush Creek corridor | Major elk and deer migration route | Most advanced, feasibility study underway |
| Shale Bluffs | Existing fencing gaps | Identified, not yet funded |
| Snowmass Canyon | Terrain constraints | Identified, not yet funded |
| Wingo Junction | Lower priority, secondary mitigation | Identified, not yet funded |
Only the first two, Airport and Brush Creek, have made it past the paperwork stage. That's not an accident of funding order. It's because they sit directly on the route Woody Creek already drives.
The Money Finally Moved, But Barely
For a project that drew 96 percent support in a 732-respondent community survey Roaring Fork Safe Passages ran in the summer of 2025, the path to actual dollars has been anything but smooth. That September, the group asked Pitkin County's Open Space and Trails board for $350,000 to fund a feasibility study and engineering design. The board balked. Part of the complication: the county had just finalized its purchase of the Brush Creek Park and Ride from CDOT, and that purchase came with a transit-related deed restriction that could complicate building an overpass with a landing point on that same property.
The ask came back smaller by March 2026, down to $200,000 in county funds to match $200,000 already raised privately. Even that narrower request split the commissioners at a work session that month. Commissioner Patti Clapper questioned whether Open Space and Trails money could legally support the study at all and said the letters of public support she'd seen were "very one-sided," with "a lot of misinformation" about what the crossings would and wouldn't solve. Commissioner Greg Poschman, who has backed the idea since at least 2022, called the back-and-forth exactly what it looked like: a slow process that had to start sometime.
The final vote came in April 2026. The Board of Pitkin County Commissioners approved the $200,000 match 3-1-1, Clapper still opposed though she softened her position to "I still have concerns," Commissioner Woodruff abstaining. Matched with the money already raised, that brought the feasibility study to its full $400,000, covering engineering work on the Sky Mountain underpass expansion and the Brush Creek overpass. That vote is the whole reason this project has a real timeline now instead of a hopeful one.
What's Actually Getting Built
The plan calls for an overpass on Pitkin County land near Brush Creek Road and an expanded underpass near the airport, widening a culvert built in 2000 that's currently too small for elk to use comfortably. Both structures would be paired with wildlife fencing designed to funnel animals toward the crossings instead of the highway.
Elk are the primary target, but they're not the only concern. As DeAngelo explained when the mitigation plan was first released, moose pose a different kind of risk entirely.
"We see a really high number of elk hit in this area, and we have reports of moose crossing in this area, although luckily, they have not been hit in this area recently. Moose create many more problems for vehicles with their tendency to go into the windshields of cars."
That's a detail worth carrying into your own driving habits this fall, whether or not a single shovel has hit the ground yet.
The Timeline Nobody Should Round Down
The $400,000 feasibility study is expected to run through early 2027. That funds the work needed to get from concept to roughly 10 percent engineering design, the point where actual construction bids become possible. Fencing alone is estimated at $500,000 to $725,000. The overpass and underpass construction, separately, carries a conservative estimate of $22.4 million to $32.5 million. Roaring Fork Safe Passages has said the combined project could be completed within three years of formal approvals, which puts realistic groundbreaking somewhere after 2027 and a finished crossing likely toward the end of the decade, not next spring.
There's one more piece of funding on the horizon. Colorado's legislature passed a Wildlife Collision Prevention Act earlier this year that lets drivers voluntarily add a $5 fee when they renew vehicle registration, with proceeds directed toward crossing infrastructure statewide starting in 2027. DeAngelo has been careful not to overpromise what that means locally. As she's said, the funds won't necessarily come directly to her organization, but more money moving toward the issue statewide tends to help every project waiting in line, including this one.
What To Do While You Wait
None of this changes what a Woody Creek resident should do behind the wheel this fall and winter, before any dirt moves. A few things worth building into your routine on the Brush Creek to airport stretch:
- Slow down and stay alert specifically at dawn and dusk, when elk and deer are most active and headlights don't give you much warning.
- Scan the shoulders for movement or eye shine well before you're on top of it, especially through the open meadow sections where there's no fencing yet.
- If you see an animal near the road, a horn tap or headlight flash warns both the animal and the driver behind you. Swerving to avoid a strike causes more serious wrecks than the strike itself in most documented cases.
- If you want a say in how this project develops, the Woody Creek Caucus meets the last Thursday of the month, January through October, at the Aspen Community School, and it's open to any resident who wants to show up and ask questions directly.
If your idea of local knowledge extends beyond the highway, the trail network and outfitters that make Woody Creek worth the commute in the first place are worth a look too.
This is a slow-moving public project with a lot of specific, checkable numbers behind it, and those numbers are the reason it's worth understanding now rather than when the fencing finally goes up. Living here means knowing which six miles deserve your full attention, not just the ones with the most traffic.
If you already call Woody Creek home, or you're weighing it, and you want a broker who tracks the details that actually shape daily life here, not just the listing sheet, reach out to Soffia Wardy. Let's Connect.
