News & Media

Design picked for Vail Pass overpass

January 23, 2011

The winner of a contest to design a wildlife crossing over Interstate 70 at Vail Pass was announced Sunday at a conference in Washington, D.C. The design by HNTB with Michael Van Valkenburgh, of New York, above, was selected by a jury from five finalists. The announcement was made at the annual meeting of the Transportation Research Board, and the Western Transportation Institute at Montana State University is sponsoring the contest. “The project/team directed by HNTB+MVVA was unanimously identified as the most elegant and compelling solution. Their proposal was at once simple and straightforward, while embodying the complexity and contradictions inherent in the competition brief,” the jurors said in their report. However, the Colorado Department of Transportation does not currently have money budgeted to build such a wildlife crossing.