RGC provides SPET Ballot Comments

January 25, 2017

Dear County Commissioners, Town Council Members, and Staff:

We urge you to confirm your straw poll to remove the construction of two new roads, a Tribal Trails Connector (TTC) and East West Connector (EWC), from the SPET ballot. We thank you for listening to the voices of the community. Please use the SPET proactively to reduce the number of cars on the valley’s roads by making transit a viable choice:

1) Increase commuter service to Teton Valley and Star Valley
2) Add local and express runs with stops in South Park (below High School Road) and Wilson
3) Complete the START maintenance facility
4) Plan for and build park and ride commuter lots so drivers can get out of their cars.

To that end, we ask that you not seek SPET funds to design a TTC or EWC at this time. The reasons are simple. And, contrary to one public official’s assertion, we are not misinformed. We are engaged citizens asking our elected officials to honor their promises. We speak to uphold important community values embodied in the Comprehensive Plan: scenic beauty, wildlife, and open spaces.

Do the valley-wide traffic study you promised before seeking SPET funding to design a TTC or EWC. We urge that you not pave our scenic valley with new roads until the Y improvements are finished and current and historical traffic data demonstrably shows the need and a valley-wide network study is done. Please honor your promise to the community to conduct the valley-wide traffic study, already funded up to $150,000. Give yourselves and the public the time to consider the results of the study and decide on the appropriate next steps. Even the County Engineer recognized these civic responsibilities when, in talking about a TTC, he promised the community: “In order to complete all of the necessary steps and do our due diligence we need updated traffic information….Getting to the design phase will take at least a couple of years.” (7/27/16 JH News & Guide, p.1.) You risk losing significant credibility and public trust by breaking this promise and pushing ahead without the requisite data, modeling, and analysis.

Don’t ask for SPET funds to pervert the ITP Project Development Charter Process into a conceptual demonstration case for a TTC or EWC or to design new intersections on South Park Loop Road that experience no traffic. That would be getting the cart before the horse. First, The ITP contains a detailed project charter process that is robust, multi-layered, and involves meeting safety, environmental protection, and cost effectiveness objectives. It requires NEPA environmental review and appointment of a stakeholder oversight committee to provide advice at different stages of project design and development. The process is not merely a high-level, conceptual design, as proposed by one commissioner. Don’t create a new process to convince the community of a demonstration case for these new roads or intersections.

Second, please get the traffic data first to see if congestion exists at the two intersections on South Park Loop at Boyles Hill and High School Road mentioned by Commissioner Vogelheim. There is no traffic today of any kind at those intersections. We urge you not to try to reconfigure these particular intersections through SPET funds in an effort to showcase the impact of future South Park connectors to the community.
Don’t seek SPET funds to design a EWC, a road to nowhere. It is a highway bypass or an inappropriate and unnecessary economic benefit to large landowners or developers. You have committed to the public that you would first concentrate investments in affordable workforce housing in complete neighborhoods. South Park is a rural preservation area, not a complete neighborhood. The EWC has no purpose other than a highway bypass or an incentive for development for large landowners. The public should not pay for that type of incentive.

Address High School Road Traffic with Measures Other than New Pavement. If traffic exists on High School Road where most of the valley’s schools are located, do what other communities do. Encourage parents to send their children to school on school buses. Ask WYDOT to adjust the timing of the signal at High School Road and US 89 to allow more cars to quickly exit from High School Road. Consider using trained parent volunteers or traffic personnel to keep traffic moving at stop signs during drop off and pick up times of the day. In two years, hundreds of students will be heading south to a new school and their departure will result in further reduction of traffic on High School Road.
Thank you for considering our comments on the proposed SPET.

The Board of the Responsible Growth Coalition

Michele Gammer
Geoff Gottlieb
Lance Cygielman