RGC – Page 7

February 1, 2017 By RGC Leave a Comment

Tribal Trails connector off SPET Ballot

The County Commissioners and Town Council members fully removed the design and the construction of a proposed Tribal Trails connector and East-West connector (named “South Park Road Network)” from the proposed May SPET ballot.

On January 23, they removed the construction portion and on January 30, at another public meeting, they removed the design portion. As promised, the valley-wide traffic study will be conducted and WYDOT will begin improvements to the Y intersection in August 2017.

Clearly, there is still resolve among certain elected officials to build these new roads in South Park. Several officials have indicated they plan to use other County funds to do what is needed to tee this up eventually as a new road project. Together, we will need to closely follow their efforts as this continues to unfold.

Many thanks to all who spoke at the meeting or sent in public comment. The comments were overwhelmingly against asking for funding of these new roads at this time.

More info:
SPET written Public Comments.
Today’s JH News & Guide article.
RGC’s Followup Letter.

January 25, 2017 By RGC Leave a Comment

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

January 19, 2017 By RGC

SPET Meeting:
January 23, 2017, 2-5pm

The projects proposed for the 2017 SPET include $5M to design and construct a Tribal Trails connector AND purchase land for and design an East-West connector through South Park in the next 4 years.

This project had previously been put on hold until a traffic study and modeling was completed and analyzed. However, Teton County’s staff and elected officials are putting construction of these roads on the fast track for funding with complete disregard for their promises and to whether these roads will solve any problems.

On Monday, January 23 from 2-5 PM there’s a meeting in the County Commission Chambers to consider public comments on the proposed ballot of projects for this upcoming SPET vote in May. See full agenda and documentation.

We URGE YOU to attend this meeting to oppose inclusion of these new roads in the SPET. Make it clear that you want them to honor their commitment to complete the vital studies they have promised before turning a conservation area into a bypass. Community action is our power.

• Keep your promise to first conduct a traffic study
• Let WYDOT first improve the Y intersection
• Public funds should not be used or to benefit private developers
• Sufficient emergency access to South Park already exists

Learn more about these specific reasons to oppose this SPET project

If you are unable to attend the meeting, please send in written comment to the County Commissioners and Town Councilors at these email addresses: commissioners@tetonwyo.org
council@townofjackson.com

Why invest public funds in a new road when there is no proven need for such a road?

Read about the current SPET initiatives and documentation for the January 23 meeting.
Please attend.

Related JH News & Guide Articles

January 6, 2017 By RGC

Proposed SPET Ballot initiative is premature

January 6, 2017

Dear County Commissioners, Town Council Members, and Staff:

We write on behalf of the Responsible Growth Coalition (RGC), a local non-profit corporation whose mission is to raise public awareness concerning planning and transportation issues in Teton County, Wyoming and the Town of Jackson.

As we understand it, you are considering raising public funds in a new SPET to design and construct a Tribal Trails Connector (TTC). We strongly oppose inclusion of that project in the upcoming SPET ballot for the following reasons:

1. When the ITP was adopted, you, our elected officials, committed to undertake a comprehensive review of the need for new or expanded roads. You promised the public that you would conduct an analysis of current and historic traffic data and modeling of alternative measures to deal with current and future traffic congestion. No such analysis was ever done by the consultant who developed the ITP. It is exceedingly premature to seek public funds for a new road like a TTC, before starting, completing or sharing the results of that work with the public. As we understand it, a RFP has just now been developed by your Staff, but a consultant has yet to be selected from WYDOT’s vendor list, so no actual work has started. In fact, the only study of traffic data that has been done to date is the one we did and shared with you earlier this Fall, and it demonstrates that the TTC is not needed to alleviate congestion at the Y.

2. To the extent that your support for a TTC derives from its inclusion in the ITP (from what we gather this is the main reason), we note that a TTC’s justification in the ITP is “alleviation of traffic at the Y.” WYDOT has recently confirmed that it will be making improvements at the Y on an accelerated schedule to do just that, at a fraction of the cost of a TTC. The Y improvement project is due to be started in August 2017 and completed by April 2018. WYDOT believes the Y improvements will address traffic congestion at the Y Intersection for the next 12-15 years. These improvements are consistent with those suggested by our independent consultant. There is no demonstrated need for a new road, such as a TTC, in the near future.

3. If emergency access to South Park is a concern, such access already exists along the existing bike pathway (which is wide enough to handle emergency vehicles) and through Indian Springs (which has given access to emergency vehicles), both the north and south parts of South Park Loop Road and High School Road.

4. Last but not least, the neighborhoods that would be most affected by a TTC (Indian Trails, Indian Springs, Creamery and Dairy, and 3 Creek), in fact, strongly oppose its construction and will mount an opposition campaign, along with RGC and its members. In sum, a TTC should not be included in a new SPET. If it is, the project will be vigorously and visibility opposed.

Thank you for considering our comments.

Sincerely,
Officers of the Board of the Responsible Growth Coalition
Lance Cygielman
Michele Gammer
Geoff Gottlieb

December 21, 2016 By RGC

Y changes are a positive step forward

December 21, 2016

TO:
Jackson Hole News & Guide, Letters to the Editor

WYDOT should be commended for developing and accelerating its planned improvements to the Y Intersection. With this interim measure that is expected to last for up to 15 years, WYDOT has taken two important steps forward: (1) adding a second left-hand turn from US 89 north to WY 22 westbound; and (2) installing new signals that will provide more accurate traffic data and the ability to manually change the signal timing to address actual traffic patterns. In the summer of 2015, when the Integrated Transportation Plan (ITP) was under consideration, the vast majority of community members providing public comment strongly urged that changes to the Y Intersection be made first, before designing or constructing any new residential county roads. The community consistently spoke with many voices to ask that buses, trucks, and cars traveling on WY 22 and US 89 remain on those state roads rather than be diverted into residential neighborhoods through new county built bypasses.

While WYDOT and the County have yet to collect or analyze updated traffic data promised when the ITP was adopted, the Responsible Growth Coalition hired a nationally recognized traffic expert to help us understand and analyze the considerable traffic data on the Y that currently exists. Our organization is a local non-profit whose mission is to raise public awareness concerning planning and transportation issues in Teton County and the Town of Jackson. www.responsiblegrowthjh.org. We learned that WYDOT maintains Automatic Traffic Recorders at locations north, south, and east of the Y Intersection that operate 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. WYDOT made this traffic data for 2008 through 2015 available to us. We asked our expert to analyze that data and provide his observations to us. (2016 data was not yet available at the time).

Our expert reviewed the data and found that traffic volumes at the Y were generally flat between 2008 and 2014 with a small uptick in 2015 and most of the highest traffic hours occurred in the summer months and in the late afternoon. He recommended a number of cost effective, simple solutions to alleviate the traffic congestion at the Y: (1) addition of a second left-hand turn for vehicles from Highway 89 heading north onto WY 22 through the Y; and (2) installation of adaptive smart signal technology at the Y and related intersections that will adapt to traffic patterns without manual intervention.

See full report: Review of Traffic Data at the Y Intersection – May 2016

WYDOT’s planned changes to the Y are a good step in the right direction. Use of adaptive signals would be preferable, but WYDOT’s new signals will provide the information needed to manually adjust the timing of the signals at the Y to address congestion.

Concerns have been raised about the impact of these planned changes to surrounding town streets. Those concerns are real and need to be addressed by WYDOT and the County with updated traffic data, thoughtful design, and coordination to enable safe and convenient use of Buffalo Way, Scott Lane and Maple Way. The only redirection proposed by WYDOT is the closure of Buffalo Way to traffic heading west straight onto WY 22. This change would appear to affect a small number of vehicles who have alternative routes to access WY 22.

WYDOT’s planned changes to the Y show responsiveness to community input. Thank you!

Sincerely,

Lance Cygielman
Michele Gammer
Geoff Gottlieb