By Melissa Cassutt Jackson Hole Daily | Posted: Thursday, February 9, 2017 4:30 am
Teton County has agreed to help pay the cost of a transportation modeling study that would help determine traffic and transit options in the community.
Commissioners will contribute $50,000 to the study, which is a partnership with the Wyoming Department of Transportation and the town of Jackson. WYDOT and the town will each contribute $50,000.
The work, expected to take six months, will develop software for officials to study how road changes would affect traffic flow on the Jackson Hole road network.
Representatives from the nonprofit Responsible Growth Coalition asked that the study focus on pathways and START bus services.
“We think the scope of work needs to explicitly take into account and direct an analysis of public transit and pathway usage, along with planned investments and improvements that will be made for public transit and pathways,” said Michele Gammer, who sits on the coalition’s board of directors. “It’s not clear how an analysis would be done or how it’s going to be factored in.
“Since we’re trying to change our culture and address some of our traffic issues, we think this is a very important component,” she said.
Coalition members also took issue with the study naming specific roadways for study, namely the Tribal Trails Connector, the [proposed] half-mile road extending Tribal Trails Road to Wyoming 22.
“Given the recent SPET issue — the idea of ‘OK, let’s design and build the Tribal Trail Connector road before any meaningful study has been done about that issue — raised a lot of concern in the public that this study might be used to simply confirm a foregone conclusion,” said Bill Smith, another coalition board member.
The clause in the contract that names Tribal Trails also identifies Spring Gulch Road improvements and “existing roadway and transit networks” as shown in Groups 1 and 3 of the Major Capital Projects of the Integrated Transportation Plan.
Group 1 concerns the “Y” intersection, Tribal Trails and the intersection of Wyoming 22 and 390. Group 3 projects “address traffic that may occur during peak summer months” on Highway 89 north and south of Jackson.
“We can change those. We can choose different ones,” Teton County Public Works Director Sean O’Malley told the commissioners. “What we were trying to do … is look at a couple projects that the consultant could train our local town and county staff as well as WYDOT in the model, and these would be good example projects.”
O’Malley said High School Road, Snow King Avenue or Maple Way could also be used.
“The intent was more as we would get some product, some analysis from the consultant, but really it was more experience for us,” O’Malley said.
The board amended the contract to include “other major capital projects.”
The board approved the contract unanimously. Work is expected to start this month and conclude in August.
“I believe this will have a public engagement process,” Commissioner Natalia Macker said before the vote. “I don’t think it needs to be in the scope of work, but I wanted this board to at least reiterate that.”