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‘Jackson Hole is open’ to visitors as plan to address highway landslide takes shape, officials say

As three communities wrestle with destroyed mountain highway, leaders say residents primarily impacted; access is open to Yellowstone, Grand Teton parks.

By Angus M Thuermer Jr., Wyofile June 10, 2024

Teton County leaders declared Monday that Jackson Hole and Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks are open and accessible to visitors despite the destruction of a key regional highway.

A landslide Friday night severed the mountain-pass artery between Jackson Hole and Victor, Idaho, a vital commuter and commerce route that is one of five paved roads into the valley. As news of the landslide hit the nationwide press, worried prospective tourists peppered hospitality hosts, asking whether they could still come and reach the region’s recreational attractions.

“Jackson Hole is open,” Teton County Commission Chairman Luther Propst said during a hastily prepared briefing from a group of 10 emergency managers Monday morning. He led a discussion that included calls for aid to commuting workers across a spectrum of needs from housing to transportation, child care, carpooling and more.

Gov. Mark Gordon declared an emergency Saturday, enabling the state to seek Federal Highway Administration funds to repair the highway. The destruction of a segment of the road “endangers the health, safety, economy, and resources of residents of Wyoming” the declaration reads.

A detour around the destroyed section of highway could be fixed in “weeks, not months,” Darin Westby, director of the Wyoming Department of Transportation, told the Teton County Board of County Commissioners over a broadcast link. That will be well into the region’s busy summer tourism season, which has already begun.

Fearful that news of the landslide would crimp the local and state economy, tourism officials and others urged a unified message saying the parks and valley are open and accessible.

Visitors from California, New York and Texas with vacation reservations have asked “will things still be accessible?” said Rick Howe, president and CEO of the Jackson Hole Chamber of Commerce.

Other than the one route, the message to visitors is “we are not closed,” Howe told the county board. Considering that there are four other highways into the valley, visitors have options to get to Jackson Hole, he said, to enjoy the Snake River along with Grand Teton and Yellowstone parks.

“The impact is a lot more on our community,” Howe told the board.
Temporary housing

Loss of the highway means commuters from the Idaho side of the Teton Range, where housing is cheaper than Jackson Hole, will have to drive an extra 62 miles. That adds 1 hour and 6 minutes to what is usually a 24-mile and 32-minute drive. Congestion will increase that time as thousands of commuters re-route their daily travel through Swan Valley, Alpine and the Snake River Canyon.

Fully 20% of the workers at St. John’s Health are affected commuters, hospital spokesperson Karen Connelly told commissioners Monday, and 115 of those “need to be on-site.” Many work 12-hour shifts and have pets, children and homes to worry about.

Adding what could be up to four hours of commuting time to such shifts creates obvious burdens, she said.

“These are long days for people,” she said. “There are needs.”
Additional response

Commissioners will meet Tuesday to take action on a host of recommendations made by emergency and community leaders, including reducing occupancy limits in some housing blocks, giving temporary occupancy permits to others, allowing RV and tent camping, waiving bus fees and other proposals.

“There’s a limit to how many people we’re allowed to put in our units,” said Mary Kate Buckley, president of Jackson Hole Mountain Resort. The ski-area company has constructed employee and workforce housing that’s regulated to some degree by development agreements with Teton County.

She asked for a temporary waiver of those occupancy limits and flexibility in other restrictions to accommodate commuters during the emergency. The resort also wants permission to house worker trailers, campers and tents at potential sites at a Teton Village parking lot and the Stilson transit hub a few miles south of the resort and village.

The Jackson Hole Community Foundation has reactivated its emergency fund that was last used during the COVID-19 emergency, said Laurie Andrews, president of the nonprofit hub. The foundation, best known for its annual Old Bill’s Fun Run for Charities that raises millions of dollars each fall for nonprofits, is setting up a network to pair unoccupied guest houses and vacant rooms with commuting workers, she said.

The town and county START public bus service has reworked its Idaho-Jackson schedule to accommodate the longer drive, director Bruce Abel told commissioners. Ridership on the first day of the new schedule was “somewhat disappointing,” he said, but that could change.

Congestion in the Snake River Canyon and Jackson during the emergency could extend the new, longer commute times, he said, because the highway network is “at capacity.”

The Federal Transit Administration, an arm of the U.S. Department of Transportation, reached out to START to offer aid, he said. START will carefully log expenses with the aim of securing reimbursements during the emergency, he said.

That reimbursement was “top of conversation” with the federal agency, Abel said. The federal outreach came as U.S. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg expressed his agency’s support for Wyoming’s emergency repairs in a post on X, the social media site formerly known as Twitter.

Rich Ochs, the county’s emergency management coordinator, outlined the difference between emergencies and disasters and told the board that the governor’s emergency declaration was the proper and sufficient reaction. Being a Wyoming highway, the incident is the state’s to manage, he said, and the appropriate venue for aid is through the Federal Highway Administration, another arm of the USDOT.

It’s not appropriate to pursue Federal Emergency Management Agency support, Ochs said. “We have one injury,” he said, a motorcycle rider who was unseated by a slump in the highway some time before it collapsed. “We have no deaths … no direct impact” to town and county finances.

While WYDOT works on a solution — a paved two-lane bypass to the missing highway segment that will require motorists to slow down from normal speeds — Ochs and his eclectic 10-person team of department heads and community organization leaders will continue their efforts.

While costs may accrue to state and federal coffers, “the impacts,” he said, “are our problem.”

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Paid Parking for Teton Pass?

A study on paid parking for Teton Pass sheds an interesting light on a more innovative way to manage traffic. Would you be willing to pay $10 per vehicle per day, or $60 for the season to park and ski on the pass? Or would you rather take a shuttle from Stilson or Victor?

The study suggested at a ride on the shuttle costing $5, or $25 for a season pass. At that rate, running a shuttle seven days a week in the winter from Stilson to Victor, without a paid parking system, would cost the operator some $380,000. But study authors estimate that, with a paid parking system, a subsidy of only $48,500 a year would be needed to make the shuttle system “financially self-sustaining.”

At lower levels of service, running a shuttle system in conjunction with a paid parking system would allow the whole operation to run in the green. For example, when combined with a paid parking system, running a winter shuttle seven days a week from Stilson to Coal Creek, rather than Stilson to Victor, would generate a $20,800 annual profit.

RGC is in favor of this idea and we are curious to hear your thoughts. Please email us at responsiblegrowthjh@gmail.com

https://www.jhnewsandguide.com/news/environmental/local/study-mulls-paid-parking-passes-for-teton-pass/article_1592f70a-6493-11ee-abdb-47cdad9f5375.html

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Gondola Could Relieve Traffic in Utah Ski Town

The Utah Department of Transportation is backing a gondola to solve Little Cottonwood Canyon’s transportation and congestion problems.

Wouldn’t it also be a good idea for Teton County to think out of the box? A gondola from Jackson Hole Airport to Teton Village could be more than just a pipe dream – it would be a vital transportation link while also providing a more enjoyable experience for Jackson Hole’s visitors.

https://www.fox13now.com/news/local-news/udot-backs-gondola-option-for-little-cottonwood-canyon

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RGC Comments to 4/27/22 Open House

RGC’s Review of the County’s Tribal Trail Connector Open House 4/27/22

The Tribal Trail Connector (TTC) project continues apace, without regard to any of the material issues and problems with this project:

  1. The latest public presentation, held in the form of exhibits displayed at an open house on April 27, reflects a glaring lack of data and rigorous analysis, which is appalling, given the stakes, and basically disregarded the “No Build” option.
  2. County Staff do not know the total cost of the TTC, nor have offered any evidence of tangible benefits to justify its cost.
  3. The financial cost is likely to be at least $15-20mm, EXCLUDING the cost of eventual condemnation and lawsuits, which could easily double or triple this number.
  4. In the meantime Staff have allocated a further $850,000 to the TTC in the upcoming budget.

Staff have steadfastly ignored these important issues, either because they are being directed to by the four commissioners who want this road regardless of the consequences, or they are simply not competent enough to deal with them.

There are several other alternative measures to alleviate our summer traffic congestion, which would be much more effective and less expensive than the TTC. Why the County isn’t pursuing these opportunities is a mystery.

More important, we encourage you to stop thinking the TTC may be inevitable. If you oppose it, please get involved. Responsible Growth Coalition and JH Conservation Alliance are fully engaged in challenging this folly of a project and ask you to join us. There is still time and opportunity to defeat the TTC.

So please act now, and submit your own comments. Vote “No Build,” the only sensible option. Thank you.

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The following are the issues identified, and open questions raised by the content of the exhibits displayed at the Open House:

  1. The TTC’s right of way grant is subject to a wetlands study. A document entitled “Memo for TC/WYDOT hydrology analysis” provided by Jacobs Engineering has been sharply criticized and called into question in a review by Clearwater Geosciences.
  2. Staff have disregarded the “No Build” option in their evaluation of the alternatives.
  3. Shifting the TTC roadway west takes it outside the boundary of the easement, therefore not an option.
  4. The wetlands analysis cited has been discredited in a review by Clearwater Geosciences. The conclusion set forth here is false.
  5. The redundancy argument put forth by Staff contains no definition of a “catastrophic occurrence,” nor if/when if there ever has been one in our community. No indication of how does the TTC reduce the likelihood of such an event, nor how much shorter transit times as defined here would be. There is no data or analysis to support this claim. There is no description of how emergency vehicles, most of which are in the town of Jackson, benefit from using the TTC and under what circumstances.
  6. The Y: why isn’t further increasing its capacity considered? That would be much less expensive than building the TTC, which in fact would not reduce congestion at all. The Y’s capacity was increased by WYDOT’s upgrade in 2017, eliminating it as the top bottleneck. As a result, the Spring Gulch and Moose-Wilson Rd junctions have emerged as bottlenecks. Those need to be addressed more urgently than the Y does.
  7. Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT) for trips from points west to the school district would indeed be lower, but Vehicle Time Traveled (VTT) would not, due to induced demand. Even without induced demand, a trip from Teton Village to the schools would only be reduced by a minute or two (5-10%), not worth the TTC’s expense and environmental impact. How does the County justify conferring a minor, if any, benefit to a group of commuters at the expense of all valley residents, especially those in affected neighborhoods? Also, “5% reduction in trips through the Y in 2045” is highly unreliable, and even if it weren’t, certainly not worth the TTC’s cost.
  8. Congestion at the Y continues to be disingenuously used as justification for the Y – because it was relieved when the Y upgraded in 2017.
  9. Redundancy already exists: emergency vehicles (EVs) can travel through ISR or on the bike path, although this is unlikely to be used much since most EVs are in the town of Jackson.
  10. Much is made of the USA Today survey from 2019, which is largely irrelevant. The scope of the survey appears to be limited to the town of Jackson. What would be the impact of being in 1347th place in terms that matter? How much better ranked would Jackson be with the TTC? Isn’t the ranking based on number of ways to exit the area? If so, how does the TTC have any impact on that? (It doesn’t). This point is a perfect reflection of how dependent Staff is on unsupported opinions and assertions. Citing this survey is absurd, and highlights Staff’s lack of professionalism.
  11. Other than bypassing the Y, what else is there? What is the benefit to START to have its buses bypass the Y? How much time and money is saved? Staff haven’t provided anything that would answer these reasonable questions.
  12. Evaluation of the proposed alternatives: the level 1 and 2 screening exercises are shoddy and of no value. Ranking the alternatives was based on hired consultants’ opinion of the potential benefit of the TTC against different criteria/objectives. This approach says nothing about how much actual, tangible benefit any alternative would deliver. For all we know, none does, and the rankings simply indicate the least worst.
  13. Feasibility of the alternatives: three of the four alternatives would cross easements held by ISR, TSS, and JHLT. We understand ISR and JHLT will not grant the County such access, and have advised them accordingly. That leaves the alternative which would join WY22 at the end of the bike path. WYDOT would not accept an additional intersection so close to Coyote Canyon unless the north entrance of ISR is closed, which could trigger an expensive lawsuit. Bottom line: only the “No Build” is feasible.