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Developer uses several tactics to discourage cars

Jackson Hole News & Guide, November 20, 2024

Transportation plan for Legacy Lodge gets county approval

Developers aim to disincentive tenants from parking multiple cars on site

By Charley Sutherland, GOVERNMENT REPORTER

A heavily litigated and controversial plan to transform the nowdefunct Legacy Lodge assisted living facility into housing in Rafter J took another step forward Tuesday, when county commissioners passed the developer’s plan to mitigate traffic.

Traffic has been a long-standing concern for Rafter J subdivision residents, who showed up in force to commissioners’ chambers Tuesday.

“With the increase in commuters coming from Alpine, [traffic has] become untenable,” said Sharon Mader, a longtime resident of Rafter J. “I am very, very concerned about it.”

Legacy Lodge owners Sadek and Dorian Darwiche aim to reduce traffic impacts in their transportation plan by disincentivizing future tenants from having multiple cars that they frequently drive in and out of the subdivision. The Darwiches, who also own Hotel Jackson, proposed 97 total parking spots.

Future tenants could purchase their first parking spot at a low rate and then could purchase another parking pass if they have a second car. However, that second pass would be more expensive than the first.

Some spots are set aside for guests.

“People don’t live in a vacuum,” Stefan Fodor, an attorney representing Stage Stop LLC, the Darwiches’ company, said. Most will have visitors who will need a place to park, he said.

Mader said she worries that tenants will just park all over the streets throughout the subdivision. She also said the intersection to enter the subdivision, at Highway 89 and Big Trails Drive, is dangerous. Making a left turn into Rafter J involves using the highway’s “suicide lane,” the twoway center turn lane, which Mader said can be quite frightening.

When Fodor responded to Mader’s on-street parking concerns, he spoke assertively.

“If anyone goes to park on Big Trails Drive, there’s one number to remember: 733-8697,” he said. “That’s Ron’s Towing.”

Commissioner Greg Epstein promptly disclosed his family’s involvement with Ron’s Towing, which fellow commissioners and county staff chuckled at during the meeting.

Initially, Stage Stop LLC will have to improve pathways to encourage bike travel, enforce parking rules and provide space for bike parking. Stage Stop will monitor traffic, and developers will be required to take additional measures to reduce traffic if it does increase significantly.

The threshold is an increase of 46 trips during the morning peak period or 53 trips in the evening peak period. Stage Stop would then trigger “phase II” mitigation measures.

There is currently no START bus service to Rafter J, meaning the owners would need to provide a shuttle to the Y intersection. But if START service is established, the Darwiches would be required to supply bus passes to residents.

Alternatively, Stage Stop could choose to establish a car- or bikeshare program.

Stage Stop’s first traffic monitoring review is set for January 2026. At that point, if traffic is above standards, the company can choose between transit incentives and a car- or bike- share program. If the development is not compliant in its second review a year later, Stage Stop would have to implement both.

While many Rafter J residents addressed the board, there were outliers who supported the transportation plan, citing housing needs. Judith Hernandez, a 30 year resident and mother, encouraged the commissioners to pass the Legacy Lodge plan. “I’ve been searching around for new housing, but it’s been very hard,” Hernandez said. As a potential tenant, she said she’d try to reduce her own car trips to and from Legacy Lodge. From personal experience, Hernandez said, she understands the traffic in the area can be dangerous but said folks like her need housing and those interests should be considered.

Cory Herrick commended Stage Stop LLC for listening to concerns raised by neighbors, winning lawsuits and being adaptable.

“You guys all ran on the pro-housing stances,” he told commissioners. “Please approve housing for the Legacy Lodge today.”

Mainly drawing from personal experience, several commissioners agreed with Rafter J residents that the intersection to enter Rafter J is especially dangerous, .

Over the summer, there was a big crash at the intersection, and it could’ve been even worse. A late maneuver by one driver avoided a T-bone collision, Charlotte Frei, the county’s regional transportation planning administrator, said.

The Wyoming Department of Transportation will be analyzing the intersection as part of “warrant study” to see whether a stoplight is called for, according to Teton County Engineer Amy Ramage.

Rafter J Homeowners Association Vice President Jessica Brown said Legacy Lodge’s additional housing would worsen an already congested and dangerous intersection.

“High-speed stop sign controlled intersections are one of the least safe type of intersections that we encounter as drivers,” Brown said.

How traffic is monitored and how traffic reports are presented was also a point of significant discussion. The HOA requested raw data from reports and a third party contractor to review it.

Brown also requested that commissioners include a stipulation that if some number of accidents or a single fatality occurs at the intersection, the board would re-review Legacy Lodge’s transportation plan.

Monitoring numbers would be publicly available, Fodor said. However, accidents or fatalities at the intersection could not be directly attributed to Legacy Lodge, and Fodor encouraged commissioners to proceed without any such stipulation.

Commuters and big trucks speed down Highway 89, going as fast as 80 miles per hour, according to Margaret Creel, a Rafter J homeowner. She also wasn’t convinced that the Darwiches’ cycling incentives would realistically reduce traffic, especially during the winter.

“Who rides bikes in Jackson Hole from November to April?” she said.

Board Chairman Luther Propst later said Creel made a good point.

“We’re not going to see a significant change in transportation by bicycle sharing,” he said, adding that he’d prefer transit incentives be included right away, instead of having them triggered by increased traffic.

After a lunch break, commissioners reconvened to issue a verdict. The board tweaked the transportation plan slightly, saying that even if Legacy Lodge housing doesn’t increase traffic enough to prompt further mitigation efforts, the board still intends to continue evaluating impacts. Just because Legacy Lodge doesn’t trigger additional traffic mitigation measures, that doesn’t mean traffic is “perfectly acceptable,” Commissioner Mark Newcomb said. The county should “strive to do better,” whether triggers are hit or not, he said.

Fodor said Stage Stop is happy to continue evaluating traffic.

Unanimously, with Commissioner Natalia Macker absent, the board approved Legacy Lodge’s transportation plan and the amendment aimed at continuing the conversation.

Contact Charley Sutherland at 307-732-7066 or county@jhnewsandguide.com.

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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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A Call to Action on Hwy 390

JH News & Guide Guest Shot by Luther Propst, Nov 4, 2020

https://www.jhnewsandguide.com/opinion/guest_shot/a-call-to-action-on-hwy-390-speeds-safety/article_aebba7e1-6948-5ff9-87ed-c4971966563c.html

Highway 390 has one of the highest rates of collisions between motor vehicles and moose of any road in the contiguous United States. The all-too-frequent photos of dead animals are heartbreaking. The high speeds along 390 are also a hazard for people — from toddlers to retirees — who cross the road to access the pathway.

The 390 corridor plays several important roles. Given these various and competing functions, speed limits are patently too high. Current speed limits and patchy enforcement simply do not strike an equitable balance between highway engineers’ desire to move traffic fast, wildlife advocates’ desire to reduce collisions between ungulates and motor vehicles, residents’ desire to turn left safely out of The Aspens or Nethercott Lane, or parents’ desire to safely cross the street and walk the pathway with a stroller.

Instead we live in a dictatorship of highway engineers in which their desires trump everything else. In the latest example of imbalanced priorities the Wyoming Department of Transportation just completed a speed limit study that spends 71 pages to tell us that the current mix of speed limits is just fine, thank you and if anything, they should be higher.

They are not just fine, and they are not too low.

The crux of the study reads: The traveling public is the best judge of a safe driving speed for themselves and most of the people (85%) will travel at a reasonable comfortable speed based on roadside conditions consciously or unconsciously [sic]. Setting speed limits lower than the 85th percentile creates violators in law-abiding citizens.

Does the same laissez-faire principle apply to blood alcohol content while driving, speeds through school zones and pretty much every other law in the books? Under this logic there would be no speed limits and we would all drive at a speed that makes us feel comfortable.

Here’s the challenge: WYDOT controls Highway 390. Its highway engineers are dedicated public servants. I am especially grateful to the local WYDOT folks who plow snow and maintain our highways. The issue is that speed limits are determined by an agency dominated by a single professional caste: highway engineers. These speed limits do not adequately account for competing values. Their priorities are not the priorities of folks who live along the road and certainly not the priorities of the moose and other critters that inhabit the corridor. The highway engineering profession creates conditions in which motor vehicles move fast and efficiently, while discounting competing values. Period.

There is little, if anything, that Teton County government can do directly to reduce the speed limit or otherwise influence management of Highway 390. The only hope to change decisions is through sustained community engagement.

As Abe Lincoln said: “Public sentiment is everything. With it, nothing can fail. Without it, nothing can succeed.”

The public must express its sentiment to change anything along 390.

Speed limits only work with a reasonable level of enforcement. Enforcing the speed limit on 390 is primarily the responsibility of the Wyoming Highway Patrol, with the Teton County Sheriff’s Office playing a secondary role. Given the state’s deepening financial crisis, the highway patrol is spread thin. The sheriff also has limited staff and generally prioritizes patrolling county roads that the highway patrol does not. Therefore, the County Commission should increase the sheriff’s budget to support more speed limit patrols on 390.

To create the needed changes, nonprofit organizations and/or members of the community, perhaps with support from Teton County, need to create a citizens’ vision for the future of the corridor and a comprehensive corridor action plan for realizing this vision. This action plan should:

• Propose more consistent speed limits for the 7.7-mile Highway 390 corridor that balance various values.

• Increase enforcement of speed limits.

• Determine best use of portable dynamic message signs and fixed radar speed signs.

• Analyze whether removing vegetation or adding streetlights makes 390 more or less safe for people and wildlife.

• Develop pilot projects for testing animal detection systems that detect wildlife near 390 and warn drivers.

• Expedite planning for effective placement and design of wildlife crossings.

• Evaluate design improvements and traffic calming investments such as roundabouts, pedestrian crosswalks, narrower lanes, bulb-outs, bus lanes and medians.

• Evaluate the advantages and disadvantages of transferring management of 390 from WYDOT to Teton County, designating 390 as a national scenic byway or designating the corridor a special wildlife management area.

We can make Highway 390 better serve the needs and aspirations of the community. Now is the time.

JH News & Guide Guest Shot by Luther Propst, Nov 4, 2020