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Encouraging transportation solutions consistent with safety, environmental, and wildlife core values.

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Hell-bent to Build Connector

Letter to the Editor from Armando Menocal

This is the third time the Teton County Board of County Commissioners has attempted to ignore its commitment in the Integrated Transportation Plan to conduct a comprehensive study on a redesign of the “Y” intersection and other alternatives before building the Tribal Trails Connector.

This attempt is circuitous and disingenuous: Commissioners are turning over engineering and design of the connector to the Wyoming Department of Transportation before studying its necessity, impacts and alternatives. They expect the public to believe that after WYDOT designs the connector, the commissioners may still say, “no thanks, we’re not going to build it”?

Isn’t it time we ask the electeds why they keep pushing to build the connector without a study? Who stands to gain financially from the connector? What is the public benefit in putting all of South Park into the county’s major transportation network? Isn’t the connector really to permit new development of the area?

Armando Menocal
Jackson

— From Jackson Hole News & Guide, April 11, 2018

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Decisions Must Be Logical and Science-Based

Letter to Teton County Commissioners from Patrick W. Hattaway and Mallory A. Smith

As property owners in the immediate vicinity (860 Whitehouse Drive) of this proposed road we are requesting your consideration of the following points:

1. When this issue was previously before the Commissioners, it was agreed that work at the “Y” and traffic modeling would be completed prior to construction efforts on the Tribal Trails connector. The “Y” has now been modified once by WYDOT and traffic modeling is supposed to occur this year. We object to a contract that includes any construction commitments prior to the completion of the modeling project. We strongly believe that this project and others facing the town and county must have logical, numeric based science backing decisions and not simply our local beliefs (for and against).

2. We strongly urge you to use the language in Appendix L of the Integrated Transportation Plan as guidance for the connector road. Our understanding of the future connector road was within these terms when we acquired our home and this would allow the neighborhood to maintain it’s residential nature, help to protect the soundscape, and enhance safety.

3. We do not know how the connector road could be built to a larger standard than described in Appendix L without additional construction to the south of Indian Trails. In the intervening years the planning commission has allowed a open market housing development and affordable housing to be built within five feet of South Park Loop. While there is clearly easement for a wider roadway, major construction (removal of the cottonwood trees and adjustments of the just completed pathway) of a larger road through this area would truly devastate those residents – some of whom live there due to our community’s ongoing efforts to house local employees.

4. Jackson now exists on a tourist based economy that several of you base your living on. Having been raised in a California winter/summer resort community, and having spent careers in major units of the National Park Service, we understand local emotions over traffic congestion and the frustrations this can bring. However one road is not going to alter the fact that WYDOT has determined they are going to expand the highways to the south and west – without local ability to route additional traffic in Jackson itself. If someone truly wants to be frustrated – try coming from the north on a summer evening as the Yellowstone visitor traffic backs up past the National Wildlife Museum and sometimes to the National Fish Hatchery. Those of us who work in Grand Teton NP and drive that route have come to expect the traffic, and either accept it for the three months of summer or seek alternative modes of transportation (bicycles). In all honesty, how many months does traffic at the “Y” truly back-up to an intolerable level? This is what the modeling study will hopefully tell all of us.

We look forward to attending the April 10, 2018 meeting to hear each of your thoughts and representation on this issue.

Sincerely,
Patrick W. Hattaway and Mallory A. Smith

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Tribal connector ruse

Letter to the Editor, Jackson Hole News & Guide, April 4, 2018

In an absurd case of putting the cart a (half) mile ahead of the horse, and in conflict with the comprehensive plan’s goal of “preserving and protecting the valley’s ecosystem,” Teton County commissioners have wasted their time and our tax dollars developing an memorandum of understanding with the Wyoming Department of Transportation to design and construct a Tribal Trails connector road. This half-mile, two-lane stretch of road connecting 2244 South Park Loop to Highway 22 would cost just over $6.8 million.

We at the Responsible Growth Coalition remain mystified by the commissioners’ continued breach of their fiduciary obligations to the county’s tax-paying residents.

The memorandum implies a high likelihood that the proposed connector will be approved. It ignores the commissioners’ prior promise to first complete the Cambridge Systematics traffic study, share its results with the public and proceed with Tribal Trails if — and only if — those results demonstrate compelling traffic benefits, particularly at the “Y,” and no viable alternatives to building the new road are available.

WYDOT’s recent upgrade of the “Y” has virtually eliminated its congestion. Induced demand generated by Tribal Trails’ added capacity would quickly offset its immediate benefit and restore the current equilibrium level of traffic, defeating the objective of “alleviating congestion.” In fact, there would be a permanent increase in car volume on our roads, whose contribution to air and noise pollution will come at great cost to the comprehensive plan’s mission.

It is also apparent that the project, were it justified, should not be single-sourced to WYDOT, but rather subject to a competitive bidding process, to obtain valuable information on road construction costs and identify more qualified contractors. Indeed, according to County Engineer Sean O’Malley, a single-source arrangement is unprecedented. More concerning is that WYDOT, by its own admission, has no experience building local county roads. This is demonstrated in its price quote, which is almost double what it was last year when Tribal Trails was proposed as a specific purpose excise tax initiative and over four times the cost cited in public sources. Here is a link to such a source: TinyURL.com/timsylvester.

The issues raised above justify voting against the approval of the memorandum on April 10. The traffic study must be completed first, and if its results justify building the connector, then a competitive request-for-proposals process should be undertaken, soliciting no less than three qualified road contractors (in addition to WYDOT).

Otherwise, the only plausible explanation for insisting on this memorandum (and Tribal Trails in general) now is certain commissioners’ pro-growth agenda and their desire for a development corridor in South Park.

Geoff Gottlieb
Jackson

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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

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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