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

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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

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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

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RGC comments on Public Review Draft of Integrated Transportation Plan (ITP).

July 24, 2015

TO:
Teton County Board of County Commissioners
Mr. Tyler Sinclair, Teton County Planning Director
Via email to council@townofjackson.com, commissioners@tetonwyo.org, sbirdyshaw@tetonwyo.org and tsinclair@tetonwyo.org

Dear Commissioners and Council Members:

We write on behalf of the Responsible Growth Coalition as a follow-up to the July 6 JIM on the Public Review Draft of the Jackson/Teton Integrated Transportation Plan (ITP). Our organization has secured signatures of at least 330 individuals who share our concerns about the Draft ITP’s prioritization and inclusion of a proposed Tribal Trails Connector (“TTC”).

At the July 6, 2015 JIM, the County Commissioners and the Town Councilors focused on two key transportation challenges they seek to address: (1) increased traffic and congestion at the Y Intersection of US Hwy 89 and WY22; and (2) the need for redundancy to allow emergency vehicles to access South Park and the West Bank in the event of an emergency or a blocking accident at the Y Intersection.

As currently proposed, the TTC is a bypass road that, if built, would dump 13,000 vehicles per day into a quiet rural and residential area and a dense zone of six schools and 15 athletic playfields. As recently as 2010, it was estimated that 2/3 of these vehicles would be non-local traffic. More current information has not been obtained either by the Engineering Staff or the Consultant retained to develop the Draft ITP.

We believe it would be a grave mistake for our County and Town Elected Officials to make any commitment in the ITP to build a TTC. The current prioritization and inclusion of the TTC is based on incomplete and stale data and critical analysis of impacts of the proposed bypass and viable alternatives is missing. Even Engineer O’Malley conceded at the July 6 JIM that he lacked current traffic information on the volume of vehicles (local or non-local) that might use a proposed TTC and had yet to engage in any analysis of safety or environmental implications of a proposed TTC.

At the July 6 JIM, the Board and Council agreed that there must be additional information, data, and critical analysis before the numerous questions surrounding a proposed TTC can be answered. Accordingly, the Elected Officials should direct their staff to obtain and make public the following critical data and analyses before further considering a proposed TTC:

 

  1. Current and accurate information about existing and anticipated traffic on WY 22 and US 89 through the Y, as well as the anticipated volumes of vehicles per day that are expected to use the proposed TTC, South Park Loop Road, and proposed East-West bypass road ;
  2.  A complete analysis of the safety, environmental, and other impacts that a TTC would have on South Park residential neighborhoods and their residents and the children who attend all of the schools on the proposed bypass route;
  3. A full and fair analysis of alternatives to address the two key transportation challenges of increased traffic at the Y and redundancy access options for emergency vehicles, including using the existing one lane pathway for emergency vehicles only between WY22 and South Park Loop Road similar to the new Snake River Bridge.

This critical data can be obtained by the County and Town staff; however, it will take additional time and funding to do so. For that reason, the portion of the Draft ITP relating to a proposed TTC should be removed from the ITP or deferred until such data and analysis is provided and considered.
Our request to defer consideration of a TTC is consistent with the Comprehensive Plan and the many comments voiced by the County and Town Elected Officials, along with their staff, at the July 6 JIM. The Comprehensive Plan requires the Elected Officials to protect the health, safety, and welfare of the County’s residents and preserve the community in which we live. The proposed TTC would involve building multiple new roads in a quiet rural and residential area in which six schools and fifteen athletic fields are located. At the July 6 meeting, Elected Officials and their staff noted:

  1. There should be a redesign and improvement of the Y first (Allen);
  2. We can build our way out of traffic problems with improvements at the Y (O’Malley)
  3. Roundabouts are 2-3 times more efficient at moving traffic than signal lights (O’Malley)
  4. We need to get our hands around safety issues for foot and bike traffic on the TTC (Flitner)
  5. There are too many unanswered questions about the TTC (Allen)
  6. We need more meetings to encourage additional public review and outreach (Vogelheim)
  7. We need to figure out how to make the TTC safe, get it right, and look at alternatives (Rhea)
  8. We should make sure we understand correct data (Flitner)
  9. I’m very much in favor of bringing people in and getting as much comment as possible (Newcomb)
  10. I recommend to staff that they come up with concept drawings of what the TTC would look like (Vogelheim)

We ask you, the Elected Officials, to direct your staff at the next JIM to gather and make public the necessary information and analysis that we request outlined above to allow for an informed decision about how to address these key traffic issues as they relate to the Y Intersection and a proposed TTC. In addition, we ask that additional opportunity for public input be provided once this additional information is obtained and disclosed to the public and prior to inclusion of a proposed TTC in the Draft ITP.

Mr. Sinclair stated at the July 6 JIM that “it is time for you to decide if there are any projects that you would like in or not in the Plan.” Mr. O’Malley previously told you that you would be “married” to the ITP (June 1 JIM) and you were told that it would serve as the staff’s “blueprint and action plan.” (July 6 JIM). Given the level of commitment you are making and the absolute lack of critical information and analyses that are needed for consideration and approval of a proposed TTC, we again respectfully suggest that a proposed TTC be removed from the Draft ITP and any decision related to a proposed TTC be deferred until the above-requested data and information is gathered and analysis is complete and made public. Alternatively, you could request that the Draft ITP be amended to require in-depth exploration of alternatives and design and development of major capital projects, including a proposed TTC, before the Draft ITP is adopted.

Thank you for consideration of this letter and our requests.

Sincerely,
On Behalf of the Executive Committee of the Responsible Growth Coalition
Jason Anderson
Michele Gammer
cc: Nicole Krieger