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
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:
- 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 ;
- 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;
- 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:
- There should be a redesign and improvement of the Y first (Allen);
- We can build our way out of traffic problems with improvements at the Y (O’Malley)
- Roundabouts are 2-3 times more efficient at moving traffic than signal lights (O’Malley)
- We need to get our hands around safety issues for foot and bike traffic on the TTC (Flitner)
- There are too many unanswered questions about the TTC (Allen)
- We need more meetings to encourage additional public review and outreach (Vogelheim)
- We need to figure out how to make the TTC safe, get it right, and look at alternatives (Rhea)
- We should make sure we understand correct data (Flitner)
- I’m very much in favor of bringing people in and getting as much comment as possible (Newcomb)
- 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
Mother’s ITP Safety Concerns
From: Adrianna Anderson
Date: June 8, 2015 at 7:14:35 AM MDT
To: commissioners@tetonwyo.org, council@townofjackson.com
Cc: sbirdyshaw@tetonwyo.org, awatkins@tetonwyo.org, county@jhnewsandguide.com
Subject: Teton County Resident with ITP Safety Concerns
Dear Commissioners & Town Council Members,
Thank you for your hard work and time dedicated to the ITP last week. Last Monday’s Joint Information Meeting was a long, informative session that provided many solutions as well as areas needing further exploration in the coming weeks regarding Teton County’s traffic situation. We trust that you will make the right call for Teton County and it’s inhabitants and I look forward to future discussions.
I am writing you today as a South Park resident and mother to two young children (6 & 9) who attend Jackson and Colter Elementary schools. My comments are regarding the proposed Tribal Trails Connector Road (TTCR) being built as a bypass in the South Park neighborhood. I am aware you have heard many rationale in favor and opposed to the TTCR and with so much information it can be challenging to sort through the minutiae of it all. I promise to stick to the facts of the matter.
While Mr. Charlier spent much time persuading how the TTCR would reduce traffic at the Y by up to 10,000 cars a day, he did little to provide rationale as to how the TTCR would not become a bypass for pass-through traffic. According to the study on South Park traffic by his competitor he mentioned (Teton County’s 2010 Felsburg South Park Study), Mr. Charlier states that most of the traffic using the TTCR would be South Park local traffic. When reading the study however, I was surprised to find that only 33% of traffic using the connector would be South Park “Local” residing traffic. The other 67% would be pass-through traffic. See details in traffic engineer Robert Bernstein’s Analysis of the 2010 Felsburg South Park Study.
How this increase in pass-through traffic will affect our children:
One of the main take-away points of the ITP is that Teton County’s goal is to increase pedestrian and bike traffic while decreasing vehicular traffic. A wonderful goal for our future indeed. While facing a 400-1,200% increase in traffic on many South Park roads that already deal with traffic congestion during school drop-off/pick-up times, how can a parent feel comfortable allowing their children to bike/walk to school and athletic practices? Daily I witness drivers failing to stop at cross walks for children and adults attempting to cross the road in school zones. What will be done to mitigate this blatant danger to our children? I find it contradictory that our county goal is to increase bike/pedestrian commuter traffic yet the proposed TTCR will make it more dangerous for our kids to get to school this way. I think you will find more parents driving their children to school if the TTCR is built thus nullifying our goal.
The thing I found troubling about Mr. Charlier’s comments was his attitude that addressing safety is not something that should be first and foremost. Comments like, “I’m not an advocate for writing a safety section” and “It’s essential to everything that’s in there but it’s not a separate topic” seemed lacking to me when referencing our most child-dense and sensitive zone in Teton County. His inability to provide details when questioned by Commissioner Newcomb on Charlier’s outline for safety consideration left me disappointed and feeling like this proposal hasn’t properly been vetted. Perhaps an independent child-safety analysis would be prudent?
When asked by Commissioner Vogelheim if roundabouts in the TTCR proposal would mitigate traffic, Mr. Charlier’s answer was, “You really don’t know until you get into the details of project planning”. The impression I got was that this is a plan that has been drafted yet details of safety mitigation and how to protect our children have not been fully thought out. Is this how Teton County works? Vote on a road rife with child safety concerns yet wait until later to find out if the risk is worth it? I believe our kids deserve better from us, the adults who are granted the honor of keeping them safe and out of harm’s way.
These are the questions that keep me up at night and I feel you have the power to challenge our county engineers and planners as to giving us the full story before a vote comes to order. I disagree with Mr. Charlier about the details; the details are where we are going to find out if the risk to our children’s safety is worth easing congestion at the Y. If you also felt like vital information was lacking, I urge you to please dig deeper on this one.
Please feel free to contact me to discuss this further.
Sincerely,
Adrianna Anderson