Gag order and blank check on Tribal Trails must be rescinded
By a 4-1 vote (with Luther Propst opposed), the Teton County Board of County Commissioners has abdicated its responsibility to our community by giving responsibility for planning the proposed Tribal Trails Connector to the state and federal government.
By the terms of a contract with the Wyoming Department of Transportation the board approved on March 21, “Teton County will give up sole decision-making authority on the project and will serve instead in an advisory capacity to WYDOT and FHWA through staff of Teton County Public Works.”
The decision on whether to build this county road will no longer be made by Teton County.
The last time a major highway project was proposed, the South Highway 89 expansion from South Park to Hoback Junction, our county staff and commissioners engaged. The Republicans and Democrats on the commission unanimously put forward a professionally drawn alternative for three lanes with turn lanes, rather than the five lanes we now have. Their alternative was less expensive, a narrower barrier for wildlife and less intrusive on the southern entrance to this special valley.
WYDOT refused to even consider the county alternative in its project evaluations. Today’s commissioners know that the state of Wyoming and WYDOT often do not consider local impacts. For example, they have failed to protect us from illegal and dangerous trucks on state Highway 22 over Teton Pass. It is just a matter of time before someone is killed.
The connector would require condemning private property — almost certainly requiring lawsuits. It is particularly difficult to condemn land where there is a conservation easement, which would be required.
According to the contract, the county must take on condemnation proceedings on private land as dictated by WYDOT’s decisions. According to this contract, the county must also commit to WYDOT’s preferred alternative and build the new highway or reimburse it at federal rates and overhead for all planning expenses.
At a minimum, land condemnation issues need to be resolved before writing WYDOT a blank check for planning costs.
Of great concern is the contract’s Section 7.S: “Any publicity given to the project or services provided herein including but not limited to notices, information, pamphlets, press releases, research reports, signs and similar public notices in whatever form, prepared by or for the county, shall identify WYDOT as the sponsoring agency and shall not be released without prior written approval from WYDOT.”
The commissioners have given up their ability to communicate on this project with their constituents, the people who elected them, unless they get WYDOT’s written permission. Essentially, the board has agreed to a gag order.
This contract is a terrible precedent for the decisions now being considered for expanding Highway 22. Will the county give up decision-making on this project as well? When Highway 22 expansion came up 20 years ago, county residents said no to WYDOT’s plan. We know improvements are needed, but why surrender decision-making to the state this early in the process?
This contract also makes it harder for the county to advocate for context sensitive solutions, such as design speed, traffic calming measures, vegetative strips or boulevards, in line with the community character provisions in our comprehensive plan.
Whether or not you think the Tribal Trail Connector is a good idea, turning over this much power to WYDOT at this time makes no sense. The county needs a fair local process for making this decision. The Board of County Commissioners needs to revisit this one-sided, potentially costly contract and rescind its approval.
The Paradox of Tribal Trail Build Options
A letter to Teton County Commissioners from Responsible Growth Coalition, Jackson Hole Conservation Alliance, Protect our Waters JH and Indian Springs Ranch HOA.
August 16, 2022
Dear Madam Chair Macker and Commissioners,
We are writing to object to the stated meeting purpose for tomorrow’s TTC Stakeholder Meeting, and ask that you broaden it. The agenda states:
Stakeholder Meeting #12 Purpose:
To review the results of the public meeting and identify a Stakeholder-preferred build alternative for recommendation to the project team. Per County Commission direction, County staff has said that it is tasked with providing a recommendation for a preferred build alternative for a proposed Tribal Trail connector. Once identified and presented to the Commission, the Staff says the Board is to vote on whether to proceed with the project.
The last Stakeholder Committee was told the same thing, and despite that, 7 out of 10 members of the committee voted for an alternative plan that provided solutions for emergency redundancy and other project objectives without putting thousands of vehicles through this sensitive meadow every day and increasing traffic on an already congested Highway 22. Several members of the committee were subsequently replaced in a fashion seen as biased by this group and many residents.
Why would the BCC direct the planners to choose a preferred build alternative rather than determine whether the road is feasible, what benefits it might provide, what it could cost, what the risks would be to the environment, and what alternatives exist? To insist that a choice is made is tantamount to asking if someone would prefer to drive or run off of a cliff. The committee has been tasked with making a choice when perhaps none are the right choice.
We were unable to find notes from BCC meetings directing the planners to choose a preferred build alternative. In fact, to our knowledge, The Board of County Commissioners actually did not give direction to the planners in over two years on this project. In that time:
- The extent and value of the wetlands was identified by BIOTA, whose analysis included a 2,000 year old fen that supports the surrounding wetlands, absorbs carbon emissions, and purifies waters that flow all the way down into the Snake, our single source aquifer.
- The Army Corps ruled that these wetlands are under federal jurisdiction, so their stringent process for securing a section 404 permit, including approval procedures, public comment (and dissent), wetlands mitigation, alternative consideration analyses, etc. will have to be followed if the commissioners vote for continuance.
- WYDOT has moved up their planning process for the WY22 corridor, so this potential project could and should be considered in the context of any plans that may include a road extension that would connect WYO 22 with South Park Loop Road.
- The Jackson Hole Land Trust has publicly stated that they do not want their easements picked at ‘piecemeal,’ but rather prefer to see a holistic plan for the corridor.
- Indian Springs Ranch HOA and the Land Trust have publicly said they are not in favor of modifying the easement, which leaves one route (the existing right of way) as the only option that doesn’t call for lawsuits and condemnation of wetlands under federal jurisdiction and conservation easement.
- That route on the right of way would require a new intersection, which undoubtedly would make HWY 22 worse even beyond the more than 6% volume increase that would be created by induced demand, per the County models.
- Traffic figures have not been updated since the BCC last weighed in on this project over 2 years ago, despite continued requests from the public to see updated models. Questions about traffic model assumptions such as how much pass through traffic would be anticipated go unanswered.
- The budget, to our knowledge, has not been updated in over 2 years. What was estimated to be a $7 million project could cost $15 million or more now.
- The recent survey of Teton County residents no resulted in 2/3 of the voters being against the road and 1/3 in favor. The No Build Option had approximately five times the support of any other option.
We ask that ‘No-Build’ and/or ‘delay/incorporate into the WYDOT NEPA process for the corridor’ be considered as options, particularly given that the No-Build Option is the opinion of 2 /3 of residents who have submitted official public comment.
Thank you,
Responsible Growth Coalition
Jackson Hole Conservation Alliance
Protect our Waters JH
Indian Springs Ranch HOA
Building More Roads is Like Addressing a Weight Problem by Buying Larger Pants
As seen here in Jackson Hole News & Guide
Guest Shot by Brot Coburn, November 11, 2020
As an older guy I sometimes step back to take a broader look, beyond the time horizon of the daily news cycle. The population of the earth has tripled during my lifetime (I passed this eerie personal milestone on Dec. 5, 2019, by my calculation). The first tertile of that growth took some 500,000 years to unfold. Unconstrained, head-spinning economic expansion, as I’ve witnessed over decades in China and India as well as in the U.S., cannot continue indefinitely.
Perhaps our leaders and citizens can take a moment, too, to ponder the possibilities (and needed sacrifices) of a truly sustainable world and ask at least one pertinent local question: How long can we continue to expand our road network?
Politicians speak nobly about transit, sustainability, the environment, reducing fossil fuel consumption and preserving the character of Jackson Hole.
In a recent survey conducted by Friends of Pathways (“How Do Local Candidates Feel About Pathways?”) the candidates unanimously called for expanding use of alternatives to personal vehicles, and voiced support for the ongoing development of pathways. Yet only Christian Beckwith went on record opposing construction of the Tribal Trails Connector, along with Commissioner Luther Propst.
“One of the most dismaying aspects of serving on the Commission,” Propst wrote, “is the width of the disconnect between the steady stream of aspirational resolutions about climate change, etc., and the real decisions that continue to push our community in the wrong direction.”
What we need are transportation alternatives, not road alternatives. Our abiding task is to address growth, not merely accommodate it or, more typically, build our way out of it.
So what will the community get out of paving a new road at the Tribal Trail Connector, and at what downstream cost?
At the moment it appears to be an expensive, potentially dangerous, environmentally unsound and locally disfavored way to increase the incentive to drive cars more, and ride bikes less. If driving a single-passenger car is easy and enjoyable, why do anything else? Inevitably the connector will be used as a shortcut between south Jackson and Teton Village, through a neighborhood with four schools.
Smarter alternatives exist, and have been proposed by Beckwith and others: congestion pricing, careful transit design (including micro-transit), and smart traffic signals.
When the weather allows, the existing Tribal Trails Pathway has long been my preferred transportation option to south Jackson: I can reach the door of Smith’s grocery from our house in Wilson faster on my e-bike than in a car, even when there’s little vehicle traffic. The pathway allows for this and was a major incentive for me to purchase an e-bike. (Never mind that this travel advantage is thoroughly enjoyable, too — a rather different feeling than I have when driving locally. I do ride responsibly, as we all must.) For half the year e-bikes present a viable alternative to driving for many, and it’s no coincidence that sales are mushrooming.
Once a motorable road connects Highway 22 to Tribal Trail, however, I might as well just drive. In the meantime, I really don’t want to be stuck buying a larger pair of pants.
Tribal Trail: bad timing for a big price tag
The Tribal Trail Connector – a half-mile segment connecting the existing Tribal Trail Road to Highway 22 in northern South Park – has been steadily working its way through the county’s approval process. As the date for the Board of County Commissioners to decide whether to advance the road process nears (on June 2), so do budget decisions in a fiscal crisis. So far, the projected cost to the county ranges from $2-3M, with a total project cost ranging from $8-17M. Given the controversial process thus far, and the commissioner’s own time, bandwidth, and funding constraints, we asked commissioners to put Tribal Trail on the back burner and not to fund it this year. Not to mention that the future of Tribal Trail is also closely tied to future development plans for northern South Park, which (if now is the time to consider its development) needs full funding for holistic planning.
May 20, 2020
Teton County Board of County Commissioners
RE: Please put the Tribal Trail project on hold
Dear Madam Chair Macker and Commissioners,
Thank you for the extensive time and detailed considerations each of you has made into determining next year’s budget given the COVID-19 funding crisis. We last wrote to you expressing our support for fully funding a neighborhood plan for northern South Park, if you believe now is the time to consider development there. In contrast, please put the Tribal Trail road on the back burner and do not fund it now.
Road building is a costly process, whether in staff time, consultant services, stakeholder facilitation, or construction. The cost to the county alone was last budgeted at $2.4-$3.2 million, and the entire project could reach $8-17M. Of course, you have not yet made a decision on whether or not to build the Tribal Trail road, let alone decided on the design that would determine final costs – so these numbers are rough guesses.
This discussion has long been controversial. We find it extremely significant that most of the stakeholder group asked that the process be halted – and that their request was not honored. A controversial proposal like this places a real burden on our community members to engage meaningfully during an ongoing public health crisis. And it adds a cost to your own decision-making bandwidth when you clearly have higher priorities.
Right now, and in the coming year, our community and our elected leaders should be most focused on core government services that provide for human health – whether that’s public health, human services, water quality planning and management, responsible planning, or conservation. These last few months have repeatedly demonstrated the fundamental value of these services for our mental and physical health. Ultimately, we have to ask ourselves, where can this money, whether several thousand for facilitation or many million for a road, be put to better use?
Please focus your limited budget and limited time on more-important, less-controversial projects, and put the unnecessary Tribal Trail project on hold for at least a year or indefinitely.
Sincerely,
Brooke Sausser
Community Planning Manager
Jackson Hole Conservation Alliance
This letter appeared in the JH News and Guide and was reposted on the JH Conservation Alliance website
This letter to the Teton County Commissioners can be download it here.