JACKSON HOLE, Wyo. — Crews will be working on Snow King Avenue and Willow Street this week to install a new seasonal bike route through town.
Known as the Willow Street Safe Routes project, the route will extend the bollard-buffered bike lanes on Snow King Avenue to Willow Street, ending at Jackson Elementary School and the Rec Center. The project is set to be complete by Friday, May 27, although weather may impact that timeline.
The new route will include bollards, striping, and signage to create safe and accessible bike lanes annually from early May to mid-October. The buffered bike lanes will be installed on both sides of Willow Street with a single buffered lane on the south side of Snow King for eastbound cyclists.
The overall goal of the project is to improve safety and mobility for people on bikes and bring cycling access up to an equal level with motor vehicle access on at least one corridor in town. The Snow King and Willow corridor has long been identified as the primary route because it provides connectivity to a variety of key destinations along the route, including schools, recreational destinations, and links to the Town of Jackson/Teton County Pathways system.
Approved unanimously by the Jackson Town Council on March 21, 2022, the installation of Willow Street Safe Routes is the next step towards creating a fully-connected protected bike route through town. The project was identified as early as 1993 in transportation planning documents and is widely supported by the Town and County’s commitment to providing safe transportation options for all users and encouraging active transportation.
Jackson Town Councilman Jim Rooks noted, “This important project will help kids get to school and summer camps safely and will give our residents an additional safe option for how they get around town during the busy summer season.”
The Snow King Avenue-Willow Street corridor is a key link in the local transportation network for all modes of travel. The new bike lanes will open up a safe route for bikes to get to destinations like the Rec Center, Jackson Elementary School, the new Genevieve block green space, Snow King Mountain, Phil Baux Park, the Rodeo Grounds, Teton County Library, and on to Garaman Pathway and the larger pathway system.
Motorists are advised to be aware that on-street parking on Willow will be reallocated seasonally to provide space for the bike lanes, including at the Teton County Administration building and along the athletic fields near the Jackson Elementary School campus. People wishing to store their vehicles in the public right-of-way along Willow will need to park on any one of the other streets in the immediate vicinity of the project area.
On-street parking will still be provided in the immediate area on the following streets: Karns, Kelly, Hansen, Simpson, Pearl, Broadway, Deloney, Gill, King, Cache, Jean, and the north side of Snow King Avenue. The parking adjustment is expected to start on Thursday, May 26.
“With news headlines this past week highlighting the disturbing trend that traffic deaths nationwide are at their highest level in 16 years, and the fact that a lot of this is due to distracted driving and the ever-increasing size of vehicles, it’s more important than ever that the community pursues proven strategies such as safer road designs that prioritize safety over speed,” Teton County Pathways coordinator Brian Schilling said. “The extension of the bollard-buffered bike lanes is an interim step in the right direction to create a transportation system that is comfortable, safe, and accessible for all users. The bike lanes will help bring cycling up to a more equal footing with vehicular mobility, at least on this one corridor through town.”
Snow King Avenue experiences some thousand bike trips a day in peak summer.
