Tribal Trails connector—a half mile of red tape, political promises

JACKSON HOLE, Wyo. — An open house is scheduled for the Tribal Trails Connector—a project hated by everyone not in government. The meeting will take place Wednesday, April 27.

After approving the controversial shortcut through Indian Trails two years ago, the county has been busy dealing with COVID and hiring issues to devote much time to how it might look and function and, more importantly, how to pay for it.

Envisioned as far back as 1982, the 0.5-mile of unfinished road would have connected with Highway 22. It just never got done. Now, it has become a political football, traffic solution boilerplate, and microcosm argument for or against growth. All that for a forgotten 2,600-ft stretch of road way through the sagebrush.

In county planners’ minds, when it comes to housing, you keep digging when you find yourself in a hole. When it comes to traffic, the only solution to excessive bleeding is to purchase more Band-Aids. (Maybe it’s past time to address the cause and severity of the injury).

Tribal Trails connector is one of the few growth items faced by the community that is not merely officiated by government but generated by government. Usually town or county planners present what one guy wants to do with his property that is either legal or quasi-legal while elected town or county officials referee and pontificate for three hours or three meetings before they pronounce judgement.

In this case it is government itself with their planner panties in a bunch over getting more asphalt down.

Redundancy sounds so close to dunce

“Redundancy and reduction,” they spew into their bullhorns.

Fresh out of schools where treatises like Modeling Transportation Network Redundancy are part of the standard course workload, transportation planners point to a dire need for ambulances to be able find several different routes in answering that 911 call.

For example, a homeowner in Skyline opens his property tax notice and goes into immediate cardiac arrest. At exactly the same time, Griz 399 and her cubs create a monster bear jam at the Highway 22/Spring Gulch junction where the world’s slowest traffic light has two semis of cattle trucks from the Mead Ranch already backed up with cows bawling in the heat.

Now what?

Want to study up on something meaningful, kids? Every traffic analysis ever done has proven adding roads, widening roads does not magically alleviate existing congestion, it invites more.

Yes, Tribal Trails connector will allow a shit pile of smart drivers in their shiny SUVs to skirt the busy Y intersection on a Friday at 5:30pm where Teslas and Lexuses on Broadway are stacked back to Wendy’s drive-thru, which is also snaked completely around the building and spilling out onto Broadway back to town square.

But these same woke motorists will have to merge onto the Highway 22 summer parking lot sooner or later—presumably at a new traffic light intersection created across from Teton Science Schools, where first-year teachers have actually been tenured and retired while waiting to make a left out of there to go home.

Problem solved, as long as St. John’s Health gets working on that 911 drone service program.

Reducing miles travelled

Just the fact that there’s a government acronym for something called Vehicle Miles of Travels (VMT) should clue in even the most bollixed among us we are about to enter the spin zone.

“Most of Teton County traffic growth is made up of local traffic associated with short trips,” county traffic engineers say. Well, yeah, plus tourist driving associated with long trips. Plus, locals going on long trips. Plus, visitors taking a short drive. Plus, all the traffic generated by locals and visitors alike driving from restaurant to restaurant only to be told they were booked out for that Tuesday night 4 months ago.

The way to manage these naughty VMTs, according to the ITP, is to—WTF?—make more roads. Huh? Here’s another acronym at play: TBTF, as in Too Big To Fail. The county is too far down this unfinished road, financially, to surrender now. Heck, they even had a logo designed for the road to nowhere…so you know they’re serious about this.

To manage traffic growth and reduce VMT, the ITP calls for “more productive use of road and street capacity.” Substitute “productive use” with “increase” and we get a clearer picture of the game plan.

Building more roads and bigger roads will reduce emissions and petroleum use (that’s actually alleged in the county reading materials) like buying a bigger flat screen TV, and putting another one in the bedroom, will cut down on the time you spend on Netflix.

Just look at how Dallas, Texas has ‘roaded’ itself right out of a potential traffic problem. They build highways there faster than Waze can add them to its GPS software so that now, getting around the Dallas-Ft. Worth-Plano-Garland-Irving-Arlington urban complex has never been easier.

Dodge Ramming it through

When the county trotted this out the first time, they got caught with their eye on the prize, visualizing an end game before all their Subarus were in a row. The original draft plan had several alternatives for how a Tribal Trails connector would look and feel except for the one solution eventually preferred by everyone in Indian Trails and other affected neighborhoods: take no action. Even the Park and Forest Service have learned to stick that one in on the bottom of their lists of preferred alternatives.

It wasn’t public outcry, really, that stalled progress on Tribal Trails for the past two years. It was more the price tag (estimated $17M for the most expensive half-mile ever built) and the timing: How to connect with Highway 22 when WYDOT has not yet begun their major overhaul of the busiest two-lane in the state?

But the issue is back on the front burner. Once again affected neighbors will have to take off work, coordinate efforts, and try to stop the bulldozers. Those without a dog in the fight will either remain ambivalent or be reeled in by the pretty promises of government, mouthpieced by the pro-growth News&Guide who actually had this to say in an editorial a day after the June 2, 2020 greenlight to move forward was given by county commissioners:

“…it took political fortitude to maintain momentum in the face of predictable opposition by county residents.” —News&Guide editors

Political fortitude (gag)? So, ignoring the voice of the people and jamming its agenda through is the BCC showing “political fortitude?”

Pro-connectors say the road is just an unrealized vision planned 40 years ago. So was the idea back in the ’60s and ’70s that no one needed sidewalks or bike paths in downtown Jackson. Now we spend millions every year correcting that poor vision of the future.

They also say let’s just do it now before costs rise even higher. That’s the rationale of a pressure-to-buy car salesman or the pushy real estate agent.

“Someone else has their eye on this beauty, better act now.”

Time only will tell whether a shortcut through a tranquil residential neighborhood will shave even 20 seconds off your commute to Driggs or your ski run to the Village. The Y will still be jampacked, 22 will still be a parking lot, while another neighborhood chokes on the exhaust.

Direct from the county

Teton County Public Works is inviting the public to join staff and members of the project team for an in-person and virtual open house highlighting updates on the Tribal Trail Connector Road project.

The open house is scheduled for Wednesday, April 27, 2022 from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m. at the Teton County Library auditorium. The public can attend any time to review information on the background and history of the project, and learn about study updates, the four preferred alternatives that are under consideration, and next steps in the process. County staff, project stakeholders, members of the project team, and a representative from the Wyoming Department of Transportation will be available to answer questions and receive in-person feedback.

The same information being presented at the in-person open house will also be available to review online from April 27 through May 11, 2022 at www.tribaltrailconnector.com, where feedback on the project can also be submitted.

Design alternatives are being evaluated utilizing several criteria, including safety, impacts to natural resources and private property, improved emergency response, travel/route redundancy and reduced local trips through the “Y” intersection.

Following the open house, the project team will consider feedback, finalize the preferred alternative, and bring the project to the County Commissioners for their consideration.