Tedious traffic tales

Wednesday, December 03, 2008

By Jake Nichols

Jackson Hole, Wyo.-Remember Choice Meats? The sandwiches were top-notch but the egress from the establishment just past the ‘Y’ on Highway 22 eventually did the business in. It is simply not possible to make a left-hand turn from the property that is now temporary home to a car rental outfit. The speed ramp section of 22 from the stoplight at Broadway to the “most useless stoplight in the world” at Spring Gulch Road is posted “30 mph” but is treated like a restart at Bristol.

So how will residents of 92 new units on 9.29 acres on a 30-degree-or-so grade tumble out onto the traffic flow and into town? Very carefully. The very idea of running to the post office from one of Jeff Heider’s 11 proposed new structures at 1225 W. Highway 22 has Mike’s Body Shop salivating. Residents will likely have to jump in the flow westbound and turn around in Wilson to get into the town of Jackson. That’s fine with Town; this way they won’t miss the new way-finding signs which are on the way for a cool quarter mil’.

The project, presented by Jorgensen Associates’ Reed Armijo, was seeking a CUD and a PUD approval for a 100-percent residential development featuring 72 free-market homes and 20 affordable/employee housing units, all on the site known to locals as Clark’s Ready-Mix. The Conditional Use Permit (CUD) was granted without pain by the council, allowing building on a hillside slope unsafe for tobogganing.

The sketch plan approval was another matter. Renderings of the grassy, open areas of the development did NOT feature kids tied to stakes so they would not slide clear down into the busiest two-lane in the state, but they did show crafty use of an optional egress using Budge Drive and a proposal to dig the town’s second traffic tunnel.

Councilman Bob Lenz said he heard horror stories about the pitch on Budge being so slickery in the winter that residents simply parked for days on end in whoever’s driveway they could make it to until city sand truck drivers finished their two-hour lunch at Sidewinders and braved the hill. He also wasn’t jazzed about another tunnel in Jackson, saying: “Tunnels scare me to death. They are dark. I don’t like tunnels.”

Other council members worried about the density of the project and the traffic impact. A fairly favorable traffic analysis was done that claimed the impact of the project would be reasonable. Pathways ED Tim Young blasted the report and challenged the town to begin requiring a more holistic approach to future studies. JH Alliance lame duck Franz Camenzind also chimed in on behalf of the winter mule deer population which uses the corridor to get to the beer-soaked Teton Gables lawn.

It was generally agreed that the project was a model use of the Planned Unit Development (PUD) tool and that residential units on the already-scarred hillside would benefit the community. Mayor Mark Barron said the project could only be an improvement over what is currently there. But the developer was asked to go back to the drawing board on a few minor issues. As Mark Obringer put it: “I’ve learned that if we are not brutal now, it’s only worse later.”

In other business
Jackson Hole Historical Society & Museum managed to dodge the processing fees for their Conditional Use Permit and Final Development Plan located at 225 N. Cache Street. The museum hopes to build a new year-round facility. The mayor recognized the “extraordinary benefit” the museum provides for the community.

A new and better amendment is on the way for the Land Development Regulations (LDRs) that will better define procedures for converting apartments to condominiums. The so-called ‘condo-conversions’ reached epidemic levels a year ago when a moratorium was imposed. PJH
PERMALINK:
Tedious traffic tales | Planet JH News Article: Council Chronicles

Leave a Comment