Analyzing the impacts of Wyoming’s State Highway 22 Teton Pass Closure
Detouring through a timeline of this closure, history of Old Pass Road, commute to Jackson, economic impacts, comparable scenarios, and some opinion about this event.
“Avalanches have literally shaped the Teton Pass area as well as the lives of people who depend on it as a travel corridor.”
Authors note
We’re all very thankful that nobody was hurt through during these events, this could have been much worse. Pat on the back to WYDOT for everything they do to upkeep the State of Wyoming’s roads. The author is not a financial, DOT, or economic advisor, please read accordingly.
What happened (timeline)?
Multiple mudslides occurred June 7th through June 8th. The June 7th mudslide deposited mud over the road below while the Saturday morning June 8th slide caved in the road destroying a 200’ section of Wyoming’s State Highway 22 (Teton Pass) closing it until DOT engineers a solution.
Thursday June 6th - Life as normal
Friday June 7th - Teton Pass closed due to mudslide at 4:18 am
Friday June 7th - Teton Pass remains closed Wyoming State Highway 22, Teton Pass, remains closed as of 1 p.m. Due to the continued movement at milepost 12.8, crews are now working on a temporary solution to stabilize the slide area by removing the asphalt on the roadway, minimizing the weight on the unstable ground.
Saturday June 8th - 5 a.m., this morning, WYDOT had discovered that the road had completely failed,” Saturday June 8th 2024 - State of Wyoming Declaration of Emergency
History of Teton Pass
Teton Pass is a high mountain pass in the western United States, located at the southern end of the Teton Range in western Wyoming, between Wilson and Victor, Idaho - wiki
1886 to 1913 - Old Wagon route
1913 - Old Pass Road was built
1929 - Grand Teton National Park was created
1940s - Neil Rafferty designed and built a Teton Pass rope tow spanning 900 vertical feet near the pass
1970 - Glory Bowl suspension bridge damaged by an avalanche and later taken down
Traffic Counts and Commute to Jackson, WY
We started by looking at a set of Wyoming traffic data figuring this would be a solid method to analyze impact. This section answers what route do out of county commuters/visitors take to Jackson? There are three routes into Jackson including US Hwy 191 from the North and South along with State Hwy 22 (Teton Pass) entering into Jackson Wyoming from the West. We found that the Teton Pass route accounts for appx 37% of Jackson's out of county traffic according to 2023 Wyoming DOT Traffic Counts followed by Hwy 191 from the North at 29% and South at 34%.
Data sourced from WYDOT chart compiled by Block Biome Research
Here are the actual counts of two way traffic from Jacksons three tributary roads (don’t ask me what happened in 2018 - likely faulty data or perhaps another route was closed to Jackson leading to a 2018 spike in Teton Pass traffic.
Data sourced from WYDOT chart compiled by Block Biome Research
Commuting workforce
The big fuss about this mudslide road closure is the fact that most of the people that operate Teton County Wyoming commute from elsewhere. We found a Teton County Profile published in 2022 by the Department of Administration and Information sharing some of these commute figures Confusingly, those statistics says that 5,088 come from "all other counties." The reason is unclear. Anyways, these figures demonstrate that a significant percentage of regular commuters will be impacted. Notice how 26% of the inbound commuters are from Teton County Wyoming? Point here is that there are a large amount of daily commuters to Jackson.
Comparable Scenarios
Miracle on I-287: How crews put a blown-out highway back together in mere days
Yellowstone Floods of June 2022
Other communities that are served by bottleneck routes such as:
Big Sky, MT on US Highway 191
Cooke City, MT on US Highway 212
Silverton, CO on US Highway 550
Loveland Pass, CO US Highway 6
Wasatch Front, UT Little and Big Cottonwood Canyon State Highway 190 and 210
Luckily for Teton County, there are a few escape routes.
Opinion
Covering road fix scenarios, effects, economics whos going to suffer/benefit, and what people are saying from the internet.
Road Fix scenarios
Alternative routes into Teton County will become more busy
Slow zone detour temporary fix - by end of summer - DOT says “weeks”
Long term fix (bridge, concrete bank stabilization) multiple years with detour around the long term solution work site
Tunnel, Wyoming commissioned a study back in 2013 researching the feasibility of a 1.4 mile long tunnel.
Wyoming Department of Transportation, Teton Pass Tunnel Planning Level Feasibility Study
Effects
Fed funding may assist in the rebuild
Teton County to be forced to designate portion(s) of land as overnight camps for out of county service workers (residents may not like this)
Potential for spike in urban camping or camping on/near jobsites
National News headlines
Construction project delays
Jackson to experience a labor shortage
Jackson workers from Teton County to will find alternative jobs closer to home forcing Jackson employers to find new sources of workers
Continued outrage over affordable housing issues and bad publicity
Economics
Alpine WY economic boost
Prices of goods and services to increase in Jackson
Slowed progress of projects under construction and a halt in new construction starts
Jackson residents and businesses to expect supply chain delays and re organizations
Jackson businesses to experience worker retention difficulty
Who's going to suffer?
DOT
Commuters who work Jackson jobs
Jackson residents and businesses
Idaho Route 31 from Victor, ID to Swan Valley, ID
Who's going to benefit?
Alpine Wyoming Business and Suppliers
Star Valley Business and Suppliers
Pinedale Business and Suppliers
People who want peace and quiet in Teton County Idaho and Jackson
Jackson Hole Airport and lodging businesses
Whoever wins this road re build contract
What people are saying online
Welp. That’ll be the whole summer. Thoughts and prayers to all of the commuters.
KJ's in Alpine is about to get a lot more business...
The folks in Victor and Driggs are fucked. My bet is September of 2026 to have it fixed.
Just build the damn tunnel already like they planned in the 70’s
Drive around or find different work. Maybe this will be a wake up call for Teton County that they should put a bit more effort into housing their hospital staff, and other critical workers… but probably not
It will likely take Wydot over a year to fully repair the road, good luck with your commutes.
They have been slapping a bandaid on that corner for years and then it just fell off. Absolutely agree, there is no easy fix there
A year from today would be a miracle. The engineers will need at least a few months to investigate and come up with a design so this construction season is almost already shot. Depending on the winter they might get shut down in October and not start back up till late June next year. The construction season is basically 3-4 months in that area.
September 2026, 200 million. This is not a simple highway project and the design engineer is going to need time to figure out a long term solution. Edit. I was an engineer over in Star Valley. The logistics of construction on a failure like that is mind boggling. With the short construction season and incredibly difficult access to the toe (bottom) of the failure this project is going to take forever.
Wilson feels like a ghost town. It’s great.
“Steep grade next 200 ft, trucks use low gear”
Entirely non-authoritative source here: maybe. Have seen something like this before in Oregon and they blasted to the right of the wash and put in a temporary 25mph diversion while they repaired the original ROW. Reopened in a few weeks, sort of.
Got stuck on the Alaska highway a few summers ago, huge washout. Similar amount of earth gone. They put in a temp one way road crossing on the old highway route in 3 days.
Shit'll buff out
Thank you for reading,
Daniel - Author of the Bozeman Build Report and Operator of Block Biome LLC