Jackson Hole about to experience life without the unwashed masses

[BenedictGomez]

https://www.jhnewsandguide.com/the_...cle_6a33ae26-259f-11ef-856e-7b6f70671e5a.html

 

[Edd]

Happened in the middle of the night. Scary.

 

[4aprice]

Report on GMA this morning said cracks had developed and road had been closed before collapse. They also reported that they had a fatal motorcycle accident last week that they are now saying they believe was caused due to the start of the failure.

We recently had a bridge collapse on the south bound lanes of a pretty busy highway here in Jersey.. Again they had closed it before the incident, but my what a PITA. They say a lot of Jackson employees actually live in Idaho. What a nightmare for them.

 

[jimk]

The trip over the pass that used to take 35 minutes will now take 1:35 to make the detour route.

 

[AdironRider]

I made this commute for 15 years.

Couple things, that 35 minutes hasn’t been true outside of a 2am drive over in at least a decade. So much traffic has resulted in the pass commute taking at least an hour. Throw in snow or an RV slowing everything further and that commute took more like 1:15 to 1:30 the last couple years I lived there. Now add all of that traffic to an older and rougher pass (pine creek) and a canyon at max capacity for the star valley commuters and that detour is going to be a 3 hour slog each way.

This portion of the pass had been collapsing for the better part of five years. They would patch over it every year or so and it finally failed. Kicked the can for too long.

Ultimately this is Teton County’s fault. They closed all the gravel pits and forced overweight dump trucks to run the pass all day everyday. They screwed over the workforce and sent 10,000 plus cars over the pass daily which it was never designed to accommodate. Now they get to figure out how to provide hospital and educational services with no workers. Have fun.

 

[Smellytele]

My son lives on the Idaho side and his girlfriend lives on the Jackson side. Gonna take longer to get to each other now. He had sent me pictures of this as well.

 

[deadheadskier]

I made this commute for 15 years.

Couple things, that 35 minutes hasn’t been true outside of a 2am drive over in at least a decade. So much traffic has resulted in the pass commute taking at least an hour. Throw in snow or an RV slowing everything further and that commute took more like 1:15 to 1:30 the last couple years I lived there. Now add all of that traffic to an older and rougher pass (pine creek) and a canyon at max capacity for the star valley commuters and that detour is going to be a 3 hour slog each way.

This portion of the pass had been collapsing for the better part of five years. They would patch over it every year or so and it finally failed. Kicked the can for too long.

Ultimately this is Teton County’s fault. They closed all the gravel pits and forced overweight dump trucks to run the pass all day everyday. They screwed over the workforce and sent 10,000 plus cars over the pass daily which it was never designed to accommodate. Now they get to figure out how to provide hospital and educational services with no workers. Have fun.

If I were the hospitals, schools or other businesses relying on the Idaho workforce, the very first thing I'd do is buy / lease some very nice coach busses and offer that service to employees. If my work commute lengthened from 1:15 to 2:30, I would much rather be on a bus reading a book vs driving a car. The second thing I'd do is compensate these people for the extra time. Have it either count towards their hourly rate or reduce their shift length when they arrive. The former is probably more feasible for many of these jobs than the later. The cost burden of this compensation should be covered by the county / state for failing to manage the infrastructure properly.

I've never been to Jackson. What do you think is the long term solution? You make it sound like this is destined to happen again without some changes.

 

[jimk]

I've never been to Jackson. What do you think is the long term solution? You make it sound like this is destined to happen again without some changes.

As you may know, there's not much cheap housing on the eastern side of that pass in the vicinity of Jackson. So a great many of the lower income/service workers for the town and the ski resort live on the west side. It's just geography. Even if they take a year and rebuild that road with a bridge or whatever, that won't take away to heavy traffic. I doubt this will spur them to build a bunch of cheap housing on the east side near Jackson? But who knows? That's what they need to ease some of the daily commuter traffic. I've been on that pass road a few years ago to go skiing at Grand Targhee while I was staying in Jackson for a week. I think I was on it as a little kid too on a big family road trip.

 

[AdironRider]

If I were the hospitals, schools or other businesses relying on the Idaho workforce, the very first thing I'd do is buy / lease some very nice coach busses and offer that service to employees. If my work commute lengthened from 1:15 to 2:30, I would much rather be on a bus reading a book vs driving a car. The second thing I'd do is compensate these people for the extra time. Have it either count towards their hourly rate or reduce their shift length when they arrive. The former is probably more feasible for many of these jobs than the later. The cost burden of this compensation should be covered by the county / state for failing to manage the infrastructure properly.

I've never been to Jackson. What do you think is the long term solution? You make it sound like this is destined to happen again without some changes.

That doesn't even take into account there are at least two to three other areas of the pass that are failing as well.

In terms of immediate solutions there is nothing tenable. That drive around is going to be 4 hours at best, 5 - 6 hours on average, with some instances of 7-8 on heavy traffic days (this is round trip per day). I had times when it took me over an hour to get from Town Square to the Wilson bridge alone. That is like 4 miles total. If you live in Victor / Driggs / Tetonia and work at JHMR (which is the vast majority of employees including senior management) you could be spending an entire workday in the car, every day on top of your actual work day. That doesn't even take into account the insane monetary costs. That's 900 miles a week (Victor to Teton Vilage). Even in a Subaru, which is the minimum level car you need to make that drive in the common conditions six months a year, that's a hefty gas bill, let alone maintenance. You would need to take a day off from work every month just to get the car maintained. If you had a family would you be willing to make that sacrifice to make anywhere from 35-75k a year? Even senior management over 100k plus that isn't worth it. Even if businesses paid for a rental house for employees at STR rates (which is what they are going to have to do), how many people with even just a significant other, let alone a family, are going to be willing to leave their families for that length of time? I wouldn't. Jackson is in for a rude awakening when 25% of the already short staffed situation they were in last week decides to say fuck that and leave altogether. You are looking at a winter where JHMR is going to be operating at 50% capacity, it will be impossible to operate on pow days outside of a handful of lifts.

Long term is they are going to need to eliminate some traffic from the pass, and that is going to mean a weight limit. The dump trucks, semis, and RVs gum up the works, and do by far the most damage to the roadway. 15k pounds should be the limit, including trailers. The canyon can support that traffic, or better yet, Jackson can quit playing the faux environmental savior schtick and open back up the gravel pit in Melody Ranch and save those miles all together. Even then Pandora's box got opened and people aren't going to put their entire life's work (buying a house, depending on jobs, etc) on a pass that could fail and ruin your entire financial life in an instant.

That and get rid of the three story moratorium on building. Even allowing 5-6 in town would bring online a couple thousand units in and of itself. Make them all deed restricted employee housing. This will never happen though.

The fix is going to take at least a year. Come October you can't do earth work anywhere in that climate. The elevation of this failure is over 7000 feet. At a minimum, I see at least 25% of the already depleted workforce leaving (I think that is a low estimate). The Teton Valley real estate market is going to crater, which is going to kill these people (all my friends). STR's are going to sit empty and people are going to go bankrupt. They are looking at potentially a worse scenario than 2008-2012 period, and I was there then also. It was brutal. I wish I had a more positive outlook but that pass was such a critical lifeline for everything. There had been a few instances before where the Canyon closed due to landslides, but the most recent was close to ten years ago and the population and demand on those roadways was half what it is now. Star Valley has also never matched Teton Valley in terms of the sheet number of employees that live there. It is probably 2-1 in terms of employees that live in Teton Valley vs. Star Valley.

 

[2planks2coasts]

A friend in Driggs says he thinks they'll have a temporary solution in a few weeks. No idea if he's just being optimistic.....

I don't imagine that this will move the needle as far as workforce housing development in Jackson or Teton Village goes.

 

[ss20]

Jackson is f'd as literally every J Hole instructor I have met commutes in from the Idaho side. I'm sure it's the same deal for the summer workers. Not good timing for the community with peak summer season starting... literally now.

 

[deadheadskier]

The best PCP I ever had moved from here to Idaho Falls to practice some ten years ago to be close (kinda) to JH. Doesn't look like the damaged road is what he would use, but I imagine the one he does is going to be a heck of a lot more of a grueling drive only to experience a lesser skiing experience when he gets to the mountain due to not enough staff. He was a Sugarbush skier back home. Maybe he'll say, hmmm, Sugarbush ain't so bad after all and move back home. Haha

Crazy to hear that even something catastrophic like this likely won't move the needle on workforce housing locally. Maybe the state needs to step in and do something like Mass has with the MBTA Communities Act. Too early to tell how effective the program will be, but my understanding is that has been put in place largely to combat Nimbyism and increase housing density to better supply the workforce's needs in a manner that also encourages public transportation use.

 

[jimmywilson69]

Red state full of Red people who likely don't like all of the high-priced refugees or the tourist industry anyways...

 

[deadheadskier]

I'm not so sure it's all about being a red state. I've read many articles about all of our favorite place, Vail, struggling to get higher density housing approved by locals. Colorado is quite blue these days.

Rich people Nimbyism is one of few politically shared ideals!

Hell I might live in the bluest town in NH and while no longer all that affordable, it's hardly rich. People lose their damn minds every time an apartment building is even proposed. Many didn't even want the mills redeveloped into housing even though they sat rotting for 20-30 years.

 

[jimmywilson69]

Good point, NIMBYism does cross political boundaries. I find it completely silly in these places that it happens (Vail, JH, MRV, etc.) when most of the people fighting this stuff are typically not "natives" to begin with.

 

[deadheadskier]

I should mention, I'm a bit of a Nimby in the opposite direction. I spend most of my free time on Winnipesaukee in the summer. I can't stand some of the monstrous homes that have been built on the lake; the largest of which is 40k square feet with a 23k square foot guest house. I wish towns around the lake had set square footage limits many years ago.

And it's not because I couldn't afford to even rent one of these homes for vacation nevermind buy one. No matter how well done some of the architecture is, they're all an eyesore to me and look totally out of place. I prefer looking at cool, old quaint cottages that blend better with the natural scenery. But they keep getting torn down and replaced with palaces

 

[jimmywilson69]

who the fuck needs nearly an acre and a half of living space...

 

[urungus]

The best PCP I ever had

I thought this was going to be the beginning of a Hunter S Thompson style story …

 

[AdironRider]

Red state full of Red people who likely don't like all of the high-priced refugees or the tourist industry anyways...

You have it the wrong way around. If Wyoming was left to their own devices you'd have at least a 4 lane highway and housing as far as the eye can see. They didn't even want Grant Teton National Park in the first place.

It is the only state where another national park can't be created. https://cowboystatedaily.com/2023/0...onal-monuments-in-wyoming-without-permission/

National Park history aside, WYDOT wanted to put 4 lanes in between Jackson and Teton Village and the county said fuck off and put in a multi-million dollar bike lane instead.

 

[deadheadskier]

I thought this was going to be the beginning of a Hunter S Thompson style story …

Haha

Despite the deserved reputation deadheads have, my personal drug experimentation is pretty tame and has not included PCP.

Miss that doctor.