What are the Real Costs of Teton Pass?

 

I was born and raised in Jackson Hole. I live a mile from Wilson up Teton Pass. Crashes on the pass are not new to me. Despite being younger than most who spoke at the meeting on August 3rd, I too have followed almost 30 years of Teton Pass incidents. I have been here for everything from winter closures to fatalities to potatoes scattered across the bike path near the old pass road. The stakes on Teton Pass have never felt higher.

 

On July 7th and August 17th, I watched as dozens of emergency vehicles went up the pass. I heard helicopters fly over. I watched as a snow plow pushed debris off of the road. I watched crumpled cars and a dump truck get towed away.

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On September 2nd, sitting at the desk I’m writing this from, I watched a truck and trailer fly past, clearly out of control, an instant before it crashed and rolled to a stop 200ft away. Within seconds, ten or more of my neighbors and I were the first people on the scene. One neighbor assisted the driver as he climbed from the truck. I ran to get a fire extinguisher to put out the flames the glowing yellow brakes had ignited in the grass. I stood by the truck making sure that nothing else caught fire as the two neighbors with the most medical experience helped the passenger who had been ejected from the truck. I stood there until the ambulances were gone. I stood there until a firefighter clipped the cables on the battery, inspected the wheels, and told me I could go and give a statement to the sheriff.

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As we discuss safety measures on Teton Pass, many people are talking about costs. The cost of a staffed port of entry. The cost of a turnaround near the Idaho border. The cost of driving around through Alpine. The cost of enforcing restrictions. At the August 3rd meeting, in response to the idea of restricting commercial traffic over Teton Pass, one speaker said “think long and hard before you take that route simply because your cost of goods to come into this valley is going to increase… we're going to save a life. But at what cost?”

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These costs are important, but I don’t hear people talking about the costs we are already paying.

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• The cost of dozens of emergency personnel and vehicles being deployed to these accidents.

• The cost of closing the pass for hours.

• The cost for those who decide to drive around.

• The cost to our friends and neighbors who put us up for the night.

• The cost of the lives lost. A value nobody wants to define.

• The cost of medical bills for our injured neighbors, like Mike Fisher and Belinda Gunn.

• The cost to the community to feed and take care of those neighbors.

• The emotional toll of continuously wondering whether you or someone you know will get seriously injured or killed driving to work or home.

• The anxiety of associating any abnormal traffic noise with the possibility that someone has been hurt or killed.

• The toll of breathing in brake fumes if you want to sit in your yard.

• The toll on our first responders who are repeatedly called to these accidents.

• The toll on those of us who were first responders, not because we chose to be but because somebody had to be. We had no warning. We had no preparation.

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We are paying in all of these ways, direct and indirect, but what are we paying for? So that we can have a displaced work force and landscaping businesses for Jackson’s wealthy? or those of the tourism industry which primarily benefits the wealthy business owners of Jackson? So that we can have a small slice of the beauty that brings so many to Jackson? Only for the sounds and smells and news of Teton Pass to mar that pristine picture?

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We cater to opulent wealth and never truly account for the costs. We are all paying, in the ways I listed and more. Rather than saying that this is how it has always been, and it has worked so far, why don’t we ask in what ways we’re willing to pay? Personally, if I could pay higher costs for goods and services as a trade for restricting large vehicles over Teton Pass, I would take that trade. I’d rather choose to pay that price than to continue paying in the ways I am being forced to now. What would you choose?

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While writing this I have seen:

• 12 dump trucks (1 towing an excavator)

• 5 semi trucks (including one tanker)

• 3 RVs

• 3 box trucks

• 8 large trailers pulled by pickups

• 3 large campers

• 2 truck bed campers

• 1 flat bed tow truck carrying a suburban

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37 vehicles that I don't believe should be allowed to drive Teton Pass.

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If you’d like to read my thoughts on the responses I've already heard, as well as other comments on the current discussions around Teton Pass Safety, you can see them here.