Chip seal promotes 'washboarding' of the roadway surface and is also responsible for inordinate numbers of broken windshields from flyrock. It should be abolished.
I am honestly quite surprise that WyDot, was able to get this temporary option of a road open so quickly. I imagined the normal Department of Transportation steps of bureaucracy it usually takes for Federal & State government to build a road in the U.S. The whole process of getting X amount of bids, voting, engineering, safety. I was sadly expecting this to take years. However, I am happy for the daily commuters who rely upon this pass daily from Idaho Falls to Victors, Driggs to Jackson Hole, and the rest of Wyoming. Alot of Wyoming folks do their Doctors appointments, shopping and important stuff in Southeastern state of Idaho. Good Job!
The Forest Service would probably be the biggest hurdle, but I am guessing most of their own Jackson leadership and employees live in Idaho so they fast tracked it because of the effect on them. The town of Jackson relies heavily on employees who live in Idaho.
The less I'm reminded Buttigieg was paid off with tax dollars by the Democrats to do nothing for years, the happier I'll be. When the nation needed leadership, he took 'paternity leave'.
He doesn't know jack about Wyoming. He doesn't know jack about transportation. He doesn't know jack about biology. I bet everyone there was a government employee or a media shill.
"a rapid response is critical" but a "rapid response to rebuild immediately" is reckless and just plain old greedy to all the people who live there, travel to work through there etc. to not make darned sure through ALL exhausted methods to make this all right and properly done to ensure that a lawsuit doesn't come to play later. Trust me when I say lots of people are watching this play out and many people are seeing the light when comes to what's what. Js. Better make sure everything is SOUNDPROOF before you reopen the section of the pass. And maybe a lowered vehicle weight limit and axles allowed per vehicle temporarily for first month or so just to let it all properly get settled in place before the big rigs etc come plowing through there. 🤷🏻
This section isn't the only spot on this side of the pass that is failing. Another spot just below the top on this same side has been moving for years too. It's not a matter of if, but when. I traveled Teton pass daily for many years. I was born and raised in Jackson. I remember the old timers saying that this road was too steep.
Why are you ignoring soil stability concerns? There is no way you have done enough testing to be 100% certain that the temporary bypass you are rushing to build is safe! Safe construction of mountain roadways needs to have the proper established planning procedures completed before it commences. Video shows you failed to see the obvious signs that the big collapse was going to happen and let highway workers be in a dangerous area. This shows poor engineering judgment. Stop rushing this bypass construction until the proper geotechnical information has been gathered about the soil stability conditions below it and let the proper planning steps be done. Doing this in the yee haw cowboy get er dun quick way you are is going to risk the public's safety!
Holy shit, it's a temporary 200 yards of new road not much different than the 1000's of miles of existing dirt, filled roads all over the state, that people drive on daily. Land of the free, home of the brave. Grow some.
@@bethanycarlisle8553 I watched all of them and they were my inspiration in saying "grow some". It's a temporary road to connect point A to point B. I travel this road often and went over the paved and re-paved and finally re-re-paved dip in the road at this spot. Honestly, now knowing what I know, that it gave way (finally) I feel more comfortable driving it when complete than I was 4 weeks ago, and did not know what I did not know, that I do know now. That 120 thousand pound steel track D9 or D10 dozer did not move the mountain, my Prius is going to be just fine. My guess is this temporary fix will morph into THE permanent fix until another 65 years goes by and it needs a face lift (again).
I just drove across 80 from SLC and the interstate in parts of the far western end of the state is so bad that I drove in the passing lane instead of the right lane because the right lane was nothing but pot holes and missing a layer of pavement anywhere from a foot to 30, 40, 50’. The ass fault is breaking loose and separating in the center line of roadway for miles. I did however change lanes if someone was coming up from behind me to pass, but then I’d get back into the passing lane.(Also do this on I25 in the Glendo area) With that being said, there’s sections east of Laramie that get new asphalt every year. Explain the reasoning behind that. Is that where the DOT dumps leftover material when it could be put on the washboard Monument road at exit 329 where new asphalt was put down this year.
It seems to me that WyDOT is rushing into the "repair" of the Teton Pass embankment failure without allowing sufficient time to perform sufficient data collection and analysis of the situation. The previous WyDOT press releases indicates that the pavement cracking at mile post 12.8 was simply patched and reopened to traffic just prior to the catastrophic failure of the embankment. Had it not been for the mudflow near mile post 15, that road would have had traffic on it at the time of failure.
That mudslide definitely saved lives because the catastrophic failure of the highway happened between midnight and 4am.(that’s what I heard, but I don’t know) In the dark, no one could have seen it before it was too late. That’s 4 hours that vehicles would be driving into the abyss. How long would it have taken to get traffic stopped after the first vehicle went airborne?
Easy for us keyboard warriors to second guess what was constructed in 1960-1961 as a fill slope. It worked for over 60 years. The fill will need to be replaced and with the advances in ego-sythetics along with drainage and compaction I am sure WYDOT will make good things happen in the future. It will be a challenge and certainly and inconvenience but in the end all will be good. My ancestors traveled the widened trail/road of 1901, the "Old Road" from 1918 to 1961, then the new road up until now. All were an improvement from the previous.
The penetration of water into all this fill material probably "caused" the slumping of huge portions of the fill. The fill looks poorly consolidated and consists primarily of finer material, like sand, which becomes easily saturated and then fails. Probably not well-engineered for Wyoming winters and rains.
