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?
