Comment on Moose-Wilson Road Preliminary Alternatives by September 15, 2014

Time is short – if you don’t want the Moose-Wilson Road to be closed or gated – Act Now for safe public access and a complete pathway!

Until September 15^th, the Public Comment period is open for the Grand Teton National Park Moose-Wilson Road and Pathway.

Please comment today to support public access on the Moose-Wilson Road with reduced traffic and a safe pathway.

Thanks to many public comments in the EIS Scoping (the initial planning step) the National Park Service included open public access to the Moose-Wilson corridor and a safe pathway in one of the draft alternatives – Alternative D.  At this step in the NPS planning process, we need to request that Alternative D be studied as the preferred alternative.

We need you to submit a comment for this next phase of the EIS by September 15 at the link below.

 

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1.  What strategies do you like?

We support Alternative D as a preferred, positive option because it reduces overall traffic in a way that is essential to preserving the Moose-Wilson corridor’s unique values, benefits area wildlife with fewer cars, and encourages diverse access for safely enjoying the corridor outside of the car. 

Gates and closures are bad solutions to traffic management.  Instead, inspire and enable more 10-30 percent of visitors to use bikes, feet or transit. 

Park values are best protected under Alternative D, which recognizes that wildlife and park visitors can be thoughtfully managed together, the essence of National Park visitation.  Under Alternative D, visitors experience this part of Grand Teton National Park in a way that is respectful of natural resources, informative, inspiring, and safe.

Alternative D enhances the visitor experience in an environmentally responsible way – providing public access with reduced traffic impacts to wildlife, smart public transit and greater safety for the non-vehicular public on a needed pathway.

2.  What strategies don’t work?

Gates and closures (Alternatives B and C) don’t work.  Gates and closures shift or increase the number of vehicle trips area wide.  For visitors and locals alike under Alternatives B or C to get from the Westbank to Moose and back will be a 50-mile round-trip instead of 7 direct miles that could be experienced on foot, bike, transit or vehicle.  Instead, we can help the National Park Service by innovating real solutions that a good for the environment – like multi-modal transportation and smart transit.

The negative impact of shifted or increased traffic is bad for the environment and bad for wildlife that lives outside the corridor, especially along area roads like 390, 22 and 89, which will inevitably see more traffic and potential wildlife collisions from cars re-routing from road closures to get to the Park’s entrance in Moose. The Moose-Wilson Road has no wildlife fatalities because it is wonderfully slow, narrow and rural – and should be kept that way with fewer cars, smart visitor transit and a pathway.

3.  What other suggestions do you have?

A separate Moose-Wilson pathway is a safety need, not a want, an imperative in any Alternative. It can be placed in an environmentally sensitive way to minimize impacts and close a dangerous gap, which will be even more apparent when the pathway from Jackson to Teton Village is complete by 2015.

Please add more public transit and partnerships as a way to reduce traffic congestion even more in the future.

Instead of two entrance stations on the northern end of the road, combine them into one single station

No action (Alternative A) is not the right solution because it does nothing to help wildlife by reducing traffic levels or manage traffic flow with adaptive strategies.

Decreasing the increased traffic volumes for the long term is the Park’s objective and that is possible only with Alternative D, which uses thoughtful, safer ways to get people out of vehicles and into the outdoors.

Ask for Alternative D to help make meaningful traffic reductions and adaptations so that wildlife can thrive and visitors can have access to their national park.

 

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