Rising truck traffic challenges Wyo highway planners
JEFF GEARINO Southwest Wyoming bureau | Posted: Wednesday, March 28, 2007 12:00 am
ROCK SPRINGS - Farson resident Dave Hanks makes the 72-mile round trip on the "Jonah 500" every day to his job at director of the Rock Springs Chamber of Commerce.
The Jonah 500 is the term locals use to describe the increased truck and vehicle traffic on State Highway 191 between Rock Springs and Pinedale, as thousands of workers head to and return from the bustling Jonah and Pinedale Anticline natural gas fields each day.
"I drive that road twice a day," Hanks said. "There's a lot of wagon trains heading up that road these days. And it doesn't take much of a wreck to shut that road down."
Wyoming Business Council southwest representative Ray Sarcletti, on the other hand, routinely drives the 15-mile stretch of Interstate 80 between Rock Springs and Green River, the only road between the two Sweetwater County cities.
He has watched truck traffic double in the past decade and witnessed major accidents lock up the highway between the two cities more than once.
"If you have commitments and are trying to get (from one city to the other) … you're just out of luck," he said.
The viewpoints about the two roadways in southwest Wyoming highlight the task facing a legislative interim committee working on a new study of Wyoming's deteriorating highway system, particularly I-80 across southern Wyoming. The panel's task is to determine the long-term needs of Wyoming's highways and how the state should go about addressing them.
A crowd of about 30 government officials, area lawmakers and a smattering of local residents met here Tuesday afternoon with members of the Senate's Transportation and Highway Interim Committee. The meeting kicked off the committee's two-year study.
Committee Chairman John Barrasso, R-Casper, said the group is seeking ideas about improving Wyoming's highways, including the possibility of widening I-80, about needed repairs, ideas about funding sources and the implementation of new technology to improve traffic flows.
"We, as a state, drive more miles than most other states … Our goal is to make sure we have safe roads for Wyoming families," Barrasso said.
Growing traffic
I-80 stretches about 402 miles across Wyoming's southern tier. The interstate traverses Evanston, Rock Springs, Rawlins, Laramie and Cheyenne in Wyoming and represents the only direct highway route through the upper Midwest.
Although it has a maximum elevation in Wyoming of 8,640 feet, the route lacks any serious mountain passes through the region, making it popular with truckers. Traffic counts along I-80 have exploded in recent years, and state officials expect numbers to continue to skyrocket.
The highest traffic increases are expected between Rock Springs and Green River in Sweetwater County, according to state projections.
A recent Wyoming Department of Transportation study showed the average daily traffic count between Rock Springs and Green River now tops 16,000 vehicle per day. WYDOT officials said one counter in Rock Springs recorded more than 25,000 vehicles during a couple of days in August 2006.
That figure is expected to nearly double to 31,500 by 2020, according to highway projections.
The number of big rigs on Wyoming's highways - such trucks now comprise about half of the I-80 traffic - is also expected to increase by 60 percent or more over the next few decades to more than 12,000 semis a day. That's about 300 trucks per hour, or one truck every 12 seconds.
WYDOT Rock Springs District Engineer John Eddins attributed the increased truck traffic, in part, to the new "just-in-time" delivery system used by big retailers such as Wal-Mart.
"The goods are not warehoused at locations anymore … (Retailers) expect trucks to show up every one or two days," Eddins said. "Now it's just a big, moving stock of warehouses rolling down the road."
And those big rigs are taking a huge toll on the maintenance of I-80 and other feeder roads such as Highway 191.
A single, loaded semitrailer weighing between 80,000 and 117,000 pounds does 5,000 times the damage to I-80 than a single, fully loaded passenger vehicle, he said.
New roadways these days, he said, require thicker pavements made from rubber and polymer blends that are more resistant to ruts. But that usually doubles the cost of paving asphalt highways, which in turn cost less than concrete-constructed highways.
Local needs
Sweetwater County Commission Chairman Wally Johnson noted that as important as I-80 is to the state, the county roads that serve the Jonah and Pinedale Anticline gas fields in southwest Wyoming are just as important and just as worthy of funding for highway upgrades and maintenance.
"Sweetwater County roads are extremely important from a national (energy) standpoint and in the national picture … It's also important to keeping that revenue stream going that we send to Cheyenne," Johnson said. "Those roads are as important to the state as is I-80."
Barrasso noted that last year, the Legislature appropriated $175 million from the state's budget surplus for various highway repairs and upgrades during 2006-07. "But the funding is really just not there for highways … the state needs to do more," he said.
Eddins said about $16 million of those funds will be used to install 16 new passing lanes along the "Jonah 500" to improve highway safety. He said the current, two-lane roadway averages about 3,000 vehicles per day, most of them trucks, according to WYDOT counts.
Plans call for the eight new northbound passing lanes on Highway 191 and the eight southbound passing lanes to be situated every five or six minutes along the route to allow motorists to "get around that steady stream of trucks," Eddins said.
The Highway 191 project will begin this summer and is expected to take a year to complete.
Southwest Wyoming bureau reporter Jeff Gearino can be reached at 307-875-5359 or at gearino@tribcsp.com.