Pete Buttigieg, secretary of the U.S. Department of Transportation, recently traveled to Wyoming to receive operational updates on the state’s emergency response to landslides that shut down a portion of Teton Pass on June 8 as well as other key roadway projects.
[Above photo by the USDOT]
The Wyoming Department of Transportation noted that its work crews, along with Evans Construction, are nearing completion of the dirt work to construct a temporary detour around the slide area that wiped out sections of the Teton Pass roadway.
Crews will then begin preparing the area for paving operations, the agency said in a statement, with hope that a detour will be paved by the middle of next week and open to traffic soon after.
Meanwhile, USDOT’s Buttigieg joined Governor Mark Gordon (R) and Darin Westby, WYDOT director, among others for a news conference, visits to several ongoing state road projects, and a tour of WYDOT’s Transportation Management Center.
Buttigieg visited the U.S. 30 project in Cheyenne, which is supported by $15 million in funding from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act or IIJA.
That project, set to be complete before the end of 2024, is in a fast-growing part of Cheyenne where more homes are being built near a highway that has seen deadly crashes. That project will reconfigure the road and make a number of safety enhancements, including a new bike/pedestrian path that goes under U.S. 30, as well as new turn lanes and signals.
Buttigieg also took a “windshield tour” of the improvements being made to I-25/I-80 interchange, which recently received a $13 million competitive grant via IIJA-funded programs, as well as a major wildlife crossing project in Southeastern Wyoming and newly-constructed truck parking spaces along U.S. 89.
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