Letters

from Interchange – April 2021

Game & Fish

Briefs continued from page 5

Weekly outdoor public meetings continue at 9 a.m. every Tuesday at the northwest corner of 17th and Central Avenue. Businesses and citizens are invited to all weekly meetings.

The Sheridan Avenue project (#CodyImprovements) includes removing and replacing existing damaged concrete slabs, resealing existing concrete joints, grinding and texturing existing roadway, upgrading Americans with Disabilities requirements at every street corner between 10th Street and Stampede Avenue, replacing broken curb and gutter and sidewalk, and upgrading wiring at traffic signals.

The project begins at US 14/16/20 milepost 51.78 at the intersection of 10th Street and Sheridan Avenue in front of the Park County Courthouse, and it proceeds 1.20 miles on US 14/16/20 to the 17th Street/Stampede Avenue intersection on Greybull Hill.

Phase 3 of the project, by contract, proceeds from 14th Street up Greybull Hill to the end of the project and must be completed through concrete grinding and texturing prior to June 15. By contract, the project will be shut down from June 16 through Aug. 23.

Phase 4 of the project, by contract, requires all remaining work to be com-

Lander Main Street concrete repair, pavement overlay work

LANDER – Work began March 22 at the Main Street/Buena Vista intersection on the $6.89 million Lander concrete rehabilitation project and US 287 pavement overlay.

The $6.89 million US 287 (Lander Main Street Americans with Disabilities Act improvements and concrete rehabilitation, and US 287 pavement overlay) project is 16.2 miles in length, between the Main Street/Buena Vista intersection in Lander and Ft. Washakie. The project includes concrete grinding, concrete joint sealing, asphalt paving, chip sealing, and curb, gutter and ADA ramp repairs.

The contractor’s preliminary work schedule shows work mostly complete by the middle of July.

Weekly public work progress meetings are scheduled to begin at 9 a.m. Thursday, March 25, at the southwest corner of the Main Street/2nd Street intersection in downtown Lander. Citizens and businesses are invited to attend the weekly work progress meetings.

“By contract, project work is required to be phased so that 2-way traffic is maintained on half of the roadway at all times,” Smith said. “There will be some intersection disruptions and lane closures during this quick-moving project. A large percentage of the project includes pavement work (milling and a pavement overlay) between mileposts 10 (near US 287’s intersection with WYO 132) and 24.17 (Ft. Washakie).”

US 14/16/20 single-lane closure at Cody tunnels

CODY – A single-lane traffic closure occurred March 10 at the tunnels west of Cody on US 14/16/20.

“Lighting and structural inspections took place between 8:30 a.m. and 4:30 p.m.,” said Wyoming Department of Transportation district traffic engineer Jack Hoffman of Basin.

Traffic control during the single-lane closure was handled by Cody’s WYDOT maintenance crew.

Drivers encountered a 20 mph speed limit through the tunnels during the lighting and structural inspections, and traffic was led through the tunnels by a pilot vehicle. n

Clear communication at Motor Vehicle Services

Hi Shannon,

I just want to drop you a line to let you know how much I appreciated all of your help.

It was customer service at its finest!

I truly appreciated the fact that you took it upon yourself to investigate and call the Albany County Treasurer’s office and in working with Sunny, corrected the situation, handled the call to E-470 and clearly communicated to Sunny that nothing further was needed from me.

Sunny was also very helpful and she phoned me rather than me having to call their office again. I can’t tell you how much the clear communication and the “no runaround” approach meant to me. As I stated before, this is what the model of customer service should be!

Thank you so much for your assistance. Warm Regards, Kathleen Eberhart

Kudos to the road crews

Huge thanks to all the road crews and supporting staff that brave any element and keep the roads moving.

Nothing flows, especially EMS, without the folks in the plow rigs and the supporting crews in dispatch, mechanics, logistics, etc. Dan via email

Drove home yesterday (March 16) right after the roads opened. Drove on I-25. Thank you for all your hard work. With the amounts of snow piled up on the side of the road, I could tell that was extremely difficult to clear.

Thank you for your hard work. Driving home was a piece of cake. Rose Fry

Winter storm continued from front cover the finest employees in the country.”

As the storm moved through Wyoming, parts of the state reported 30-plus inches of heavy, wet snow. Windy conditions, coupled with lower temperatures, made for a harder snowpack and challenging plowing conditions.

Crews began work as soon as the snow started to fly by clearing the roads and putting anti-skid materials down to improve traction.

Soon, however, the storm would gain traction and create conditions which caused interstates 25, 80, 90 and other secondary roads to close. Interstates 25 and 80 closed at various times from March 10 through 17 while I-90 closed in parts on March 16.

Additionally, there was a report of at least one vehicle that attempted to travel during the wintry conditions, which caused the interstate to close west of Cheyenne.

In southeast Wyoming, a motor grader broke, which could have caused further delays reopening of I-80 if it weren’t for the help of the Nebraska DOT. Tim Morton, District 1 District Maintenance engineer, said he was contacted by his counterpart

in Nebraska, John Lutz, about the situation in Wyoming.

“We were having some equipment issues and were down a motor grader so Nebraska offered to help us out,” Morton said. “We told Nebraska we would definitely want their help so they organized it on their end with Brian Erickson, our Pine Bluffs crew leader. They supplemented our Pine Bluffs crew.”

Erickson and his crew worked with the Nebraska crew on a plan to remove the snow along Interstate 80 near Pine Bluffs. Crews from Nebraska brought a rotary plow and a couple of motor graders and worked with WYDOT crews to remove snow.

“When we were doing snow removal, we would lead with the motor grader and then follow with our plows,” Erickson said. “The snow was just so heavy and deep that it was too hard to push with a regular truck, which is why we were using the motor grader.”

Nebraska crews started in the westbound lanes in the evening on Monday, March 15. After switching out crews, they then worked to clear the eastbound lanes.

“If they wouldn’t have come out and helped us, the interstate probably would have been closed longer because of our motor grader being down,” Erickson said.

Tom DeHoff, assistant chief engineer - Operations, said the work WYDOT crews did with Nebraska’s assistance showed how surrounding states can help each other out.

“With the help of Nebraska in the southeast part of the state, we were able to get our roads open as quickly as possible,” DeHoff said. “We appreciate their assistance and are thankful to our neighbors to the east. Our crews also did a phenomenal job. They were out there day and night clearing the snow during this event. Our maintainers are second to none and they are the reason why our roads remain as open as possible and in such good condition during the winter.”

Employees in WYDOT’s Maintenance, Wyoming Highway Patrol, Patrol Dispatch, the Transportation Management Center and all throughout the organization either worked the front lines or worked behind the scenes to ensure the department continued to function at optimum levels.

Many employees worked longer shifts to ensure WYDOT’s mission of providing a safe and effective transportation system never failed.

With roads choked with heavy, wet snow, some of the maintenance crews couldn’t get in for their shifts. In those cases, the maintainers who were already plowing would take rest breaks and then get back out on the road to continue plowing operations.

Erickson said he rented hotel rooms in Pine Bluffs to ensure his crew had a place to sleep. Many on his crew have to drive into Pine Bluffs and the hotel rooms ensured they had a place to sleep and rest instead of trying to drive back home in poor conditions.

“We were putting in long hours during the storm and I wanted to make sure my crew had a place to get some rest,” Erickson said.

Similar stories have been told throughout the area as well with crews getting some well-needed rest in between working the roads.

Besides thanking Nebraska, Morton said he wanted to rec-

Snow is piled high on each side of I-80 as plow trucks clear the driving lanes.

Photo: Rick Carpenter WHP out and about during the storm.

Winter storm continued on page 8

Front loaders clearing I-80 at the summit. Winter storm continued from page 7 ognize Laramie County for its assistance during this and other storms. Whenever Laramie County maintenance starts plowing operations on county roads, they use their v-plows as soon as they head out of their building, which could mean cutting the first path on I-80 or other state roads they use to get to the county roads.

“Laramie County did us a favor as well by cutting that first path,” Morton said. “We’re grateful for the work all of our crews and employees did as well as the assistance we received from outside of WYDOT.”

WYDOT’s 511 website also was used heavily during the winter storm. Between March 13 through the 17, there were 68 million hits to the text pages of wyoroad.info. There were also 32 million hits to the map for a total of 100 million hits to the wyoroad.info website.

At one point, the website was getting about 1,700 hits per second.

“Our wyoroad.info website is a vital tool for the traveling public to get almost real-time information about road conditions, closures and other road information,” said Vince Garcia, manager of WYDOT’s Geographic Information Systems/Intelligent Transportation Systems program. “We are pleased that the website is there for the public and we can provide that information as a resource for travelers to make informed decisions about whether or not they should travel in certain conditions.”

The following are the names of the Nebraska DOT employees who helped during the storm. They are: • Doug Sick – Sidney • Kyle Cochran – Sidney • Thomas Schmidt – Sidney • Kirk Gawith – Kimball • Joey Muhr – Gering • Steve Anest, Sydney • Lynn Hayden, Kimball • Taylor Kokes, Sydney • Ben Birdsley, Sydney n