Despite times of peak traffic on the Village Road that we’ve seen this winter, metrics show Teton Village Association (TVA) traffic management programs remove what would otherwise be hundreds and hundreds of more vehicles on Highway 390. The data, metrics and traffic counts show TVA helps keep overall traffic at a flat line, basically to the year 2000 winter levels. TVA works hard to reduce traffic to and from Teton Village, encouraging winter visitors, residents and employees to visit Teton Village with fewer vehicles so we can keep the Village Road two lanes for the benefit of wildlife, our neighbors and the environment.
TVA has overseen a Transportation Demand Management (TDM) program for Teton Village for more than 15 years. Teton Village Association recently released the 2016 Teton Village TDM Report prepared by Jeff Ream, PE, PTOE of Apex Design. The full report is available here. The Teton Village TDM includes incentives for residents and visitors to leave their cars at home in the winter, such as free and frequent bus service from Stilson transit center and free parking for carpools in the Ranch parking lot; as well as a proven disincentive – paid parking during the winter ski season. TVA’s implementation of paid parking in all Village lots and the expansion of START Bus service to Teton Village in the winter have changed travel modes and driving behaviors to alternative transit and carpooling. As this chart shows, although the average daily skiers has increased since 2000, peak winter traffic volumes have stabilized.
In striving to achieve Teton County’s vision to preserve and protect the ecosystem in order to enhance our community character, Teton Village is proud of our integrated multimodal transportation system, and we look forward to discussing it with our community. We would like to engage the community even more to help increase transit use in the months and years to come.