JACKSON, Wyo. — Town Council unanimously approved $16.585 million in funding toward the Gregory Lane Complete Street Project on Monday, March 3. The safer street initiative, which has been 24 years in the making, aims to provide a wider corridor for pedestrians, cyclists and students walking to school.
The bid, which was awarded to Evans Construction of Jackson, will go toward widening Gregory Lane from High School Road to South Park Loop Road. Currently, the narrow, winding road has no sidewalks for safe pedestrian travel.
The funding will allow Evan’s Construction to plan, engineer, design and construct needed areas of safety, sidewalks, vehicle access and snow/stormwater drainage.
Town Council approved the total cost of the project to be in the amount of $18,557,000. Councilors also unanimously voted to amend budgets and redistribute SPET funding to obtain easements and help address street, stormwater and sewer infrastructure.
According to the Town of Jackson, the Water Fund budget will be increased by $987,556, the Sewer Fund budget will be increased by $1,028,782 and the 5th Cent Fund will be increased to $2,411,798 for this project. Additionally, Council directed staff to use $2,130,588 of the 2022 Transportation Alternatives and Safe Routes to School 2022 SPET for the Gregory Lane corridor project.
Mayor Arne Jorgensen said during the meeting that he was proud of the community for helping to raise to the needed funding.
“This is very significant project,” Jorgensen said. “I’m proud that our community chose to raise money with SPET instead of us having to going to Cheyenne. We are doing a good job at managing complex projects.”
Public Works Assistant Director Johnny Ziem said that the project, which the town has been working on since 2000, is complex because crews will be replacing water and sewer lines while people are commuting to work.
“This project is going to be the biggest civil project that we’ve done,” Ziem said. “We brought the community designs because they work and live on the corridor. We have worked diligently with the stakeholders and we had a lot of turnout. We are designing this together and the community gave really good input.”
Ziem has previously said that he hopes to complete the project in the summer of 2025.
