Dreams are just that.
Nothing more, unless there’s lots of money sloshing around in the U.S. Treasury that can make them happen.
In late 2021, the federal government had so much taxpayer money in its overstuffed wallet that it made available to every state when the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act got signed into law.
The law set aside over $1.2 trillion for everything from rebuilding bridges and roads to improving electrical grids and building wind turbines and solar projects in open spaces across the United States.
Boring tunnels through mountains for desperately needed road projects also were considered.
Three years ago, governors — like Mark Gordon in Wyoming — were asked to come up with a “wish list” of road, bridge and other projects where they could apply for billions to fund pet transportation projects.
In Wyoming, the job of coming up with some of the list fell to Luke Reiner, the now retired head of the Wyoming Department of Transportation.
It also was an opportunity to try and get money for a bucket-list item on the state’s wish list — a tunnel through the Teton Range to replace a chronically problematic Highway 22 over Teton Pass.
It Would Cost How Much?
Back in January 2013, the Wyoming Department of Transportation took a serious look at the possibility of building a tunnel through the Tetons, bypassing all the switchbacks that snake back and forth in the area where the road collapsed down the mountainside June 8.
The estimated price tag to build the tunnel in 2021 was $750 million, according to WYDOT spokesman Doug Moran. That’s up 188% from the $260 million estimated in 2013 when the idea first surfaced with a feasibility study.
Adding another 15.9% cumulative rate of inflation since 2021 and a tunnel like the one proposed by WYDOT more than a decade ago could cost nearly $870 million today.
That’s well over three times the cost of the tunnel’s price tag estimated by WYDOT analysts a decade ago.
With the pass open again with a temporary fix and WYDOT planning to rebuild the part of the mountain that gave way, some are asking if it’s not time to reconsider a tunnel.
‘Hugely Expensive'
“It’s hugely expensive,” said Luke Reiner, who retired as WYDOT director in March 2023 after a four-year stint at the helm of the state agency. “It’s all about money.”
Also, Wyoming Highway 22 is a headache.
It needs constant maintenance and repair in the winter months when snow is several feet deep, and another project getting penciled out would widen the road to the heavy daily traffic through the Teton Pass.
The highway connects Victor and Driggs in Idaho where the blue-collar workforce lives, which serves the high-brow community of Jackson, Wyoming, where the people from Idaho fill jobs in hospitals, restaurants and expensive clothing and arts and craft stores.
“Part of the reason for putting it in would be the cost of maintenance in the winter,” Reiner told Cowboy State Daily of the patching and repairs that it spends annually on fixing Wyoming Highway 22, the main route through the Teton Pass.
While the tunnel never got funded, Reiner added another perspective, possibly one of greater good for the country.
“As you look at the needs of the state and the needs of the nation, things always get whittled down. There certainly may be an option at some later time,” he said.
“There may be more important issues out there. That’s what you must keep in perspective,” Reiner said. “The reality is, I would not hold my breath for funding.”
View from a drone of the collapse of a secton of Teton Pass along Wyoming Highway 22. (Wyoming Department of Transportation) 
Work is going quickly at the S curve that failed on Teton Pass over the weekend. (WYDOT Teton County) 
A look overhead of the new bypass detour on Highway 22 over Teton Pass. There are reasons why this temporary fix can't be the permanent solution, namely the curve is too tight and it creates a 11.2% grade, well beyond the 10% maximum WYDOT shoots for. (Courtesy Wyoming Department of Transportation) 
Paving on a workaround to a catastrophic failure of a section of Highway 22 over Teton Pass began Tuesday, less than three weeks after the slide. (WYDOT Teton County) 
A Teton Pass bypass fix works for now, but engineers say it is not the long-term solution. (Courtesy Wyoming Department of Transportation)
The ‘Dream List’
The “dream list” that Reiner gave to Gordon for submission to the Biden administration back in 2021 included more than $9.4 billion in projects.
These included the $750 million Teton Pass tunnel project, $400 million in improvements to the three Wind River tunnels in the canyon south of Thermopolis, $310 million for improvements to the 80 and Interstate 25 interchange in Cheyenne, and $6.1 billion for rerouting 19 miles of I-80 onto an expanded U.S. 30 to four lanes in south central Wyoming for truckers to travel on as an alternative route during icy and rainy weather or to bypass pileups.
“There was a very nice increase in funding from the infrastructure law that resulted in significant enhanced revenue coming back to the state,” Reiner said. “But inflation has a great way of eating up those dollars. In the end, the bipartisan infrastructure law allowed us to complete projects we already scheduled without cutting them.”
The Road Collapses
While Wyoming didn’t receive billions of dollars for it’s shovel-worthy projects, the Department of Transportation’s Federal Highway Administration did hand over $6 million in emergency money to help offset the costs of repairs in the Teton Range caused by last month’s landslide.
The funds were used to build “a safe, temporary detour” near the Wyoming-Idaho border that restores critical access to popular tourist destinations such as Jackson Hole, Yellowstone National Park and Grand Teton National Park.
The collapse of Wyoming State Highway 22, also known as Teton Pass, happened June 8 when 200 feet of the road washed down an embankment, causing a complete loss of the roadway at milepost 12.8.
Another landslide happened a day earlier at milepost 15, covering the highway in mud and debris. No vehicles were on the highway at the time of the collapse and there were no injuries reported.
Crews worked around-the-clock to clean up the water, mud and debris that washed down the mountain from these disasters.
The road was reopened June 28 to traffic that WYDOT says handles about 7,200 vehicles annually, with counts climbing to 10,000 in June and July during peak tourism season.
WYDOT’s alternative to a washed-out Highway 22 over Teton Pass in Wyoming is the reason why everyone drove more than 100 miles along five highways of bumper-to-bumper traffic from Victor, Idaho, at the border with Wyoming, to Jackson.
Less than three weeks after a section of mountain dropped off and took part of Highway 22 with it, the temporary fix is just that.
Rebuilding The Mountain
Plans now are for WYDOT to rebuild the mountain and the road on its original spot.
It will be a massive undertaking, but WYDOT won’t be considering a tunnel as a long-term solution.
“It isn’t feasible,” Moran told Cowboy State Daily.
To Reiner, there were advantages to a tunnel that would have extended 1.4 miles, or 7,400 feet, from different spots under consideration near the switchbacks, completely bypassing the road area that slid down the mountainside.
The tunnel site would have extended well over a mile from just west of Wilson, Wyoming, to somewhere near the turnoff for Mail Cabin Creek Road, according to a copy of the feasibility study obtained by Cowboy State Daily.
“You wouldn’t have to plow it because it’s under a mountain. There are some good operational reasons to do it,” Reiner said. “Every time you can’t drive through the Teton Pass because of a snowstorm, you’ve got to get a plow driver up in the middle of the night.”
There also are disadvantages, he said.
“Operationally, there are some drawbacks, like whether it is well ventilated, and you must be careful of safety on either end of the tunnel, and work to mitigate that,” Reiner said. “When you look at the big picture, you have to say, ‘Is this the best project for our dollar?’”
Rising Maintenance Costs
Tunnels are expensive propositions. There may be lessons to be learned from Colorado to the south.
Bob Wilson, a spokesman for the Colorado Department of Transportation, said that it is unlikely his state would ever again build another tunnel.
“We’re not building any tunnels. It’s too cost prohibitive,” Wilson said.
Its hallmark tunnel project was the Eisenhower-Johnson Memorial Tunnel, built in two sections in the 1970s that connected the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains to the Western Slope.
Located about 60 miles west of Denver on Interstate 70, the two eastbound and westbound tunnels extend 1.7 miles through the Rockies.
It cost $262 million to build both bores between 1968 and 1979, or the equivalent of about $1.2 billion in today dollars, Wilson said.
“We’re just expanding the existing structure today,” said Wilson of the tunnel that handles nearly seven times as much traffic volume as the Teton Pass in its busy tourism season.
And maintenance in the city-like area where the tunnels are located is a constant challenge. It’s risen nearly 37% to $4.1 million in two years to pay for a fire department, plumbers and electricians.
“It’s kind of like a mini-city,” Wilson said. “The maintenance is quite significant, as you’ve got to keep the sides of the walls clean because they get filthy, especially in the winter with traffic, and plumbing for water systems and lights. It must be self-sufficient. The nearest city is 12 miles away.”
In the early 2000s, there was talk about building another tunnel through Berthoud Pass, a high mountain pass in central Colorado, in the Front Range of the Rockies.
“We decided to go over the Berthoud Pass, not through it,” Wilson said.
“It was eliminated fairly early in the study process since the cost was prohibitive and any funds for tunnels would be more focused on the Eisenhower due to its location on the interstate and much higher traffic numbers,” Wilson told Cowboy State Daily.
Pat Maio can be reached at pat@cowboystatedaily.com.
