Lawmakers plan to bring back bills to make Teton Pass safer, need help advocating
Need community’s help, testimony to convince the rest of the Wyoming Legislature.
JACKSON — The push for safety upgrades on Teton Pass isn’t falling on deaf ears.
The Old Wilson Schoolhouse was filled with more than 200 attendees on Monday night — including local electeds from both sides of the steep mountain highway, Wyoming Department of Transportation officials and law enforcement personnel — all present to discuss potential safety measures following a tragic accident on the pass last month.
Four of Teton County’s delegation members in the Wyoming Legislature also attended the packed Teton Pass safety meeting. After hearing concerns and some proposed solutions, lawmakers said they are prepared to take action in the 2027 legislative session.
Some plan to bring back bills that previously were shut down by their peers in the Legislature. The delegation also wants to see what ideas come out of the newly formed group of advocates.
But Teton County legislators emphasized the need for residents to testify during the state session and get their boots on the ground. The general session begins Jan. 12.
“I encouraged them, that if we get something up and going: Show up,” Rep. Andrew Byron, R-Hoback, said. “Develop relationships in Cheyenne. Don’t Zoom in.”
“Above and beyond that, if Teton County doesn’t have a positive relationship with WYDOT, we’re never going to get anywhere,” he added.
Rep. Liz Storer, D-Jackson, told the crowd that success in the Legislature requires education.
“We can’t just come in with our community and necessarily be able to influence 92 other lawmakers,” she said. “We need to work as a community and find the time to help them understand the issues and what we’re trying to achieve in the process.”
The enthusiasm was there.
During the closing remarks Monday night, Corey Milligan, one of the organizers of the Teton Pass meeting, asked attendees to get involved. He said people may need to drive to other communities and meet with lawmakers before the session began to get them on board.
“We may need to take a bus to the legislative session,” Milligan said.
Fine enforcement
Sen. Mike Gierau, D-Jackson, plans to update and sponsor a bill that he introduced for the first time nearly six years ago.
The legislation would change how overweight vehicles are fined on Teton Pass. Vehicles over 60,000 pounds are prohibited year round. Trailers, meaning anything from an 18-wheeler to a Chevy Colorado to wing a boat, are prohibited from Nov. 15 to April 1.
Rep. Mike Yin, D-Jackson, and former Reps. James Roscoe and Andy Schwartz were his co-sponsors for Senate File 102 in 2020. He withdrew the bill because he couldn’t get broad support.
In 2021, Gierau got a similar bill, Senate File 3, sponsored by the Wyoming Legislature’s Transportation, Highways and Military Affairs Committee.
At the time, Gierau told the Jackson Hole News&Guide: “I want to pass this bill now because one of these days a lot of people are going to die up there.”
When an overweight truck drives over a scale, or an unauthorized trailer is caught on the pass, an automated vehicle identification system would take a photo of the vehicle, the driver and the license plate. A ticket or summons would then be mailed to the registered owner of the vehicle to enforce the traffic laws on Teton Pass.
Right now, the scale does notify law enforcement when an overweight vehicle drives over the pass, but law enforcement must catch up to it to ticket the driver.
Gierau said surveillance concerns killed his bill in the House. He said he doesn’t doubt that those issues may arise again, especially as residents push back against the town’s contract with Flock Safety, the company behind 28 license-plate-reading cameras in Jackson.
“Now you have people on both sides that are anti-cameras,” Byron weighed in.
Byron drafted similar legislation as Gierau, but with steeper penalties in 2024. He said he couldn’t find any supporters and decided not to file it. However, he’d like to see the fines go up thousands of dollars, because if fines “really hurt,” people will be less inclined to keep driving the pass over the weight limit.
Legislators also are considering advocating for more funding to upgrade the scale technology at the base of the pass, as well as finding a way for Teton County Sheriff’s deputies to staff the state’s weigh station.
Lack of troopers
Enforcement could be increased without an automated vehicle identification system, but that would still take more money from the state.
Wyoming Highway Patrol Captain Marc Russell chatted with lawmakers after the event on Monday and brought up his own challenges in District 3. His district, encompassing Sweetwater, Uinta, Lincoln, Sublette and Teton counties, faces the greatest trooper vacancy number in the state. He’s down 16 troopers.
Out of the 44 patrolmen that are in the district, three troopers currently reside in Teton County. The rest come up from Pinedale, which he said means it’s a longer commute to respond to a crash or other incidents.
“If we have more people, we have more presence, we have shorter response times, and we have more enforcement,” he said.
Russell said there is a nationwide law enforcement shortage, but Teton County’s obstacles are already well-known: cost of living and lack of housing. While the Legislature already has given state employees such as troopers salary raises, the gap to live in Teton County in comparison to the rest of the state remains.
Staffing a port of entry on Teton Pass around the clock would require at least 15 to 16 more employees. He said there’s not enough housing to make that possible right now.
He still was encouraging of the ideas that residents were putting forward.
“But there’s other logistical things that we’ve got to overcome,” Russell said.
This story was published on August 5, 2026.
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