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US 212 Beartooth Highway

Started by andy3175, May 19, 2014, 12:30:35 AM

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andy3175

For a long time, I've wondered about who exactly maintains US 212/Beartooth Highway within Wyoming. Well, this article indicates that through a very old agreement, the National Park Service has responsibility for this segment even though it is not within a national park. Here's the article link and salient points:

http://www.yellowstonegate.com/2014/01/yellowstone-asks-wyoming-to-adopt-orphan-beartooth-highway/

QuoteYellowstone National Park Superintendent Dan Wenk traveled to Cheyenne on Thursday [January 16, 2014] to ask Wyoming Gov. Matt Mead and state transportation officials to participate in a unique adopt-a-highway program.

Wenk wasn't looking for volunteers to clean up roadside litter. Instead, he asked Wyoming to take ownership of an "orphan" stretch of the Beartooth Highway. The soaring, scenic byway connects the Montana towns of Cooke City and Red Lodge, but it also passes through nearly 35 miles of high country just inside Wyoming's northern boundary.

Neither Mead nor members of the Wyoming Transportation Commission–which governs the state's Department of Transportation–appear eager to take on the massive financial burden that would come with assuming ownership of the road.

QuoteThe question of who should pay to maintain the Beartooth Highway has been a political football almost since the road's completion in 1936. The issue has resurfaced after Congressional budget battles last year brought deep spending cuts under Sequestration to kick off Yellowstone's summer. The season ended with a two-week closure of all national parks under a partial federal government shutdown.

The National Park Service has assumed responsibility for most of the highway since the 1940s. But Wenk told Commission members that Yellowstone's newly reduced budget is now stretched too thin to make the Beartooth a prime concern.

QuoteThe Beartooth Highway is the only project funded and completed through the federal Park Approach Act of 1931, according to records from the Central Federal Lands Highway Division. A 1982 Interior Department legal opinion determined that, until a state or other entity assumes ownership of a segment, the Park Service has "the responsibility for the usual maintenance actions such as repaving, filling potholes, striping and even reconstruction of the road."

QuoteA 2006 report by the Federal Highway Administration states that "in the early years, Wyoming was never expected or formally asked to maintain" its portion of the road, which primarily serves Red Lodge, Cooke City and Yellowstone.

But commissioners were reminded that automobile travel and tourism patterns have changed over the decades, and the route connects with Wyoming's Chief Joseph Scenic Byway, bringing an estimated $20 million in annual tourist spending to the gateway town of Cody.

Montana began maintaining 15 miles of the eastern section of the road in 1965, but most of the highway remains unclaimed by either state, according to FHA records. That includes a nearly 10-mile Montana segment–from Yellowstone's Northeast Gate through Cooke City to the Wyoming line–that is still maintained by the Park Service.

Portions of the highway are in poor condition, and neither state has wanted to assume the long-term costs of plowing, maintenance and reconstruction.

WYDOT chief engineer Del McOmie told the Commission that fixing outstanding issues on Wyoming sections of the highway would cost "many tens of millions of dollars," and estimated annual maintenance expenses at $480,000 or more.

The Beartooth has been nominated for inclusion in the National Register of Historic Places, and McOmie said that the highway's designation as a historical route could complicate and raise the cost of future design and repair work. He also stated that Wyoming already has a $64 million shortfall in maintaining existing roads.

More on the Beartooth Highway is available at the FHWA webpage (see http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/publications/publicroads/06jul/03.cfm):

QuoteA woman planning a summer vacation once wrote a letter to CBS travel correspondent Charles Kuralt and asked, "What are America's most beautiful highways?" As documented in his 1979 book Dateline America, Kuralt answered, "The most beautiful road in America is U.S. 212" – the Beartooth Highway.

From the Beartooth's western end at the northeastern entrance of Yellowstone National Park to the highway's eastern end just outside Red Lodge, MT, the 108-kilometer (67-mile) Beartooth offers travelers an incredible high-country driving experience. The highway crosses some of the most rugged mountains in the lower 48 States, with 20 peaks more than 3,600 meters (12,000 feet) high. In June 2002, the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) designated a large portion of the highway as an All-American Road because of the corridor's historical, cultural, and scenic significance.

Built between 1931 and 1936 as a long approach road to Yellowstone, the Beartooth Highway today is an economic lifeline for the Montana resort towns of Cooke City and Red Lodge, connecting them on a two-lane, roughly crescent-shaped roadway that bends southward into Wyoming when viewed from above. About 200,000 people entered Yellowstone through the park's northeastern gate near Cooke City in 2004, most via the highway, according to the U.S. Department of the Interior's National Park Service (NPS).

QuoteSince the mid-1990s, however, the FHWA Federal Lands Highway Division (FLHD) has worked with NPS, the U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA) Forest Service, the Montana Department of Transportation (MDT), and other partners on a major initiative to resolve the highway's ownership and maintenance issues. The goal is to repair and upgrade substandard sections to meet current State highway standards so that the relevant counties or States can adopt the portions of the highway within their boundaries into their road systems, thereby ensuring long-term stewardship.
Regards,
Andy

www.aaroads.com


corco

#1
Interesting, okay. It was very clear to me that WYDOT wasn't maintaining the road, as signage was nothing like any other WYDOT road except right at the WYO 296 approach, but I always assumed it was the National Forest Service that did the maintenance.

Max Rockatansky

Just did US 212 on the Beartooth Highway in my own blog series, thought I would just revive the old thread rather than start a new one:

https://surewhynotnow.blogspot.com/2018/11/2016-summer-mountain-trip-part-14-us.html



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