End of Togwotee Rebuild Pushed Back to 2012

Dubois, WY – The reconstruction of the highway over Togwotee Pass will now take a year longer then originally planned and won't be complete until 2012. The Wyoming Department of Transportation still has not received a permit from the Army Corps of Engineers for the first segment of the project. So that segment will not even go out for bids until at least September. Due to the early winters on Togwotee Pass, a contractor would only be able to start on some off-highway work this fall. Jeff Corbett, a WyDOT engineer in Dubois, says this delay pushes the timeline back for the entire project. Corbett says the 38-mile reconstruction will be done five sections. To reduce the traffic impact, he says they are limiting their work to no more then two sections at a time. The upside to this news is that motorists will not have to worry about construction delays this summer on the road from Dubois to Grand Teton National Park. That should also reduce the expected impacts to local tourism, at least for this year.