After hearing complaints  from Park County commissioners and others, the Wyoming Department of Transportation dropped the speed limit on Wyo. Highway 120, just south of Cody.

In September, WYDOT installed new 60 mph speed limit signs at both ends of a 2-mile stretch of Wyo. 120. In a news release announcing the change, WYDOT said the switch was supported by two years of traffic data.

For northbound travelers, the speed limit now drops from 70 to 60 mph at the road closure gate, which is located near various businesses, residences, the Wyoming Game and Fish Department office and Park County Road and Bridge shop. The 60 mph zone continues until Wyo. 120 reaches its junction with U.S. Highway 14/16/20 in Cody.

At a July meeting with WYDOT officials, county commissioners had pushed the department to lower the speed limit on that stretch, noting the development in the area. WYDOT representatives indicated they would like to drop the speed to 55 or 60 mph, but said they needed to be able to justify the change with data.

That prompted Commission Chairman Jake Fulkerson to facetiously summarize that, if the public, WYDOT and commissioners want the speed limit reduced, “you can’t do it, is that it?”

“You can’t set a speed limit based on opinion or public comment. Otherwise it’s not enforceable; it’s arbitrary,” responded District Engineer Pete Hallsten.

Additionally, Wyoming law requires an engineering study before changing a speed limit.

However, Commissioner Lee Livingston later urged the department to “err on the lowest, slowest speed possible” on that part of the highway.

“We’ll do what the data supports,” said District Traffic Engineer Jack Hoffman.

“I mean, I understand that, I understand studies, but it’s just common sense,” Livingston responded. “That thing doesn’t work.”

Both he and Fulkerson said they’d heard complaints from residents along the route about the speed.

“If you live there, you understand what to do and how to dodge it,” Livingston said, but he suggested it’s different when dealing with tourists driving 40-foot-long motorhomes at 70 mph.

WYDOT speed-setting process “doesn’t allow for a lot of discretion,” Hallsten reiterated. But he also offered some hope: “what discretion we have,” he told Livingston, “we are exercising in the way that you would like.”

Ultimately, after looking at the data from multiple studies WYDOT announced the lower speed limit in September. In a release, Hoffman said the department relied on speed studies performed at three different locations in July 2018 and again in March.

That section of highway is set to undergo construction next summer as part of an estimated $7.1 million project to rehabilitate roughly 7.2 miles of pavement along the highway. However, WYDOT officials say that, even after the route gets some new pavement, the speed limit just south of Cody will remain at 60 mph.

Still no plans to relieve Powell-Cody ‘bottleneck’

While one burr under the saddle of commissioners has been resolved, there continues to be no relief in sight for the so-called “bottleneck” on the Powell-Cody highway.

Around its intersection with Road 2AB and across the Corbett Bridge over the Shoshone River, U.S. Highway 14-A drops from five to three lanes. The narrowing of the road can lead to some congestion while featuring traffic turning on and off Road 2AB and limited sight distance for eastbound travelers.

As her colleagues have done in years past, Commissioner Dossie Overfield asked about WYDOT’s plans for the spot during a July 16 State Transportation Improvement Program.

“I realize there’s not many wrecks,” Overfield said. “But it’s not because we haven’t slid the tires.”

WYDOT District Construction Engineer Randy Merritt said the department sees the issue, “but right now, really for the resources we have, we can’t justify, economically, widening that road out.”

Merritt said there are other roads where people are crashing — and he noted that the department is in “preservation mode.”

If more funding becomes available for WYDOT to expand its infrastructure, widening the bridge would “definitely” be a project the department would look at, he said.

Such a project would be pricey: A department estimate prepared years ago suggested that converting the bridge and surrounding 2-mile stretch to five lanes would cost roughly $12 million.

The Corbett Bridge was built when it was thought that the Powell-Cody highway would be three lanes, but plans later changed to a five-lane layout.

“Unfortunately, that [bridge] was the first job, or it probably wouldn’t be that way,” said WYDOT Resident Engineer Todd Frost of Cody.