Walk into Russ Garaman Park from the Flat Creek side this month and you will hit something new before you reach the picnic tables: a pair of offset metal gates that force you into a zig-zag, then a small paved roundabout a few yards past them. No stop sign. No painted arrows telling you which way to go. Just a shape in the asphalt that makes it physically awkward to keep moving in a straight line.
That shape is the whole point. The Town of Jackson just finished building its first "chicane gates," a first for the entire community pathway system, and they exist because a stretch of path most people think of as a shortcut to the grocery store or a place to walk the dog turned out to carry more daily traffic than anyone expected.
A Park, Not a Road, Got Its First Traffic Circle
The full list of what changed reads like a road project: a bicycle roundabout, rumble strips, colored pavement, and now the chicane gates themselves, installed by contractor Aardvark Excavating in the first days of September, just ahead of the Teton County School District's first day of classes. Pathways Coordinator Brian Schilling has said the timing was a coincidence, not a planned message to kids on bikes, but it lands that way regardless.
The gates require riders to make a small S-turn to get through, wide enough that nobody has to dismount, tight enough that nobody can carry speed through it. It is the kind of infrastructure you would expect at a busy street corner, not in the middle of a park where families picnic by Flat Creek.
That mismatch between what the space feels like and what it is engineered to handle is the real story here.
What the Traffic Counts Actually Show
Russ Garaman Park reads as a neighborhood pocket park: a grassy clearing next to the pathway system, popular with locals, good for a blanket and a cooler. The Town of Jackson's own numbers say something different. Between June and September 2025, this single segment of pathway logged more than 102,000 bicycle trips and 32,000 pedestrian trips. In July 2025 alone, traffic counters recorded 42,620 people moving through the corridor.
Those are not weekend-recreation numbers. That is commuter-corridor volume, the kind you would expect on a collector street, not a park path. Kids ride it home from school. Grocery runs to the west side pass through it. A tunnel at the corridor's south end feeds directly into Jackson Hole High School and the Hidden Ranch Subdivision. The park was never just a park. It has been operating as one of the valley's busiest daily-use arteries, and the infrastructure had not caught up to the load.
The other number that mattered to town officials: in a resident survey cited by staff ahead of the project, 92 percent of respondents reported a negative interaction with an e-bike on the pathway system. That is not a slim majority with a complaint. That is close to universal frustration, which is a different kind of problem than "a few people are riding too fast." It is a signal that the corridor's design, not just individual behavior, needed to change.
Pathway users on the ground noticed the mismatch too. Patty Starr, a 67-year-old regular who both walks and bikes the corridor, put it plainly:
"I hope it does keep people slowing down because there's so many kids and dogs."
Julio Gurrola, a 43-year-old mover who pedals through on his way to job sites, agreed the gates make sense for everyone sharing the space, not just the people they are aimed at slowing down.
Design Over a Ticket Book
Jackson's answer to the e-bike problem is worth sitting with, because it is not the answer most places reach for first. The town did not respond to a 92 percent complaint rate by adding enforcement or posting more speed-limit signage, though speed radar signs had already gone up along the path. It responded by rebuilding the physical geometry of the corridor so that speeding becomes difficult rather than merely against the rules.
Schilling has described the intent this way:
"We're trying to communicate to pathway users that you're in a slightly different zone."
Jim Rooks, a former town councilor and Friends of Pathways' bike safety coordinator, framed the tradeoff in terms every pathway user will recognize:
"Everybody's got to get along, and everyone's got to compromise a little bit to ensure the betterment of all."
Neither quote reads like enforcement language. Both read like design philosophy, which tracks with how the project actually got funded and approved.
How We Got Here
The full arc of the project spans about six months:
- March 2026 — The Jackson Town Council approved a construction contract for the Garaman Pathway Safety Improvements Project, funded in full through a private donation from the Garaman family's charitable foundation rather than town or county tax dollars.
- April 6-7, 2026 — The pathway closed between the Flat Creek Bridge near Josie's Ridge trailhead and the tunnel at the south end of the Hidden Ranch Subdivision, with detours routed along Powderhorn Lane, Meadowlark Lane, and the east side of US89.
- Early May 2026 — Paving finished and the corridor reopened to regular use, though a second short closure followed so contractors could stamp and color the new asphalt.
- June 2026 — The bicycle roundabout was in place and visible to path users heading through the park.
- Early September 2026 — Aardvark Excavating installed the chicane gates, completing the project just as the school year began.
Six months of intermittent closures and detours for two sets of gates, a roundabout, and some textured pavement might seem like a long timeline for a relatively small physical footprint. But the closures themselves are part of the evidence for how much this corridor matters. Schilling noted during the spring closure that detouring cyclists onto Broadway highlighted just how essential the Garaman path is to daily movement around town, not a nice-to-have but a load-bearing piece of how people actually get around.
What Changes for You on the Path
If you walk your dog through Russ Garaman Park, bike your kids to Jackson Hole High School, or use the Flat Creek corridor as your regular route between the west side and downtown, expect three things now that were not there a year ago. First, the roundabout near the three-way junction by the park, which requires a slower, more deliberate maneuver than the straight shot you may be used to. Second, the textured and colored pavement meant to be felt underfoot or under tire, a subtle cue that you have entered a slower zone. Third, the chicane gates themselves, which will require an S-turn wide enough for strollers and bikes alike but tight enough to end any temptation to carry speed through the park.
None of this changes where the path goes. It changes how it feels to move through the busiest quarter mile of it, which for a corridor carrying over 100,000 bike trips in a single season, was overdue.
For anyone weighing how a neighborhood actually functions day to day, beyond square footage and view corridors, details like this are often the ones that matter most once you live somewhere. Jackson's ongoing conversation about pathway design, e-bike safety, and shared public space is part of what shapes daily life here, and it is worth understanding before you commit to a specific corner of town. Our Jackson lifestyle guide covers more of what daily life in town actually looks like, season to season.
If you are exploring what it means to call a specific Jackson Hole neighborhood home, from the pathways you will use every day to the properties available near them, The Legacy Group is glad to talk through what we know. Work With Us.
