24-3-127. Cooperative agreements with federal agencies to construct, maintain and use roads within county.
The board of county commissioners of any county of this state may, in its discretion, enter into cooperative agreements with the forest service of the U.S. department of agriculture or other federal agency to provide for the joint construction, maintenance and use of roads located within the boundaries of the county, where such roads are used by the forest service or other federal agency in the protection, administration and utilization of the national forests and national recreation areas or other federal lands and are also used by communities or persons within or adjacent to such national forests or other federal lands in the use and development of the resources thereof or where such roads otherwise serve the needs of the public.
The legislature finds that due to inaccurate and inconsistent records, there exist roads which are seldom used, not maintained and are not identified as or believed by the public to be county roads but are, in fact, county roads. Recognizing the numerous difficulties resulting from the existence of such county roads, the legislature finds it in the best interest of the public to create a procedure to identify county roads, thereby altering and vacating these abandoned or unnecessary county roads without survey.
specified procedure; resolution; terms; limited to not more than 1 per area.
(a) Notwithstanding W.S. 24-1-102 and 24-3-101 through 24-3-127, when it finds the public interest so requires, the board may initiate the identification procedure under this act for county roads in the county by adopting a resolution to which maps shall be incorporated by reference which shall indicate a general description of all county roads in the area described in the map which shall be unaffected by identification under the resolution. No county road shall be listed as unaffected by a resolution under this act unless it was established under other law. No map incorporated into the resolution shall describe an area of less than six hundred forty (640) acres.
(b) The board shall not adopt more than one (1) resolution identifying county roads under this act in any area of the county.
(c) No road shall be vacated or altered under this act if it is currently identified and maintained as a county road. The identification procedure under this act shall not be used to establish a county road which was not previously established under other law.
24-3-204. Notice of identification to be published.
(a) Prior to adoption of a resolution identifying county roads in any area in the county, notice of the proposed identification shall be posted on the county's official website in the manner provided in W.S. 18-3-516(f) and published for two (2) successive weeks in the designated official newspaper of the county in substantially the following form: NOTICE OF IDENTIFICATION OF COUNTY ROADS UNDER W.S. 24-3-201 THROUGH 24-3-206 TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN: The Board of County Commissioners intends to identify county roads in the following areas of .... (name of county) county under the identification procedure contained in W.S. 24-3-201 through 24-3-206: (general description of areas described in the map, i.e. USGS Quad map, section, township, range, etc.) The only county roads in the township which shall exist after this identification procedure are described as follows: (Road name, road number or petition number) All other county roads within the area identified in the map which are not described above shall be accordingly vacated upon adoption of the resolution for identification. All objections to or claims for damage by reason of this identification procedure shall be filed in writing with the county clerk of this county before 12:00 noon on the .... day of .... (not less than thirty (30) days after publication of the second notice) or the county roads will be vacated as indicated without reference to the objections or claims.
(b) The notice shall include a map of each area affected indicating the approximate location of county roads which shall exist after the proposed identification action.
24-3-205. Objections and claims for damages; when filed; when barred; procedure for considering.
(a) If the board initiates identification of county roads under this act, the board shall establish a date not less than thirty (30) days after the second notice is published, by which all objections to and claims for damages by reason of the identification shall be filed with the county clerk.
(b) Objections to or claims for damages by reason of identification under this act filed after 12:00 noon on the date established in subsection (a) of this section shall not be considered by the board and are deemed waived.
(c) If claims for damage are filed under this section, the claims shall be considered in the same manner as provided under W.S. 24-3-114 through 24-3-121.
If the board identifies roads under this act, the roads designated as county roads in the identification action shall be the only county roads within the area identified and all other county roads within the area identified are accordingly altered or vacated. The board shall direct the county clerk to and the county clerk shall record the identification as an entry in the abstract of lands books as if it were a conveyance of rights from the county to the lands affected. Roads identified as county roads under this act, shall not be county roads unless the county has a valid title or recorded easement to the right-of-way.
24-5-101. Program in addition to any existing road program.
The road construction program contemplated by this act shall be known as "The Industrial Road Program", which shall be in addition to and not as a substitute for any federal aid, primary, secondary or state-county road construction program or any other road program now in existence.
24-5-102. Board of county commissioners to incite procedure for industrial road.
A board of the county commissioners of any county may on its motion by resolution duly adopted where it deems the public interest so requires and a road-building emergency prevails incite the procedure for the establishment of an industrial road. The course and the point of termination of the road shall be determined by the board of the county commissioners. Before a board of the county commissioners of a county or counties can initiate the road program herein, it must have the cash money available for the project as described. Upon the adoption of such resolution by the board of the county commissioners of one (1) or more counties, it shall immediately notify the transportation commission of Wyoming of its intentions to establish a proposed industrial road.
24-5-103. Three viewers to examine industrial road proposal; appointment of viewers.
Three (3) viewers shall be appointed to examine into the expediency of the proposed industrial road and to make their report immediately. One (1) viewer shall be appointed by the board of the county commissioners at a regular or special meeting or the chairman of the board, if in his judgment an emergency exists, shall appoint a suitable and disinterested elector of the county, who may be a member of the board of the county commissioners; one (1) viewer shall be appointed by the member of the transportation commission in whose district the proposed industrial road is located, and the other viewer shall be appointed by the two (2) previously appointed viewers, which viewer shall not be a resident of the county in which the proposed industrial site is located.
The persons so appointed shall be designated as viewers and they shall be sworn by some person or officer authorized by law to administer oaths before entering upon their duties, and they shall file their oaths in the office of the county clerk. They shall not be confined to the precise matter of the petition but may inquire or determine whether an industrial road in the vicinity is required.
In forming their judgment the viewers shall take into consideration both the public and private convenience, and also the expense of the proposed road.
24-5-106. Viewers to report to county commissioners.
The said viewers shall report in writing to the board of the county commissioners, whether or not, in their judgment, said proposed road is practicable, and ought to be established, and state the probable expense of the same including damages to the property owners along the line thereof, and such other matters as shall enable the board to act understandingly in the premises.
24-5-108. Department of transportation to survey, plat and record proposed road.
If upon considering and acting upon the report of the viewers the board of the county commissioners shall decide to lay out a road, they shall contact the department of transportation which shall provide an accurate survey and plat and record the same in the book provided in the county for that purpose; a copy of the plat and notes of the survey shall without unnecessary delay be filed in the office of the county clerk.
24-5-109. Notice of proposed location of road; form of notice; publication; posting; registered mail.
(a) Notice shall be published of the proposed location of such road by posting on the county's official website in the manner provided in W.S. 18-3-516(f) and by publishing once weekly for two (2) successive weeks in the designated official newspaper of the county, which notice shall be in the following form: TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN: The Board of the County Commissioners have decided to locate a road commencing at .... in .... County, Wyoming, running thence (here describe in general terms the points and courses thereof), and terminating at ..... All objections thereto or claims for damages by reason thereof must be filed in writing with the County Clerk of said county, before noon on the .... day of ...., (year), or such road will be established without reference to such objections or claims for damages. Dated .... County Clerk.............
(b) At the time the initial notices are published, the board of the county commissioners shall cause a copy of the above notice to be mailed by registered mail to all persons owning lands or any persons interested in lands over and across which said road is proposed to be located. The publication and posting of said notice shall be a legal and sufficient notice to all persons owning lands or claiming any interest in lands over which proposed road is to be located.
24-5-110. Fixing date for filing objections or claims for damages.
The board of the county commissioners shall appoint a day not less than twenty (20) days after such publication or posted notice on or before which day all objections to the establishment of the industrial road and claim for damages by reason thereof shall be filed with the county clerk.
24-5-111. Failure to file objections or claims for damages deemed waiver.
No objections or claims for damages shall be filed or made after the noon of the day fixed for filing the same. If no objections or claim for damages are filed, all such claims shall be deemed to have been waived and are barred.
24-5-112. Hearing continued until matter disposed of when objections filed.
If objections to the establishment of the industrial road or if any claim for damages is filed, a further hearing may be continued by the board until the matter can be disposed of.
24-5-113. Board to appoint appraisers to fix amount of damages; report.
When claims for damages are filed at the next regular meeting or special meeting of the board of the county commissioners, the board shall appoint three (3) disinterested electors of the county as appraisers to view the ground on a day as fixed by the board and they shall report their findings in the matter and file the report in writing with the county clerk within ten (10) days thereafter, fixing the amount of damages sustained by the claimants.
24-5-114. Notification to appraisers of appointment; contents.
The county clerk shall cause each of said appraisers to be notified of his appointment stating in said notice first, the names of all appraisers; second, the names of all claims for damage on account of the location of the industrial road with the amount of damages asked by each claimant; third, stating when the report must be filed. The county clerk shall prepare suitable blanks for such notice, for the oath of appraisers, and for the report, a proper number of which shall be forwarded by him to them.
24-5-115. Duties of appraisers; report to county commissioners; compensation.
The said appraisers shall within seven (7) days after receiving notice of their appointment meet at some convenient place on the line of the proposed industrial road, take and administer to each other an oath or affirmation to faithfully and impartially discharge their duties. They shall view the ground so far as they shall deem it necessary and fix the damages sustained by each claimant, after allowing for all benefits that may accrue to each claimant. By reason of the location of the industrial road they, or a majority of the appraisers shall make a report in writing to the board of the county commissioners within seven (7) days relating that they were sworn and affirmed as aforesaid and fixing the damages sustained by each claimant, if any, after allowing and deducting for benefits and where they have disallowed claims for damages they shall so state in their report. The said appraisers shall receive for their compensation such reasonable sum as the board of the county commissioners shall allow.
24-5-116. Road established; awards paid; certificate of legal description of property to be filed.
At the next meeting of the board of the county commissioners after receipt of the report of the appraisers, or as soon thereafter, as may be practicable, the board may hear testimony and consider petitions for and remonstrances against the establishment of such industrial road. In case there shall be no claim for damages filed, they shall act as speedily as possible in the matter. The board may increase or diminish the damages allowed by the appraisers. The amount of damages awarded, if any, shall immediately be paid to the person or persons entitled thereto or deposited with the county clerk for delivery, which payment shall be without prejudice to the right of such person or persons to appeal to the district court as provided by law. When the road has been established and the award paid by the board of the county commissioners to the person or persons entitled thereto or deposited with the county clerk, the highway authorities and the contractors and employees may take possession and exercise full control of the lands within the right-of-way of the road so established. A certificate, authorized by the board of the county commissioners and signed by its chairman, setting forth the legal description of the property taken shall be recorded in the office of the county clerk and indexed in like manner and with like effect as if it were a conveyance of the easement or right-of-way from said owners to the county.
24-5-117. Construction under supervision of director of
department of transportation; division of construction costs. The transportation commission shall cooperate with the respective counties of the state in the construction of the industrial road program. All work under the industrial road program shall be performed under the immediate control and supervision of the director of the department of transportation or his authorized representative and in accordance with plans and specifications prepared by the director or the chief engineer, which work in the county is known as its industrial road program and shall be promptly commenced upon request of its board of the county commissioners, which request shall contain the pledge of the county for contribution as specified. The term "construction" as used in this section shall include construction, reconstruction, surveys, mapping, right-of-way costs, bridges, culverts and fencing, in all of which whenever and to the extent possible the department of transportation shall use existing grades, bridges and other physical items or facilities in order to minimize or avoid more costly construction. Fifty percent (50%) of all expense shall be paid by the department of transportation, and the other fifty percent (50%) of the construction costs shall be paid by the board of the county commissioners of the county or counties concerned.
The transportation commission shall set aside and appropriate out of funds in their possession or under their control, not otherwise appropriated, the sum of four million dollars ($4,000,000.00) at the beginning of each biennium to be placed in an account known as the industrial road program account within the highway fund. All funds not used during each biennium shall lapse and be returned to the general account of the highway fund.
24-5-119. Counties to match state funds; maximum amount of
county expenditures; exception; acquisition of right-of-way. Any county participating in the industrial road program shall match money equally with money set aside pursuant to W.S. 24-5-118. These funds may be derived from any funds in the respective county budget now available or any monies which may subsequently be budgeted for this program, provided, however, no county shall expend on this program in excess of two million dollars ($2,000,000.00) each and every biennium. This act shall not apply to any project having a total cost of less than fifty thousand dollars ($50,000.00) total. The board of the county commissioners of each county shall acquire the right-of-way for any industrial road, the expense of which shall be charged against the industrial road program.
(a) In the event there are more county applications than the transportation commission has money available, the transportation commission shall determine which road project shall have priority based on these qualifications:
(i) Priority of notice from the board of the county commissioners;
(ii) County money actually available for the project and deposited with the transportation commission;
(iii) Traffic count;
(iv) Number of people project will service as evidenced by information furnished by the county or counties interested in the project;
(v) Tax value of the area served by the industrial road as shown on the assessment rolls of the county or counties involved in the project from information furnished by the county assessor of said county or counties.
The legislature hereby finds, determines, and declares that this act is necessary for the immediate preservation of the public peace, health, and safety, and for the promotion of the general welfare.
For the purpose of this act, an access facility is defined as a highway or street especially designed for through traffic, and over, from or to which owners or occupants of abutting land or other persons have no right or easement or only a limited right or easement of access, light, air, or view by reason of the fact that their property abuts upon such controlled access facility or for any other reason. Such highways or streets may be parkways, from which trucks, buses and other commercial vehicles may be excluded; or they may be freeways open to use by all customary forms of street and highway traffic.
24-6-103. Highway authorities to plan access facilities; scope and limitations of authority.
The highway authorities of the state, counties, cities, towns, and villages, acting alone or in cooperation with each other or with any federal, state, or local agency of any other state having authority to participate in the construction and maintenance of highways, are hereby authorized to plan, designate, establish, regulate, vacate, alter, improve, maintain, and provide access facilities for public use wherever such authority or authorities are of the opinion that traffic conditions, present or future, will justify such special facilities; provided, that within cities, towns and villages such authority shall be subject to such municipal consent as may be provided by law. Said highway authorities of the state, counties, cities, villages, and towns, in addition to the specific powers granted in this act, shall also have and may exercise, relative to access facilities, any and all additional authority now or hereafter vested in them relative to highways or streets within their respective jurisdictions. Said units may regulate, restrict, or prohibit the use of such access facilities by the various classes of vehicles or traffic in a manner consistent with W.S. 24-6-102.
24-6-104. Powers of highway authorities generally.
The highway authority of the state, county, city, town, or village may designate and establish access highways as new and additional facilities or may designate and establish an existing street or highway as included within an access facility. The state or any of its subdivisions shall have authority to provide for the elimination of intersections at grade of access facilities with existing state and county roads, and city and town or village streets, by grade separation or service road, or by closing off such roads and streets at the right-of-way boundary line of such access facility; and after the establishment of any access facility, no highway or street which is not part of said facility shall intersect the same at grade. No city, town, or village street, county or state highway or other public way shall be opened into or connected with any such access facility without the consent and previous approval of the highway authority in the state, county, city, town, or village having jurisdiction over such limited access facility. Such consent and approval shall be given only if the public interest shall be served thereby.
24-6-105. Design and regulation of access to highway.
The highway authorities of the state, county, city and town are authorized to design any access facility and to regulate, restrict or prohibit access as in their opinion may best serve the traffic for which the facility is intended. When an access facility is established under the authority of this act and if rights of ingress or egress are granted and designated by the highway authorities at specified points along the access facility as provided, the means of ingress or egress to and from the access facility shall be limited to the use designated by the transportation commission. In the event the commission grants a private and not a commercial entrance or access to the highway, the entrance or point of access shall not be used for or in connection with the conduct of any roadside business or other commercial enterprise. The highway authorities are authorized to divide and separate any access facility into separate roadways by the construction of raised curbings, central dividing sections, or other physical separations, or by designating separate roadways by signs, markers, stripes, and the proper lane for such traffic by appropriate signs, markers, stripes and other devices. No person shall have any right of ingress or egress to, from, or across access facilities to or from abutting lands, except at such designated points at which access may be permitted, for the use for which access may be permitted, and upon such terms and conditions as may be specified by proper authority from time to time, or as specifically provided for.
24-6-106. Acquisition of public or private property.
For the purposes of this act, the highway authorities of the state, county, city, town, or village may acquire private or public property and property rights for access facilities and service roads, including rights of access, air, view, and light, by gift, devise, purchase or condemnation in the same manner as such units are now or hereafter may be authorized by law to acquire such property or property rights in connection with highways and streets within their respective jurisdictions. All property rights acquired under the provisions of this act shall be in fee simple where conditions permit, otherwise by appropriate easement.
24-6-107. Agreements respecting financing and planning.
The highway authorities of the state, city, county, town, or village are authorized to enter into agreements with each other, or with the federal government, respecting the financing, planning, establishment, improvement, maintenance, use, regulation, or vacation of access facilities or other public ways in their respective jurisdictions, to facilitate the purposes of this act.
No access facility shall be constructed without providing for the property rights of residents whose homes or places of business are now located on or abut the said proposed access facility. In all such cases, provisions shall be made to afford said residents access to said facility within five hundred (500) feet of their homes or places of business; or in the alternative, and at the option of the proper highway authorities, service roads shall be built so as to afford said residents a convenient route to the nearest city, town or village adjoining them.
In connection with the development of any access facility the state, county, city, town, or village highway authorities are authorized to plan, designate, establish, use, regulate, alter, improve, maintain, and vacate local service roads and streets or to designate as local service roads and streets any existing road or street, and to exercise jurisdiction over service roads in the same manner as is authorized over access facilities under the terms of this act, if in their opinion, such local service roads and streets are necessary or desirable. Such local service roads or streets shall be of appropriate design, and shall be separated from the access facility proper by means of all devices designated as necessary or desirable by the proper authority.