Chapter 6 - Access Facilities
CHAPTER 6 - ACCESS FACILITIES
24-6-101. Purpose.
Thelegislature hereby finds, determines, and declares that this act is necessaryfor the immediate preservation of the public peace, health, and safety, and forthe promotion of the general welfare.
24-6-102. Access facility defined.
Forthe purpose of this act, an access facility is defined as a highway or streetespecially designed for through traffic, and over, from or to which owners oroccupants of abutting land or other persons have no right or easement or only alimited right or easement of access, light, air, or view by reason of the factthat their property abuts upon such controlled access facility or for any otherreason. Such highways or streets may be parkways, from which trucks, buses andother commercial vehicles may be excluded; or they may be freeways open to useby all customary forms of street and highway traffic.
24-6-103. Highway authorities to plan access facilities; scope andlimitations of authority.
Thehighway authorities of the state, counties, cities, towns, and villages, actingalone or in cooperation with each other or with any federal, state, or localagency of any other state having authority to participate in the constructionand maintenance of highways, are hereby authorized to plan, designate,establish, regulate, vacate, alter, improve, maintain, and provide accessfacilities for public use wherever such authority or authorities are of theopinion that traffic conditions, present or future, will justify such specialfacilities; provided, that within cities, towns and villages such authorityshall be subject to such municipal consent as may be provided by law. Saidhighway authorities of the state, counties, cities, villages, and towns, inaddition to the specific powers granted in this act, shall also have and mayexercise, relative to access facilities, any and all additional authority nowor hereafter vested in them relative to highways or streets within theirrespective jurisdictions. Said units may regulate, restrict, or prohibit theuse of such access facilities by the various classes of vehicles or traffic ina manner consistent with W.S. 24-6-102.
24-6-104. Powers of highway authorities generally.
Thehighway authority of the state, county, city, town, or village may designateand establish access highways as new and additional facilities or may designateand establish an existing street or highway as included within an accessfacility. The state or any of its subdivisions shall have authority to providefor the elimination of intersections at grade of access facilities withexisting state and county roads, and city and town or village streets, by gradeseparation or service road, or by closing off such roads and streets at theright-of-way boundary line of such access facility; and after the establishmentof any access facility, no highway or street which is not part of said facilityshall intersect the same at grade. No city, town, or village street, county orstate highway or other public way shall be opened into or connected with anysuch access facility without the consent and previous approval of the highwayauthority in the state, county, city, town, or village having jurisdiction oversuch limited access facility. Such consent and approval shall be given only ifthe public interest shall be served thereby.
24-6-105. Design and regulation of access to highway.
Thehighway authorities of the state, county, city and town are authorized todesign any access facility and to regulate, restrict or prohibit access as intheir 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 rightsof ingress or egress are granted and designated by the highway authorities atspecified points along the access facility as provided, the means of ingress oregress to and from the access facility shall be limited to the use designatedby the transportation commission. In the event the commission grants a privateand not a commercial entrance or access to the highway, the entrance or pointof access shall not be used for or in connection with the conduct of anyroadside business or other commercial enterprise. The highway authorities areauthorized to divide and separate any access facility into separate roadways bythe construction of raised curbings, central dividing sections, or otherphysical 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 egressto, from, or across access facilities to or from abutting lands, except at suchdesignated points at which access may be permitted, for the use for whichaccess may be permitted, and upon such terms and conditions as may be specifiedby proper authority from time to time, or as specifically provided for.
24-6-106. Acquisition of public or private property.
Forthe purposes of this act, the highway authorities of the state, county, city,town, or village may acquire private or public property and property rights foraccess facilities and service roads, including rights of access, air, view, andlight, by gift, devise, purchase or condemnation in the same manner as suchunits are now or hereafter may be authorized by law to acquire such property orproperty rights in connection with highways and streets within their respectivejurisdictions. All property rights acquired under the provisions of this actshall be in fee simple where conditions permit, otherwise by appropriateeasement.
24-6-107. Agreements respecting financing and planning.
Thehighway authorities of the state, city, county, town, or village are authorizedto 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 theirrespective jurisdictions, to facilitate the purposes of this act.
24-6-108. Property rights of abutting residents.
Noaccess facility shall be constructed without providing for the property rightsof residents whose homes or places of business are now located on or abut thesaid proposed access facility. In all such cases, provisions shall be made toafford said residents access to said facility within five hundred (500) feet oftheir homes or places of business; or in the alternative, and at the option ofthe proper highway authorities, service roads shall be built so as to affordsaid residents a convenient route to the nearest city, town or villageadjoining them.
24-6-109. Local service roads or streets.
Inconnection 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 serviceroads and streets or to designate as local service roads and streets anyexisting road or street, and to exercise jurisdiction over service roads in thesame manner as is authorized over access facilities under the terms of thisact, if in their opinion, such local service roads and streets are necessary ordesirable. Such local service roads or streets shall be of appropriate design,and shall be separated from the access facility proper by means of all devicesdesignated as necessary or desirable by the proper authority.
24-6-110. Prohibited acts.
(a) It shall be unlawful for any person to:
(i) Drive a vehicle over, upon, or across any curb, centraldividing section, or other separation or dividing line on access facilities;
(ii) Make a left turn, a semicircular, or U-turn except throughan opening provided for that purpose in the dividing curb section, separation,or line;
(iii) Drive any vehicle except in the proper lane provided forthat purpose and in the proper direction and to the right of the centraldividing curb, separation section, or line;
(iv) Drive any vehicle into the access facility from a localservice road except through an opening provided for that purpose in thedividing curb or dividing section or dividing line which separates such serviceroad from the access facility proper.
(b) The performance of a prohibited act shall not be unlawfulif necessitated by an emergency resulting from the then existing condition ofsuch access facility or local service road. If access to the facility is madeby means of cutting or removal of a fence or gate, the person so doing shall beliable for its repair or replacement under the direction of the department oftransportation. Any person who violates any of the provisions of this sectionshall be guilty of a misdemeanor and upon arrest and conviction shall bepunished by a fine of not less than five dollars ($5.00) nor more than onehundred dollars ($100.00).
24-6-111. Service stations not to be constructed or located withinright-of-way.
Noautomotive service station or other commercial establishment for serving motorvehicle users shall be constructed or located within the right-of-way of, or onpublicly owned or publicly leased land acquired or used for or in connectionwith, an access facility, as defined by W.S. 24-6-102.