Hume Road: County seeking funds for project

Whitman County commissioners signed an application Monday to the state's Rural Arterial Program (RAP) for reconstruction of three miles of Hume Road near Oakesdale. Deadline for grant application is Sept. 1.

The estimated $3.5 million project would follow the previous nine miles of Hume Road, which was structurally upgraded three years ago and funded by the RAP.

Crews on the final stretch would put down four inches of asphalt and a structural grid to reinforce it.

“A lot of roads in Whitman County were never engineered,” said Public Works Director Mark Storey. “They just evolved from old wagon paths.”

Hume Road runs from Highway 195 north of Colfax to Oakesdale.

RAP projects are named annually, with funding dispersed two to five years later.

“This is the beginning,” Storey said.

The project proposal will compete with proposals from 10 other counties in eastern Washington.

Commissioners agreed with Storey to submit the Hume Road for funding instead of a structural overlay project on Lamont Road and Handy Cutoff Road.

“We'll look at that in the next cycle,” said Storey.