Serving Whitman County since 1877
Serving Whitman County since 1877
Whitman County commissioners Monday approved a list of road safety work to be paid for with $750,000 from the Fixing America's Surface Transportation Act of 2015.
The list includes guardrails on a stretch of the Endicott-St. John Road and signage on 30 other county roads.
Signs will include chevrons – square yellow signs with black pointers – and other curve warnings.
Now approved, the project list will go out for bids, to be opened Dec. 5, with work planned for early next year.
To decide on the list, Mark Storey, public works director, and staff reviewed a Lidar study – a type of remote sensing – which last fall photographed all 430 miles of paved roads in Whitman County, creating “positional data” used to decipher what contributes to accidents.
In January, public works wrote out a plan targeting roads from Lamont to near the Port of Lewiston at Wilma.
Ultimately, Storey hopes the Lidar data can be used for years to prioritize improvements on county roads.
For now, though, funding is limited to what remains of the federal grant after the road study.
These first approved projects are estimated at $650,000, with some of that to be paid by the county, in order to make sure all of the $750,000 grant is used. If it is not spent it is lost.
“You try to exceed it to not lose it,” Storey said.
Because of the federal money, county crews cannot be used for the work. The change in the law was part of the 2009 economic stimulus package, which aimed, in part, to create jobs from federal investment.
Erlandson, Inc. of east Wenatchee performed the Lidar study, using a pilot car trailed by a county vehicle.
Fixing America's Surface Transportation Act (FAST Act) projects require submission of engineering plans to the Federal Highway Department for approval, after which funds are released.
One mile of guardrail bills at $100,000. A single road sign costs $50 to $100.
Garth Meyer is a former Whitman County Gazette reporter.
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