Public Mtg. for county road plan is Nov. 7

Washington County’s Road and Bridge department is hosting a public meeting next week to give residents the opportunity to comment on its draft transportation plan.

 The meeting is scheduled for Thursday, Nov. 7 at the Washington County Courthouse, located at 256 E. Court St., from 3-5 p.m.

 Road and Bridge Supervisor Jerod Odoms and other administrators will be on hand to receive comments and field questions.

 Once finalized, the plan will replace the current document, which is about 10 years old. 

 “I’ve been running off that plan for five years; the previous supervisor ran off it for five years,” Odoms told the Signal American last week. “We should be updating our plan about every seven to 10 years and I knew it was time, so I did get a grant from the State of Idaho to update it.”

 He noted, “And we’ve changed. We thought the county was going one direction, but the growth has changed that.”

 The grant, which Odoms applied for about two years ago, was awarded in 2023. It was for $50,000 through the Local Rural Highway Improvement Program (LRHIP) under the Local Highway Technical Assistance Council (LHTAC).  

 With another $11,000 from the Road and Bridge department budget, he had a total of $61,000 to put toward the new plan, which was developed by Keller Associates.

 “The purpose of the plan is to evaluate existing and future transportation conditions in Washington County, as well as establish a Capital Improvement Plan (CIP) to help guide decisions regarding transportation funding, policy, projects and investments,” according to the draft plan’s introduction. 

 Odoms said that having an updated plan makes it easier to receive funding for projects.

 “In terms of funding, as in grants and things like that, the state gives you more points if you have a transportation plan,” he said. “The more updated the plan, the more points you get from the state toward the grants you apply for.”

 “The transportation plan gives us engineered information,” he said. “We have actual engineered numbers of how many cars we have, potential growth for the future, what we are looking at for tomorrow and potential plans so we don’t have to throw darts at a board and say, ‘Oh, we are going to work on this road this year.’ Instead, we can say, ‘because of growth rate, we are seeing a need to expand this route or probably that route. It basically gives us a five- to 10-year expansion of where we should be looking to put the local money.’”

 The public is encouraged to view the draft plan, available on the county website at https://www.co.washington.id.us/188/Road-Bridge, before attending the Nov. 7 meeting.

 The roughly 80-page document includes things like demographics and land use, existing road conditions and needs assessment, pavement and sign management, gravel management, conclusions, and recommendations and, finally, funding sources, including local, state and federal. The Capital Improvement plan lists specific projects that are on the radar. The Nov. 7 public meeting is one of the last steps ahead of final approval.

 “Once the public meeting happens, we can change anything we need to change and then we come up with a final draft,” Odoms said. “Once the commissioners approve it, we get it stamped and we are golden.” He added that he anticipates approval of a final draft by the end of the year or the beginning of 2025.