Johnson County will use $490,000 in state and federal grants for better safety on rural roads

Around a half-million dollars will be invested in rural roads after the Johnson County Board of County Commissioners approved two sizeable transportation grants at its regular meeting Thursday.

A $250,000 High Risk Rural Road grant from the Kansas Department of Transportation will be used to add rumble strips on approximately 24 miles of unincorporated county roads.

Rumble strips are thin ridges of pavement on the edges of a road that warn the driver when they are leaving the marked lane. The rumble strips give drivers physical and audio signals to correct their courses and stay on the pavement. Rumble strips are an important strategy to reduce the number of run-off-the-road crashes.

The county will provide another $48,420 from its bridge, culvert and road capital improvement program for a total of $298,420 to be spent in southeast Johnson County and areas west of Moonlight Road between 115th Street and 151st Street.

The BOCC also approved an agreement with the Federal Highway Administration for a $240,000 Safe Streets for All grant. The local match for the grant is $60,000, and $30,000 will come from county funds. The Kansas Department of Transportation will reimburse the county for the other $30,000.

These funds will be used to update the data needed to prioritize road projects and complete a Federal Action Plan for those projects. This will be an update to Johnson County's current Long-Range Safety plan. Under that plan, the crash rate on unincorporated roads dropped 33% from 2013-2024, even though the amount of traffic on those roads increased 49%.

The county's portion for this agreement also will come from the bridge, culvert and road capital improvement program.