PORT TOWNSEND — The Jefferson County commissioners have approved a request from the public works department to apply for a grant that would provide state funds to help repair a small section of Center Road.
The request was approved Monday, before the Thursday deadline. If the project is selected, the state funds would pay for 90 percent of the estimated cost of the project.
According to the agenda request submitted to the commissioners by the public works department, the stretch of road is rutted, corrugated and cracking despite previous patches.
The proposed action is to remove multiple years’ worth of chip sealing and patching and resurface Center Road from mileposts 14.61 to 15.01.
Now approved, the project proposal will be sent to the Rural Arterial Program, a state program that provides grants to rural projects like this one and is managed by the state County Road Administration Board.
If selected, the county could receive a grant for $639,000, which is 90 percent of the estimated $710,000 project.
The county, which has limited funds available for road construction, according to the public works department request, would only have to supply 10 percent of the cost — a total of $71,000.
This isn’t the first time the county has worked to update Center Road.
In 2014, Jefferson County Public Works paved from mileposts 4.4 to 6.8.
That project cost $666,887 and was funded primarily by the Federal Highway Administration. Only 13.5 percent of the cost was paid by the Public Infrastructure Fund.
According to Commissioner David Sullivan, the funds were handed off to public works for further processing.
Public works officials have had their eye on this project for a while since it was included in a draft of the six-year Transportation Improvement Program from 2017-22.
However, in their request, they did warn that the Rural Arterial Program is very competitive and funding is not guaranteed for the county.
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Jefferson County Editor/Reporter Cydney McFarland can be reached at 360-385-2335, ext. 5550, or at cmcfarland@peninsuladailynews.com.
