Rice County Ten Year Transportation Improvement Plan Approved

The Rice County Board of Commissioners today unanimously approved the proposed ten year transportation improvement plan for the county.

County Highway Engineer Dennis Luebbe made a brief presentation at a public hearing continued from October 24th.  No members of the public spoke at the hearing.

In fact there was only one member of the public in attendance other than media and other county employees at the county board meeting.

The ten year plan calls for 50 transportation projects including work on 8 bridges, 15 reconstructions of approximately 29 miles of road, 25 reconditioning projects encompassing about 95 miles and two safety projects.

Total estimated construction cost is approximately 75.7 million dollars.

According to a chart provided by Luebbe about 52 percent of the cost would be paid through state aid, 43 percent from local sales tax dollars, 4 percent from other local funds (township or bridge...etc) and 1 percent from federal aid.

Added to next year's proposed construction is a reclamation project for the County Fairgrounds road going south into the fairgrounds off highway 3 at a cost of $100,000.

Approximately 13.6 million dollars is proposed for next year and 6.95 million for the 2019 construction season.