Johnson County commissioners on Monday approved multiple highway department items, including a change order for the 2024 pavement-marking project, ratification of the Aug. 25, 2025 bid date for the 2025 local mill-and-overlay project and a three-year licensing agreement with Urban SDK to access traffic-volume and speed data.

Daniel Johnston, highway engineer, described change order No. 1 for the 2024 pavement-marking contract and said three additional road segments were added to be striped. He also told commissioners that one segment required additional asphalt paving because of poor subgrade soils.

Johnston asked the board to ratify Aug. 25 as the bid date for the 2025 local mill-and-overlay project. He said that project is 100% locally funded and will use an inch-and-a-half mill and overlay on specified county road segments.

Johnston also presented a three-year licensing agreement with Urban SDK, a private vendor that uses vehicle telematics and other location data to produce traffic volume and speed information. Johnston said the county would receive prior 12 months of data on approval, and the vendor would update data annually. Commissioners asked about the underlying data sources; Johnston said the vendor uses a mix of vehicle telematics (for example, some vehicle manufacturers’ systems) and cell-phone location datasets to produce counts and speeds.

Board members discussed contract costs. Johnston said the licensing portion was listed at roughly $2,500 to gain access and an additional roughly $14,000 for data-document generation across three years, which the county would pay as part of the contract.

A motion to approve the change order, the Aug. 25 bid date and the Urban SDK agreement passed without recorded roll-call in the meeting audio.

Luke Masten, highway supervisor, gave a short update on floodgate work the department has been coordinating to help citizens and the sheriff’s office during heavy rain; Masten said the gates were not yet finished but the department hoped to complete work ahead of a mid-November target.

The board directed staff to proceed with the approved change order, to publish the Aug. 25 bid date for the mill-and-overlay project and to execute the Urban SDK licensing agreement.