Committee hears bill to create county local-road preservation grant program

House Bill 1098 would create a new County Local Road Trust Account and authorize the County Road Administration Board (CRAB) to administer grants for preservation and improvement of county local roads and short-span bridges. Committee staff and multiple county representatives told the House Transportation Committee the program is intended to fill a statewide funding gap for roads that are not eligible for existing state or federal grants.

Committee staff said Washington’s county road system contains roughly 78,000 lane miles, of which about 48,917 are local roads that are not classified as arterials or collectors. David Monnke, committee staff, described CRAB as a nine-member board composed of county commissioners and county engineers that oversees county road standards and grant administration; he said a 2023 CRAB grant-effectiveness study recommended creating a program focused on local roads and short-span bridges.

CRAB Executive Director Jane Wall and other county witnesses told the committee local roads provide primary access to residences, businesses and farms and that 21,400 lane miles of county local roads are located within overburdened communities. Wall said the county local-road network is “49,000 lane miles” and urged lawmakers to prioritize a funding program that would target underserved and overburdened communities and tribal access.

CRAB staff and proponents described proposed eligible project types: 2R (resurfacing and restoration), 3R (resurfacing, restoration and rehabilitation), reconstruction, bridge replacement (National Bridge Inventory span replacement), removal of man-made impediments to anadromous fish passage, and pedestrian-facility work. CRAB rules would require projects to be in a county’s six-year plan and to consider criteria including benefits to overburdened communities, structural safety and collision experience; CRAB may reserve funds for future project phases and provide emergent funding where needed.

Representative Jake Low[e] (sponsor) and CRAB Chair Rob Kaufman (Lincoln County) described local examples of unfunded needs: Kaufman said Lincoln County manages more than 2,000 miles of roads, about 1,500 of which are gravel and ineligible for most state programs, and that local funds were used to repair a detour route after a highway closure. CRAB’s fiscal estimate provided to staff identified one ongoing administrative FTE at about $400,000 per biennium and initial capital funding needs of $5 million in the upcoming biennium, ramping to roughly $40 million per biennium thereafter; staff characterized the program as scalable.

County engineers and public-works directors testified that deferred maintenance on local roads increases long-term costs and safety risks; Snohomish County Deputy Director Doug McCormick said poor local-road condition contributes to serious-injury crashes and fatalities. Witnesses also emphasized local roads’ role in multimodal access and freight.

Eligibility provisions in the bill would require counties receiving funds to have spent local road revenues for road purposes during the preceding 12 months, except for small counties (population under 8,000) and counties that diverted road levy revenues with voter authorization. Committee members asked which counties fell below the 8,000 population threshold; witnesses identified four counties (Garfield, Columbia, Wahkiakum, Ferry) as meeting that criterion.

The committee heard that the bill contains an emergency clause and an effective date of July 1, 2025; a partial fiscal note from CRAB identified administrative costs and proposed capital levels. Proponents urged the committee to adopt the bill as a systemic response to widely distributed local-road funding shortfalls; no formal committee action or vote was recorded during the public hearing.