Highway superintendent trims project costs; Hudson intersection and Veterans Parkway discussed

Terry Floyd, Lincoln County highway superintendent, presented budget adjustments for road and project line items July 30 and answered detailed commissioner questions about safety projects and traffic forecasts.

Floyd said he reduced the project line item (previously $6,711,000) to $5,961,000 after revisiting estimates and grant expectations and cut a microsurfacing allocation from $1,500,000 to $1,300,000. He also added $50,000 for crushed gravel to the maintenance materials line. "My total adjustment... is down to the new number will be 5,961,000 for projects," Floyd said. He noted a guardrail/PE grant was reduced to $30,000 from $75,000 in expectation of external funding.

On the Hudson intersection and Safe Streets for All safety plan, Floyd said the safety plan goes back five years and that traffic counts on a nearby corridor hit roughly 11,000 vehicles per day during the most recent counts. He said Veterans Parkway's later completion could reduce traffic at certain intersections by an estimated 50% in initial planning documents, but cautioned development patterns could keep volumes higher. Commissioners questioned fatality history and design issues; Floyd said the adopted safety plan and prior studies recommend design improvements and that some crash history predated current county jurisdiction of the road. The board agreed to continue vetting project priorities while balancing maintenance needs and the county's provisional budget deficit.