A meeting of the County Commissioners for Oneida County was held on Friday last week, due to this week’s scheduled Idaho Association of Counties meetings in Boise.  The meeting was for the most part a standard one, but hit a roadblock, so to speak, on the issue of a road project scheduled for Old Highway 191.  

There were two primary issues under discussion, which revolved around the safety of the road—speed and striping.  The first issue was addressed directly by the Commissioners at the meeting, while the second is on pause while the granting agency considers what it is willing to do going forward.

Anyone who drives the highway route through Oneida County has likely observed that while the road surface itself is in good shape, the narrow shoulders are somewhat torn up at the edges, and there is no center line striping.  There are a few sections where the posted speed—55 mph—can feel somewhat fast in certain driving conditions, especially at night or in icy weather.  The combination of the two certainly has the potential for unsafe conditions, although only a couple of recent accidents have resulted from them.  Anecdotally, there have been a number of near misses.  

The meeting room at the Event Center was filled with Oneida County residents who live along both the north and south stretches of the highway who had come to express their opinions and concerns to the commissioners about an LHTAC (Local Highway Technical Assistance Council) grant that has been sought to address some of these safety issues, and was scheduled to go out for bid this week.

The first issue, of the speed limit on the north stretch of the highway—the road from Devil Creek to the County line just below the summit—was heard by the commissioners.  There are a number of residents along the route, who shared their feeling that the speed limit did lead to unsafe driving conditions, which created both noise and the potential for personal or property injury.  

The county attorney advised that the commissioners had the authority to change the road speeds on county roads, as long as there was a reasonable justification for doing so.  After further discussion between the parties involved, the commissioners offered a resolution to lower the speed limit on the old highway from the Devil Creek exit to the county line from 55 mph to 50 mph.  The motion passed unanimously, and the commissioners stated that they would track the results and be open to feedback on the effectiveness of the change.

The meeting then turned to the much larger issue of striping, and along with it the placement of rumble strips.

Striping a section of road the length of the highway is a massively expensive undertaking, and in order to potentially secure the funds to do so, the county had pursued a safety grant offered through the LHTAC program.  Safety grants are awarded on the basis of accidents and potential accidents that could be prevented through construction improvements.  A fatality on the southern portion of the old highway was used to apply for the grant, which led to its being awarded.  The county was required to pay its portion, around $150,000 for the engineering study and plans, which would ultimately add striping to the length of the highway, as well as reflectors and rumble strips.

As a result of the narrow width of the road, and the condition of the shoulders, it was determined that rumble strips would not be possible on the shoulders, so they would need to be installed down a striped center line.  

The commissioners heard the input of residents along the route, who appeared to be unanimously opposed to the idea.  The primary complaint was the noise that would be generated by drivers hitting the rumble strip, especially throughout night time hours.  Residents noted that the rumble strips on I-15 already created a noise issue, and felt that strips just outside their residences would be a significant noise issue.

In addition, several speakers pointed out that a center rumble strip might actually cause drivers to straddle the center line, reinforcing the initial safety problem of drivers not maintaining their lanes.  

A second part of the project—the road from Power County to the Y near Holbrook—was also a factor in the discussion.  It was noted that rumble strips in that section would not affect many residences (including one of the commissioners’), but might allow them to qualify for the grant.

As the meeting continued, the commissioners noted that they were not interested in pursuing a project with such intense opposition, and ended the public comment in order to consult with Road and Bridge, the county attorney, and the engineers about their next options.

Said consultation ultimately led to the scheduling of an emergency meeting on Saturday to attempt to mitigate the financial loss associated with abandoning the grant.  

At Saturday’s meeting, the commissioners and the Road and Bridge department discussed the options before them, along with the input from the engineers with Keller.  The options that the commissioners ultimately landed upon were all in favor of striping only if it could be done without the old highway 191 rumble strips as part of the design.

LHTAC was contacted with the proposal that the grant move forward with striping and reflectors only on the eastern highway, and striping, reflectors and rumble strips on the western highway from Power county to Holbrook if that would satisfy the grant conditions.   Under this proposal, the county would either pay its original percentage of the project cost, although the work would no longer include the
rumble strips.

If that agreement were not acceptable to LHTAC, the county advised that it would scuttle the project and pay out the roughly $150,000 already paid for plans and engineering.

Because the project had not gone to bid yet, those involved believed that there would not be a full penalty associated with the grant withdrawal.

As of press time on Tuesday morning, the county was waiting to hear back from LHTAC about what they would be willing to do going forward.  The long and short of it for now, though, is that there should not be any rumble strips put down on the Old Highway 191.  It remains to be seen, however, whether there will end up being striping along the route.