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countermeasures already in place. The list of candidate locations was further reduced by eliminating <br />roadway segments where accidents were alcohol or drug related with no hazard at the site and <br />segments where countermeasures were already in place and or where no countermeasures would have <br />prevented the accident. While these road segments are important to monitor, there are several other <br />locations that cause collisions due to deficiencies in the road structure. The remaining roadway <br />segments were then evaluated for potential safety improvements. <br />The county has identified the immediate need to address noncompliant guardrail on Vantage Highway, <br />resulting from a program RAP overlay project. This recently funded overlay project for the rapidly <br />deteriorating roadway from MP 21.25 to 27.75 will immediately render the existing guardrail <br />noncompliant. Guardrail must be replaced from Type 28 to Type 31. The county considers this an urgent <br />matter of public safety. With such a high number of crashes on this roadway, preventing higher risks for <br />launching is a priority. This project will benefit those navigating Vantage Highway for work and <br />recreation, especially during the winter months when the road becomes increasingly hazardous. <br />Additionally, the county has recognized copious amounts of inadequate bridge railing. There are a total <br />of 268 bridge structures within Kittitas County, many of which have insufficient railing or no railing at all. <br />Since these observed hazards have a high potential for serious injury or fatal accidents, Kittitas County <br />has chosen to be proactive and include these locations in this safety plan to prevent predicted future <br />crashes. This preventative, systemic, risk-based approach is supported using the FHWA Systematic <br />Safety Project Selection Tool criteria, which states that a site can be identified as a candidate for safety <br />investment if it has multiple risk factors but no crash history. <br />Finally, Kittitas County recognized a need to collect data to support a clear zone inventory for the entire <br />county road system. The effort to identify hazards within clear zone for the purposes of creating this <br />safety plan included utilization of a variety of tools, including Mobility, Google Earth, RoadViewer, and <br />field visits. Future safety improvement projects could be better identified using a more thorough clear <br />zone inventory targeting known hazard locations. For this reason, a planning project has been identified <br />as part of this safety plan to collect clear zone inventory data, which will create a roadside hazard <br />database, and identify potential countermeasures. <br />