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Introductior <br />The Kittitas County Road Safety Plan is a comprehensive program of safety improvements aimed at <br />reducing fatalities and serious injury accidents across the entire county road system. This program of <br />improvements was developed using a strategy similar to the Washington State Strategic Highway Safety <br />Plan 2016: Target Zero, in which crash data is analyzed to identify accident trends and contributing <br />factors, and then sites within the road system are prioritized based on a risk-based ranking system. <br />Safety improvement projects are then developed to target spot location and systemic improvements <br />that provide the greatest benefit to the traveling public by preventing potential fatal and serious injury <br />accidents. <br />Due to the sporadic nature of crashes on rural county roads, it can be difficult to determine trends using <br />past data alone to choose good locations for improvements. However, past crash data can be used to <br />predict future crashes by evaluating the contributing factors and targeting improvements for roads with <br />similar characteristics. This is why Kittitas County has decided to utilize this strategy to allow for a <br />proactive approach that benefits more locations throughout the entire County road system and is more <br />cost effective than just focusing on past crash locations. <br />Data Analysis <br />Data used for this evaluation was provided by Washington State Department of Transportation <br />(WSDOT). The data includes detailed information about crashes on Kittitas County roads from 2011 <br />through 2015, including a comparison of how Kittitas County's roads compare to other public roads in <br />the state, this is detailed in Table ! below. Although overall, fatal and serious injury collisions occur at a <br />similar rate to other public roads within the state, Kittitas County is committed to reducing these types <br />of collisions and strives to collaboratively achieve the statewide goal of zero deaths and serious injuries <br />on Washington's roadways by 2030. This Safety Plan focuses on identifying cost efficient safety <br />improvement projects that offer substantial safety benefits county wide, and reduces potential fatal and <br />serious injury collisions along Kittitas County's roadway network. <br />