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10 <br /> <br />Corridor and intersection improvements were identified as a safety need in this plan. Crash data shows a significant <br />number of total collisions, injury collisions (serious and non-serious), and fatal collisions along two of Kittitas County’s <br />major roads, Kittitas Highway and Vantage Highway. These two corridors, or highways, are high ADT, arterial <br />collector roadways in good condition providing local resident access and freight connections. Intersections along <br />these highways have been identified as areas where safety improvements would make a large impact to reducing <br />total accidents. Proposed updated and enhanced signage along these corridors and intersections would provide a <br />cost-effective safety countermeasure covering a relatively large County footprint. <br />Additionally, the County has recognized copious amounts of inadequate bridge railing. There is a total of 269 bridge <br />structures within Kittitas County, many of which have insufficient existing railing or no railing at all. Since these <br />observed hazards have a high potential for serious injury or fatal accidents, Kittitas County has chosen a proactive <br />approach to include these locations in this road safety plan to prevent potential future crashes. This preventative, <br />systemic, risk-based approach is supported using the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) Systematic Safety <br />Project Selection Tool criteria, which states that a site can be identified as a candidate for safety investment if it has <br />multiple risk factors but no crash history. <br />Finally, Kittitas County previously recognized a need to collect data to support a clear zone inventory for the entire <br />County road system. Future safety improvement projects will be better identified using a more thorough clear zone <br />inventory targeting known hazard locations. For this reason, a planning project has been identified and will be <br />implemented as part of this overall safety plan to collect clear zone inventory data, which will create a roadside <br />hazard database, and identify potential locations and countermeasures for future road safety plans. <br />Prioritized Cost-Effective Safety Improvement Projects <br />Road segment safety improvement identification used a combination of spot location and systematic approaches. <br />After improvements were identified, they were prioritized based on the potential for crash prevention and greatest <br />benefit, as supported by engineering judgement. <br />Kittitas County evaluated the scoring and road segment safety improvement results to find high risk, sizable benefit <br />countermeasures to group together as countywide safety projects that promptly provide the biggest benefit for the <br />most efficient cost. By focusing on similarities in the roads and their needs, safety improvement projects were formed <br />rather than road focused projects, allowing the county to better reduce the possibility of fatalities and/or serious <br />injuries. Locations with similar geographic vicinity, or projects with similarly proposed improvements were grouped <br />together to provide efficient contracting and cost effectiveness. A summary of the Safety Improvement Projects can <br />be found in Table 4, followed by project details including preliminary scope, locations of the proposed work, and an <br />estimated cost for the improvements. Notes regarding the engineering judgment that affected project prioritization <br />can be found in the Executive Summary.