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contribute to run -off-road accidents. Injury and serious injury accidents have also contributed to the increase in <br />priority Huntzinger Road has experienced with the County. Segments along this road have been identified as areas <br />where safety improvements would make a large impact on reducing total accidents in the future. Huntzinger Road <br />has been split into a two-phase project that addresses approximately half the road at a time, starting with the higher <br />risk portion based on collected data. <br />Additionally, the County has re -thought its approach to addressing the need to improve 178 bridges and structures <br />that have been identified as having deficiencies. Past safety plans have also addressed this need, but due to limited <br />County forces, Kittitas County has been unable to provide a feasible solution to this problem. Recognizing the <br />importance of addressing the deficiencies in these structures, the County needs additional research, planning, and <br />engineering to come up with a feasible solution. Through this, the option for an outside consulting service to evaluate <br />and prioritize a systematic way to address these deficient structures would be possible. <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. Examples of grouped projects in past safety plans include bridge rail improvements and <br />Intersection Corridor Improvements. Bridges rated Code 1, Code 2 and Code 3 were broken into phases to create <br />more manageable projects for design and construction improvements. Such improvements include bringing bridges <br />up to current WSDOT standards through approach improvement, replacement of timber railings, or the addition of <br />railing for bridges with none. In addition to this, Intersection Corridor improvements across the county would target <br />specific intersections that have insufficient or non -effective safety measures based on accident data and safety <br />studies. Kittitas County is currently 95% complete in its designs to improve previously targeted intersections and <br />corridors by improving clear zones, providing LED -enhanced signs, and taking increased visibility measures for high- <br />risk locations. <br />By focusing on similarities in the roads and their needs, priorities for the 2023 Kittitas County safety improvement <br />projects were formed to address a wider range of project locations for safety improvements, rather than specific road <br />focused projects. This allows the County to better reduce the possibility of fatalities and/or serious injuries across the <br />County. In addition to this, locations with similar geographic vicinity were grouped together to provide efficient <br />contracting and create more cost-effective projects. A summary of the Safety Improvement Projects can be found in <br />Table 4, followed by project details including preliminary scope, locations of the proposed work, and an estimated <br />10 <br />