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accidents. The aforementioned roadway geometry and clear recovery area is the goal in improving roadside safety <br />but is often cost prohibitive due to the geography of the area and is not supported by rural character or practical <br />design. In cases where it is cost prohibitive to eliminate roadway curvature and create an unobstructed traversable <br />roadside, alternative improvements that may reduce the severity of an accident or alert a driver to a hazard should be <br />considered. This safety plan focuses on roadway segments and intersections where low-cost high benefit <br />countermeasures and improvements can be implemented. These countermeasures and improvements may include <br />improved or increased pavement markings, breakaway features on posts, guardrail deployment, bridge rail retrofits, <br />rumble strip installation, and signing and traffic delineation upgrades, all of which may be implemented to reduce fatal <br />and serious injury collisions. <br />Based on the crash data for 2017-2021, 70.40% percent of the total crashes involved roads with an average daily <br />traffic (ADT) of 175 or more and with a speed limit of 35mph of higher. In order to have the greatest potential impact <br />in reducing collisions, the county considered roads for evaluation and prioritization of safety improvements with the <br />following characteristics: <br />MINIMUM CRITERIA FOR INCLUDING ROAD SEGMENTS IN SAFETY PLAN: <br />• Paved: Asphalt Concrete Overlay (ACP), Hot Mix Asphalt (HMA), or Bituminous Surface Treatment <br />(BST), <br />• ADT of 175 or more. <br />• Posted speeds of 35 mph or more. <br />• Collision within segment in the past five years. <br />The minimum criteria include the preliminary eligibility requirements as defined by the U.S. Department of <br />Transportation Federal Highway Administration's Highway (FHWA) Safety Improvement Program (HSIP) as stated <br />under the 2023 County Safety Program: Call for Projects solicitation for grant funding. Additional scoring criteria has <br />been developed by Kittitas County Public Works Staff and used consistently throughout multiple years of safety <br />planning to provide scoring and prioritization continuity. The additional criteria include a heavier weighted score for <br />segments listed in the previous County safety plan, roadway curvature — horizontal curve, and collision seriousness <br />(injury, serious, or fatal). Kittitas County recognized in previous safety plans the need to collect clear zone data that <br />would reflect the current clear zone condition of all county roads. In 2022, a clear zone inventory was conducted that <br />targeted known hazards such as shoulder width, side slope grade, and fixed objects in the clear zone of all county <br />road segments. The hazards found in each road segment were scored based off severity and later totaled to get a <br />final score per road segment, Each road segment was then ranked and given a weighted score that mirrored <br />previous scoring criteria of past safety plans. County road segments possessing the minimum criteria characteristics, <br />as well as the additional criteria characteristics, were evaluated and scored by the weighted method shown in Table <br />3. The complete list of resulting road segment prioritization is shown in Appendix B, <br />8 <br />