Starke County Highway Superintendent Rik Ritzler told the commissioners this week that he submitted four projects for consideration for the fall Community Crossings grant round.
Ritzler submitted two bridge projects for reimbursement. They include Bridge No. 154 on 100 E. north of 400 N. and Bridge No. 36 over the Eagle Creek on 25 N. west of 600 E.
“This is the last time you can do bridge projects you’ve already done [for reimbursement],” said Ritzler. “We want to do that because when we get that money we can use it for any other project we want. That really helped us during the flooding this year because we didn’t have to borrow any money or anything. We had that money we could use for that.”
Two other road projects are included in the application.
“There’s an intersection improvement project on County Road 210 and 200 S. There’s a lot of accidents there. There’s a bid sight distance problem. A lot of trucks use that there. We don’t want them to do that. We want them to use State Road 10. By making that a t-intersection, they’re not going to want to make that turn. People can see there. It’s going to slow down everybody and make it safer for pedestrians, bike traffic and golf cart traffic around the lake. We picked 25 N. There’s high traffic on there and a fair amount of accidents on that road. It is a major connector from the eastern part of the county to Knox.”
The total cost of the project is $987,786.55. If awarded, the county would pay 25 percent of that cost.
