The Reno County Commission on Tuesday committed to spending up to about $143,000 to replace a bridge on Silver Lake Road under a special KDOT “off-system” bridge program, with the state picking up 80 percent of construction costs. Public Works Director Dave McComb said he complained to Kansas Department of Transportation officials that the county, despite some of the largest bridge numbers in the state, has applied for off-system bridge funding every year since the state started the program and “we never receive funding.”
“This time we got funded,” he said, though it’s for fiscal year 2020.
The 58-foot timber bridge, located on Silver Lake Road a mile north and about 11 west of Pretty Prairie, was recently closed due to deterioration of half the piers under the bridge.
County bridge crews made repairs, enabling it to reopen, but it’s only a temporary fix, McComb said.
Both buses and mail trucks use the route.
“We had several (bridges) that met the criteria and we submitted more than one application,” McComb said. “This is the one they (KDOT) chose to fund.”
(Read more: Local – The Hutchinson News)