(Spencer)– There’s been a bit of a change in a project to restripe lanes and turning lanes at some intersections on the south side of Spencer that have a history of accidents.
The City Council Monday evening voted to proceed with filing for a grant to fund the project. Mark White, the city’s Public Works Director, said originally it was to be funded through the Iowa Department of Transportation…
“The funding source that they planned on using became not available so then I was at a D.O.T or a meeting with them last week and they said hey, here’s some other options we could do to still accomplish the same thing. They gave us three options which would be a HSIP, or a USTEP, fun acronyms, or wait a year. We didn’t think that would be best to wait a year for the accidents that have happened in that area. So the HSIP is a Highway Safety Improvement Program. It’s 100 percent refundable, it’s just that the extra work for us is Brian and finance. It’s a grant that we have to administer and then also go through the construction process. They’ll fill out the grant for us. It’s just a tool or a vehicle for us to be able to finance it through the state, through a grant.”
White says the change will likely push the project back somewhat but he says it should still get done yet this season.
