Monroe County is one of several communities receiving money from the state’s Community Crossing Matching Grant Program to help fund road projects.
Established by the Indiana General Assembly in 2016, the program has provided over $2 billion in state matching funds to towns and counties across Indiana to support road and bridge construction projects.
Monroe County’s received $1 million for its most recent grant. The county council will match that for a total of $2 million.
Lisa Ridge, Monroe County highway director, said her department will use that money to pave 25 road segments amounting to nearly 25 miles across the county. A portion of that money will also go towards drainage work to prep for the paving.
Some roads that will be paved include parts of Mt. Tabor Road, Old State Road 37 North, Popcorn Road and That Road.
“There's a lot of cracking, a lot of potholes,” she said. “The winter months take a real toll on our roads.”
Ridge decides which roads to pave based on a widely used ratings system that grades a road’s condition on a scale of one to 10. If the rating is under five, that road gets priority. Paving is expected to start next April.
In the last 10 years, Monroe County has received about $10.5 million from the program, which has helped maintain approximately 700 miles worth of roads in the county.
“We can always use room for improvement in our paving program, just because, again, the winter months might throw in some roads that were not a priority for us,” Ridge said. “If you have a really bad winter, the snowplows, the wet, it can really take the road from, say, a five or six rating, down to a three.”
The state awarded $100 million to communities in Indiana for this year’s grant cycle.
