Tulare County to Use Stimulus Funds to Repave Roads

County officials will ask County Supervisors to approve using federal funding from three major American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA, or more commonly called "Stimulus" funding) grants to repave major roads on the northern and southern ends of Tulare County. The projects are due to come before the Board of Supervisors for approval and for permission to be put out to bid on April 20.

Board Chairman Steve Worthley said the largest project under consideration is the repaving of the portion of Avenue 384 between State Highway 99 and Road 80 - a project estimated to cost as much as $3.3 million.

"This is the road that really gets most east-west traffic in the area," Chairman Worthley said, noting that Avenue 384 often sees more regular use than State Highway 201 because Avenue 384 is a straight shot without traffic stops. "I am also happy that on this particular project we were allowed to use a combination of state and federal funds to accomplish this project."

The County is using a combination of three federal funding sources for the Avenue 384 project - ARRA funds (approximately $2 million); $952,630 in federal farm-to-market grant funds, and $381,909 from two state funding sources.

Chairman Worthley said engineers also want approval to seek bids to repave Road 56 from Avenue 400 to the Fresno County Line, a road that sees more than 3,900 vehicle trips per day. The Avenue 56 roadwork is being combined with a project to repave Avenue 232 from the Kings County line to the Tulare city limits, at an estimated total project cost of $4.9 million - $4,425,798 from federal ARRA funds and $492,267 in state Proposition 1B funds.

Supervisor Pete Vander Poel said he is delighted to see federal ARRA funds being put to work to rehabilitate Tulare County roads.

"Avenue 232 is a major access route from Kings County into the City of Tulare," Supervisor Vander Poel said. "This is a good use of Stimulus funding: to both make needed repairs and to bring federal dollars home to our County."

County engineers will also ask County Supervisors to approve $4.5 million in additional repaving projects on April 20:

- Repaving Avenue 56 from Road 148 to Road 176; Road 232 from Avenue 170 to Avenue 182, and
- Repaving Diagonal 134 and Avenue 192 from Elk Bayou Bridge to Road 152.