Is the county falling behind in the ability to mitigate congestion?
The majority of the projects in the System Preservation and Modernization categories of the program are improvements that must be constructed to simply maintain and operate the existing county highway system. The existing revenue sources available to the county for highway improvement purposes have historically been sufficient to cover basic needs in these two categories. As growth and development occurs in Lake County, travel on county highways goes up. Road improvements in the System Expansion category, needed to accommodate growth in traffic, have not kept pace. Hyperinflation of construction costs has made the task of stretching highway funding dollars even more daunting. The result is a large backlog of two-lane county owned roads that are congested. The problem is even worse on the state highway system in the county, which consists of major arterial highways. The county has spent years laying the groundwork and justifying the need for additional funding for transportation purpose
