County Road 45 is next in line for much needed road improvements after the Dallas County Commission approved an agreement Monday with the Alabama Department of Transportation (ALDOT).

The agreement will allow ALDOT to start the bidding process for the project Friday.

The improvements are funded through ALDOT’s Alabama Transportation Rehabilitation Improvement Program (ATRIP). The state awarded funds for 10 road projects around the county in 2013.

“County Road 45 is in [Commissioner] Curtis [Williams’] district, and he’s been pushing hard to get it for a long time,” said Dallas County Commission Chairman Kim Ballard. “We wouldn’t have been able to do it without ATRIP.”

ATRIP funds will cover 80 percent of the cost to resurface and reconstruct a segment of County Road 45. The county will have to pay the other 20 percent of the total cost, which is $153,560, according to County Engineer Coosa Jones.

Jones said the project will cover around 1.33 miles of County Road 45, which is in bad condition due to the soil underneath it.

“It’s in prairie soil out there, which is very unstable. It shrinks and swells with varying moisture contents,” Jones said. “When it dries out, it cracks, and when it gets real saturated it swells.”

According to Ballard, the shoulders of the road are falling off, and the road is in need of revamping.

Ballard called the ATRIP funding a godsend because it has allowed them to pave 31 miles of road over the last few years, which would have taken them much longer to complete without the funds.

Jones said he expects the project to start sometime in August or September and will take an estimated 60-75 working days to complete.

Jones said he expects other ATRIP projects to start within the year as well on County Road 7 and 85.

The commission also approved to sell old equipment and lease purchase replacement equipment. The county will auction off five tri-axle dump trucks and four motor graders in March 2016, as well as lease purchase the same amount of dump trucks and motor graders for five years.

According to Jones, the graders are an estimated $229,500 each, and the dump trucks are an estimated $138,000 each.