Another 2.2 miles on County Road 45 were approved for application for the Alabama Department of Transportation federal aid project at Monday’s Dallas County Commission meeting.

The road had cracked and the shoulders had dropped, said county engineer

Coosa Jones, and the additional 2.2 miles will be part of an on-going ALDOT federal aid project.

“The project will entail completely rehabilitating the road” Jones said.

“[Monday] it was approved that the last 2.2. miles will actually be applied for federal aid money,” Dallas County Probate Judge said. “We will apply as of [Tuesday], and we are greatly assured with past history and corresponded that we will be funded. It’s federal money that’s available every year to do qualified roads that we choose, so it’s not like we’re competing for the money. It’s just a matter of asking for it and submitting a road that falls into the qualifications — and it does.”

Ballard said the new project extends from an ATRIP project for County Road 45 that the county was approved for several months ago.

“This will simply add another 2.2 miles from the railroad track, which is off of Highway 22, going north on [County Road] 45 to join the project that we’ve already done,” Ballard said. “Our long term goal is to get that entire stretch of road, which runs from Highway 22 clear over to US Highway 80 and that’s several miles, but our goal is to complete that whole project in the next few years, and this will add 2.2 miles to that.”

And while 2.2 miles may seem like a small stretch of road, Ballard explained that 2 miles of road rehabilitation cost nearly $700,000.

With $500,000 for the ATRIP project and $700,000 for the federal aid project, Dallas County has already spent roughly $1.2 million on County Road 45’s repairs.

“And that’s just for what we’ve done,” Ballard said. “We still have several miles that have to be done, so that gives you an idea  — 2.2 miles is somewhere around $700,000 — so it gives you an idea of how expensive it is to repave county roads.”

Ballard noted that due to the unstable nature of the prairie soil that lies beneath the road, there’s an additional stabilizing process that has to be done to get the road ready to pave.