County awarded $1 million grant for Loma Rica Road

Loma Rica Road will get some much-needed improvements after the Yuba County Public Works Department receives roughly a $1 million federal grant to fund a project.

Improvements to a 1.4-mile stretch of the road between Marysville Road and Los Verjeles Road will include widening shoulders and smoothing out sharp turns in order to make certain stretches safer.

"If there's too sharp a corner to meet design standards we'll straighten it out to make it less sharp," Public Works Director Mike Lee.

The entire project is estimated to cost $1.05 million, Lee said.

The money, funded through the Department of Transportation's "High Risk Rural Roads" program, will help extend gravel shoulders in some areas of the road, giving motorists additional room and time to recover if they drift across the marked edges of the roads, according to a press release from Yuba County.

Drainage ditches will also be relocated with this project and extension of culverts to allow water to pass under the roadway are planned.

Grant funds will be available to the public works department in 2010. Work is expected to be completed in 2011.

Lee said the department was one of four in the region to receive funding.

Contact Appeal-Democrat reporter Andrea Koskey at 749-4709 or akoskey@appealdemocrat.com