Funding issues prompt delays in metro-area highway projects
Commuters tired of battling Interstate 40 traffic congestion in the eastern part of the Oklahoma City metro area got some tough news this week: Things are likely to get worse before they get better.
Citing funding issues, state transportation commissioners approved a new eight-year plan that calls for a five-year delay in the award of four projects that are part of a plan to raise overpasses and widen I-40 to six lanes all the way from Douglas Boulevard to Shawnee.
The delays are on I-40 projects between Douglas Boulevard and I-240, while plans call for work to continue as previously scheduled on some projects between I-240 and Shawnee.
The four delayed I-40 projects now aren’t scheduled to be awarded until 2025.
The plan also includes delays for several projects designed to improve State Highway 66 in eastern Oklahoma County and improve the pavement on Lincoln Boulevard north and south of the state Capitol.
“If I had one word for it, it would be ‘disappointing,’” Brian Taylor, division engineer, said of the need to push back several highway projects because of funding issues.
Taylor’s division includes Oklahoma County and eight other north central Oklahoma counties, but all eight engineering divisions in the state were forced to delay at least
some of their projects. Statewide, 42 percent of projects were moved back a year or more.
Taylor said officials have done the best they can with what they have. In Oklahoma County, construction is already underway on several major interstate interchange projects and those projects will continue as scheduled, he said. Those include interchanges at I-235 and I-44, I-240 and I-35, and I-35 and I-44.
A few projects on I-44 actually got moved up.
“There are nine bridges on I-44 and five of them are structurally deficient,” Taylor said, adding that of particular concern are the bridges over the Oklahoma River.
To minimize traffic disruption and allow the projects to be built efficiently, several bridge and pavement projects on I-44 along the western side of the loop around Oklahoma City were moved up three years from 2022 to 2019.
Budget cuts required trade offs in other areas.
One of those trade offs involves I-40, where it has been obvious for several years that there is a need to widen I-40 to six lanes from Douglas Boulevard to Shawnee to accommodate heavy freight and commuter traffic, Taylor said.
The state applied for a federal FASTLANE Grant to help pay for the project. It didn’t get it and those grant funds are no longer available, he said.
The state has applied for another type of federal grant, but there is no assurance it will get that grant, either, Taylor said.
With funding tight, state transportation officials made the tough decision to move back four of the I-40 improvement projects. Originally scheduled to begin in 2020, they now aren’t expected to go out to bid until 2025.
Those projects include plans to replace the Douglas Boulevard bridge over I-40 and reconstruct the interchange, remove the Engle Road Bridge over I-40, add two lanes and reconstruct five miles pavement from Douglas Boulevard eastward for five miles, raise the I-40 bridge at Westminster Road, and work on the I-40 bridges over Anderson Road and the I-240 westbound ramp on I-40. Combined, those four projects are expected to cost about $78 million.
Also pushed back were several projects to improve State Highway 66, which still attracts a lot of traffic and attention as part of the Historic U.S. Route 66.
A $4 million project to reconstruct and make SH 66 four lanes from Post Road to Westminster Road was moved back from federal fiscal year 2019 to 2020; a $1 million project to reconstruct over a half mile of the highway through Arcadia has been pushed back from federal fiscal year 2021 to 2022; and an $11 million project to resurface the highway from Arcadia to Luther has been moved back from 2021 to 2023.
Also pushed back by a lack of funding are plans to improve the pavement of Lincoln Boulevard from I-235 north to NE 14 Street and from NE 30 Street north to the I-44 junction. Originally scheduled to begin in federal fiscal year 2020, those projects now have been moved back to 2022.