A program that has made a difference

THIS week’s approval of the Oklahoma Department of Transportation’s newest eight-year plan provided a reminder of just how successful this program has been.

The original eight-year plan was crafted about midway through the previous decade, after the Legislature decided to boost funding to ODOT following 20 years of keeping the agency’s budget flat. That former approach to budgeting helped result in Oklahoma having 4,000 miles of roads that were considered in poor condition, and 1,600 bridges that were either functionally obsolete or structurally deficient — 660 of those had been around since the 1920s and ‘30s.

The best thing about the revolving eight-year road and bridge repair program is that the pecking order of projects was (and is) determined by ODOT, not by politicians. The greatest needs receive the most immediate attention.

With the infusion of funding from the Legislature over several years, real progress has been made.

The backlog of structurally deficient bridges on the state highway system, which stood at 1,168 in 2004, is now at 168, ODOT’s executive director, Mike Patterson, told the Oklahoma Transportation Commission. Patterson said the state expects to have the backlog at zero within two years.

Also since 2004, ODOT has improved roughly 5,880 miles of highways and interstates. There are more than 12,000 miles of highway in the state.

Since 2010, lawmakers dealing with challenging budget conditions siphoned away nearly $900 million that would have gone to ODOT for state projects. That left the agency having to revise its eight-year plans and defer work on some needed projects.

But as former agency director Gary Ridley said last year in advance of his retirement, “We’re infinitely better today than we were a decade ago.”

Patterson noted that finishing work on deficient bridges doesn’t mean the agency won’t need to spend money in that area — about $450 million per year will be needed to keep bridges from backsliding — but it does mean more funding can go toward pavement improvements.

A look at ODOT’s website shows more than 100 projects underway statewide — from road repair work on U.S. 54 near Tyrone in the Panhandle to the rehabilitation of a bridge on State Highway 30 near Hollis, and from bridge work on State Highway 3 near Broken Bow to a bridge repair on State Highway 10 near Miami.

The latest eight-year plan comprises 1,386 construction projects, including 152 miles of interstate paving upgrades, more than 720 miles of added shoulders or other improvements to two-lane highways, and 686 highway bridge replacement and major rehabilitation projects.

Local projects on the latest plan include widening of Interstate 40 to six lanes from Choctaw Road to Shawnee, and continued work on the I-35/I-240 interchange.

The eight-year plan is based on anticipated state, federal and local funding. As to the former, our hope is that lawmakers in 2019 and thereafter do all they can to provide ODOT the funding needed to keep the eight-year plan on track. We don’t need a return to the bad old days. And, this is one government program that is working as intended.