Roads must remain focus for lawmakers

THE Legislature will have a different look in 2019, as November’s elections could result in as much as half of the state House and one-fourth of the Senate turning over. This large freshman class will have much to learn about what needs fixing in state government — and what doesn’t.

The Department of Transportation’s eight-year construction plan is an example of the latter, and merits the new Legislature’s continued support.

The original eight-year plan was created to address pressing repair and replacement needs for Oklahoma’s bridges and roads. At the time, Oklahoma had about 1,600 bridges on the state system that were either functionally obsolete or structurally deficient, and 4,000 miles of roads rated in poor condition. The disrepair was due largely to the Legislature keeping ODOT’s appropriation flat for 20 years.

Thanks to legislation that gradually increased funding, ODOT since 2004 has been able to reduce the number of structurally deficient bridges from 1,168 to fewer than 170 today. Roughly 5,900 miles of the state’s 12,250 miles of highways and interstates have been improved.

The Legislature now puts $575 million per year into ODOT’s Rebuilding Oklahoma Access and Driver Safety (ROADS) Fund, the maximum allowed under the originating legislation. The revolving eightyear plan works best because the projects are determined not by lawmakers, who for too long meddled in ODOT’s business, but by the agency’s engineers and staff.

The focus, rightly so, has been on getting bridges up to par. If all goes according to plan, ODOT officials say, the number of structurally deficient bridges will stand at zero sometime in 2020.

That’s great news, but could lead lawmakers to argue ODOT doesn’t need $575 million every year. That would be a mistake. As Damon Markwell, president of the board of the Association of Oklahoma General Contractors, noted recently, “The need hasn’t gone away, it’s just shifted.”

Where? To roads (and bridge maintenance). Roughly 80 percent of Oklahoma’s two-lane highways — or about 4,400 miles — do not meet the federal guideline of 8-foot shoulders. Indeed, many don’t come close to that standard, which is particularly concerning because those roads are also about 1.5 feet narrower per lane than interstate highway lanes.

“A flat tire shouldn’t be a death sentence,” says Bobby Stem, AOGC’s executive director.

Two decades of funding neglect helped put Oklahoma’s roads and bridges in such sorry shape. It will have taken about 15 years to get bridges taken care of. Markwell figures if the $575 million in annual ROADS funding is left alone for another decade, they still won’t be able to make enough repairs and improvements that all state roads would be able to meet federal safety standards.

The latest eight-year plan, approved by ODOT’s board last month, includes 720 miles of added shoulders or other improvements to two-lane highways, and 686 highway bridge replacement and major rehabilitation projects, among other things.

The needs remain great, and the program is working as designed to address those needs. Lawmakers should remember that.