Oklahoma Transportation Commission approves 8-year, $6.5 billion bridge and road construction plan

Updated Sep 11, 2015

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The Oklahoma Transportation Commission (OTC) has approved the Oklahoma Department of Transportation’s (ODOT) Federal Fiscal Year 2016-2023 Construction Work Plan that would provide roughly $6.5 billion for 1,812 transportation improvement projects.

“It’s been a decade since the state made transportation funding a top priority and in that time we have seen great progress in addressing structurally deficient highway bridges,” ODOT Executive Director Mike Patterson said. “The plan had always been to focus on our critical bridge issue first while recognizing that many highway pavement needs would have to be addressed next. As we get closer to reaching our goal with the bridge program, ODOT can turn the corner and focus more aggressively on improving pavement conditions statewide.”

The plan, which can be seen in full here, includes $2.4 billion for major improvements to high-volume highways and interstates, 776 miles of safety improvements for two-lane highways, and 913 bridge replacements for major rehabilitations. The department says the two-lane highway efforts are significant because more than 4,500 miles of them do not have paved shoulders.

ODOT says this plan will be integrated with the state’s Asset Preservation Plan, which is a preventative maintenance effort to extend the life cycle of both bridges and highways. Since 2006, when Oklahoma instituted the Rebuilding Oklahoma Access and Driver Safety fund, the department has been able to reduce the number of structurally deficient (SD) bridges to 372 from a high of 1,168 in 2004.

ODOT says the remaining (SD) bridges are scheduled to be replaced or rehabilitated over the next four years.