• E-mail
• Print
• Comment
• Font Size
• Digg
• del.icio.us
• Discuss article

Oklahoma City, State Roads Placed Among Worst in Nation

Posted on: Thursday, 4 August 2005, 21:00 CDT

Oklahoma City's roads and bridges received a failing grade from a study by Washington, D.C.-based transportation research group Trip.

If it were a report card that your kids brought home, you'd probably send them to summer school, said Frank Moretti, director of policy and research for Trip. Unfortunately, there is not a summer school for roads. What it really takes is going out there and making adequate investment to start to improve these grades.

Using information compiled from the federal government, Trip determined that 47 percent of the major roads in the Oklahoma City area are in poor condition, providing a rough ride and damaging the vehicles that pass over them. Furthermore, 44 percent of the bridges in the area are in need of repair, also earning a failing grade from Trip. Statewide, 33 percent of Oklahoma's bridges are structurally deficient, in need of major repairs or replacement. The national average for structurally deficient bridges is 13 percent.

Oklahoma leads the country in the share of bridges that are structurally deficient, and it's not even close - they're 5 or 6 percentage points ahead of everybody else, said Moretti, adding that it was not his intention to be an alarmist, scaring Oklahomans into thinking the Oklahoma Department of Transportation would allow continued travel on bridges that are about to collapse.

I would think the greater danger is an economic danger, he said. You've got a local economy and you've got quality of life based on people's ability and businesses' ability to get to where they need to go in a timely fashion.

The Oklahoma City area earned a C in both traffic safety and traffic congestion. While 36 percent of the major roads in the metro area are congested during rush hour, Moretti said that's not such a good grade when considering the historical data and projections for the future.

I think the most interesting fact that we note is that number (36 percent of roads congested) has gone up from 14 percent in 1990, said Moretti. Clearly, more and more of the major roads in the area are congested during rush hour, and it's largely due to the fact that we've seen a significant increase in travel statewide, up nearly 40 percent since 1990.

And when you consider that the state's vehicle travel is anticipated to increase by another 40 percent by 2020, the reality is traffic congestion in the Oklahoma City area can be expected to increase unless the state and local governments are able to invest in an expanded and improved transportation system, including both its roads and highways and also its public transit system.

The report was not requested by parties in Oklahoma in order to support the upcoming election on a proposed fuel tax increase, said Moretti. Rather, he said Trip - which has been conducting research on national transportation issues since the 1970s - published the report to educate the people of Oklahoma about the condition of their transportation system. The organization has taken no stand on the fuel tax question, he said, which would raise the gasoline tax by 5 cents a gallon and the diesel tax by 8 cents a gallon.

Moretti was hosted by the Greater Oklahoma City Chamber, which supports the fuel tax increase and the constitutional protections on transportation funds proposed in State Question 723, to be decided by voters on Sept. 13. Chamber President and CEO Roy Williams said the condition of Oklahoma's bridges and roads are of vital importance to the business community.

We here in Oklahoma City are at the crossroads of North America, so Oklahoma City is a very critical hub to the national transportation system, said Williams. Deteriorating roadways and bridges translate into expenses, that automobiles get damaged as well as trucks for moving goods and services.- In the effort of recruiting companies, one of the three critical factors that they evaluate in the selection process is market access, and in Oklahoma market access is via highways and roads.

Though during the 2005 session the Oklahoma Legislature increased funding for transportation purposes, Williams said it would not be enough to make the needed investment in Oklahoma's transportation infrastructure.

The Legislature has had decades to do that, but that obviously hasn't happened, so I think if you look in the past you can predict what the future's going to be, said Williams. Even if legislators have the will to fund transportation - which has not always been the case - he said they lack the resources.

The state question will allow the people to decide how transportation gets funded, he said.

We had the same issue with MAPS and MAPS for Kids, said Williams. With MAPS, we could have said let the city worry about this, but we didn't.- We stepped up and said we've got to fix this problem. We've got to put resources into it. We can't continue business as usual- And we're optimistic they're going to do the same with State Question 723. If we stay on the road we're on right now, we're in for a massive collision.

Source: Journal Record - Oklahoma City

More News in this Category