Home
(email questions/comments to wrightted@aol.com).
Ted Wright -- last update 9/6/2007 (& 9/9) (ChamberSept6-ODOT.html)
www.cvilleok.com
Copyright 2007 -- Collinsville, Oklahoma
Collinsville
Chamber of Commerce
Sept. 6, 2007 Oklahoma Transportation Report |
This web site is brought to you by
the Newspaper
Museum In Collinsville and the other advertisers appearing on these
pages. If you would like to provide content or advertisements ...
call Ted Wright (918) 371-1901 or send email to wrightted@aol.com. |
Oklahoma Department of Transportation (ODOT) Director Gary Ridley was the guest speaker at the monthly luncheon meeting of the Collinsville Chamber of Commerce. Ridley spoke of Oklahoma legislative changes in recent years that are just beginning to help dig his department out of a hole after decades of "anemic" funding.
With ~67,000 bridges, Oklahoma has more bridges than most states. Current funding levels will likely allow improvements to only 480 of those bridges in the 8-year plan. Oklahoma is the 17th state in the number of total roadway miles. 25% of Oklahoma roads are classified in "critical" need of improvement. Some roads lack shoulders (like Highway 20) or need median barrier improvements to improve safety.
Prior to the Chamber meeting at the Library Thursday, a City Hall meeting with officials from the City, School, County, ODOT, and State Representative Earl Sears was held. They discussed options to extend the Collinsville S-Curve improvement (4-To-Fix) project by about 1600 feet to get the multi-lane pavement past the high school (to the edge of the cemetary instead of stopping at the nursing home east of the high school). All agreed this was the best opportunity to make the additional improvement but the cost of the extension was an unknown. ODOT funding for the additional right-of-way needed would be investigated before a final decision could be made. If the additional funding can not be found for this near-term project the next opportunity would be when Highway 20 is 4-laned out to Highway 75 which is currently in the 8-year plan in the 2012-2014 time frame. |