Oklahoma's massively ambitious transport plan for next eight years
Oklahoma has around 12,000 miles of highways and many more thousands of miles of roadway and streets, maintaining this massive expanse of tarmac is an ongoing process and in recent years the Department of Transport acknowledged that it has fallen behind.
In announcing the massive transportation plan, the secretary of transport, Gary Ridley, said that the project, which would be implemented over the next eight years, will gradually remove Oklahoma the list of US states with the worst roads and highways.
At present, Oklahoma is also the state with the largest percentage of bridges in need of improvement or repair, this fact was tragically underlined in 2007 when the Oklahoma news media covered the story of 13 people who died when the Minneapolis truss bridge suddenly collapsed.
Bridge improvement and modification projects will therefore make up a huge part of the project. 650 individual bridges will be modified, but these efforts will be separate to the statewide bridge improvement plan put into effect by the Oklahoma Department of Transport in 2007 after the Minneapolis bridge accident, which made state transport departments around the country take note of the dangers inherent to ageing truss bridges.
Since 2007, the state has been inspecting all of its truss bridges, whereas the 650 bridges that form part of the 2010-2018 plan will range in their construction techniques and classifications.
The truss bridges across Oklahoma, which number ninety-five, were all built between the 1920s and 1960s. They are therefore extremely old, even by the most conservative standards and an alarming mechanical failure on the Minneapolis truss bridge could happen on other bridges of a similar age or older.
The iconic steel and iron trusses of the bridges are held together with thick iron bolts and screws, which hold the bridge together. These bolts and screws age over time and begin to rust and eventually become too weak or brittle to hold together the several hundred ton bridge and its several tons of load capacity.
The review of all truss bridges has since 2007 revealed that around one third of the state’s truss bridges are in need of modification, new screws and bolts or welding that will hold the trusses together. Around 30 bridges will need to be improved and modified, but the department is insisting that they are safe to use and that the collapse of the Minneapolis truss bridge was a tragic freak accident.
“If we thought they were unsafe, we would close them immediately to make any modifications necessary,” Oklahoma Department of Transport’s Gary Evans, the Chief Engineer overseeing the project, told Oklahoma news media, he added that the work being done to the state’s truss bridges should not be seen as repairs, but as modifications instead, designed to increase the loading capacity of the bridges.
The 2010-2018 transportation plan is far larger in its scope and outcomes. More than 3,000 miles of highway will be improved and resurfaced, hundreds of bridges in addition to the truss bridges will be inspected and repaired, improved or replaced along with the many hundreds of roads that they’re located on.
Since 2003, when The Road Information Program, an NGO in Washington, named Oklahoma as the state with the greatest proportion of deficient bridges, the transport department took note and put in place a $1.8 billion eight year plan to redress the issue and make Oklahoma a state with the best bridges in the country. In 2005, funding for the department of transport was increased and a steady focus has been brought to bare on transport in the state.
The current eight year plan, with its budget of almost $5 billion eclipses everything else and will vastly improve the driving surfaces and bridges across the state, according to Oklahoma Department of Transport officials.
“The overall condition of our roadways will vastly improve,” said Ridley, adding that some of the major projects of the 1,700 individual ones will be the improvements made to Interstates 35, 44 and 40.
Funding is coming from a number of sources, including a $480 million federal grant for transport, but the vast majority of the funds needed will be raised by the state itself from within Oklahoma’s bounds over the next eight years.
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Oklahoma's massively ambitious transport plan for next eight years
The Oklahoma Department of Transport has adopted a massive transport improvement plan that will cost the state $4.8 billion over the next eight years and will incorporate around 1,700 individual project around the state aimed at making Oklahoma’s roads, bridges and highways safer and better to drive on.
Oklahoma has around 12,000 miles of highways and many more thousands of miles of roadway and streets, maintaining this massive expanse of tarmac is an ongoing process and in recent years the Department of Transport acknowledged that it has fallen behind. Read more
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