Area impacted by ODOT fund reductions

Custer and Washita counties had several road projects moved back this week on the Oklahoma Department of Transportation’s eight-year plan, but none were removed.
The one Clinton folks are interested in most – the redoing of the Interstate-40 interchange at Exit 65 near Kmart – is still there, although it remains a long way off. Division 5 Engineer Brent Almquist said everything still looks okay on it for 2024. “We’re hoping to let the bid in 2024,” he said.
It was not delayed.
New bridges on U.S. Highway 183 over I-40 also are on the eight-year plan, and they were postponed from 2024 to 2025.
Of perhaps greater significance on the calendar was the postponement of four bridge projects in Custer County on East and West Barnitz creeks and their overflows. Scheduled for a 2018 start, they were moved back five years to 2023.
A five-mile project on State Highway 54 north of Weatherford was changed from 2019 to 2023.
The changes of course are a result of Oklahoma’s current budget crisis which has caused Gov. Mary Fallin to call the legislature back into special session. The Oklahoma Transportation Commission voted Monday for ODOT’s revised eight-year plan which covers fiscal years 2018 through 2025.
Statewide, 40 projects totaling more than $204 million were actually removed from the eight-year plan, said a news release issued by ODOT and passed along by Almquist, whose Division 5 is headquartered in Clinton and includes 11 western Oklahoma counties. Of those 40 projects that were removed, only three were in Division 5.
They were a $5-million project just under two miles long on U.S. Highway 183 in Kiowa County and two projects – one for obtaining right-of-way and the other for moving utilities – on State Highway 51A south of Southard in Blaine County. By coincidence, three people were killed and two others seriously injured on that highway just last week; however, the accident was caused by driver error rather than road conditions, as all three of the fatalities were in a car which tried to pass a semi in a marked no-passing zone.
Almquist said ODOT went to the eight-year style of planning in 2003 and this is the first time since then that projects have been removed, although state funding has been falling since 2010.
“We definitely need to keep our eight-year plan on track,” he said. “It’s a little concerning when we lose projects out of the eight-year plan.”
“The cumulative state funding reductions since 2010 have produced a snowball effect where projects have been pushed back later and later and now they’re being pushed out of the plan, which changes our strategy and moves us in the wrong direction,” the ODOT press release quoted Executive Director Mike Patterson as stating.
The plan of course covers bridges as well as highways. To keep pace, Almquist said 90 bridges statewide need to be added to the plan each year.
“Last year only 44 were added,” he said. “This year it was just 15.”
Approximately 42 percent of all programmed projects are being delayed at least one year, the news release said, including 65 that were scheduled to go to bid this year.
The number of delayed projects totaled 582 with 30 of them in Division 5. The state has eight divisions, but those that include Oklahoma City and Tulsa of course have many more projects than the other six. Division 5 is among the three smallest in number of projects, and among those three it had the least percentage of postponements (30 of 131 for 23 percent).
“Additionally, several projects have been significantly reduced in scope in order to stretch funding as far as possible,” the ODOT release said.
Among the Division 5 projects being delayed in the eight-year plan are the following:
*Bridges and approaches on U.S. Highway 183 in Clinton over I-40, from 2024 to 2025;
*Bridges and approaches on State Highway 33 in Custer County over East and West Barnitz creeks and their overflows, from 2018 to 2023;
*Widening, resurfacing and bridge work on State Highway 54 in Custer County beginning 1.8 miles north of I-40 and extending 5 miles north, from 2022 to 2024;
*Widening and resurfacing of S.H. 54 in Custer County beginning at the point the previous project ends and extending 4.3 miles further north, from 2019 to 2023;
*Widening, resurfacing and bridge work on State Highway 152 in Washita County from the Beckham County line extending four miles east, from 2019 to 2022;
*Widening, resurfacing and bridge work on S.H. 152 in Washita County, beginning at the point the previous project ends and extending five miles further east, from 2021 to 2023;
*Widening and resurfacing of S.H. 152 in Washita County, beginning .15 of a mile east of S.H. 44 and extending five miles further east, from 2022 to 2024;
*Resurfacing of I-40 in Caddo County from mile marker 95.8 (east of Bethel Road) and extending 6.4 miles east (approximately the Hinton turnoff).