The Oklahoma Transportation Commission approved nearly $880 million for the County Improvements for Roads and Bridges plan Monday.
The plan, which covers fiscal years 2021 through 2025, is designed to address bridges in the county system, as well as 585 miles of country roads across the state. The plan will be overseen by the Oklahoma Department of Transportation and will replace or rehabilitate 313 bridges, including 151 that are structurally deficient or functionally obsolete.
“Oklahoma’s county road network accounts for 60 percent of the state’s bridges, and 73 percent of its centerline miles on our state’s transportation system and this funding is fundamental to keeping the ‘off-system’ infrastructure online for years to come,” said Tim Gatz, Oklahoma secretary of transportation and ODOT executive director.
In all, the plan consists of 209 projects in all 77 Oklahoma counties. The ODOT will work with the counties Circuit Engineering District to look at projects to ensure those of the highest need get priority while making the most of state, federal, local, and tribal funding sources. The plan will allow counties to work in conjunction with one another and pool their resources so that they can address high-priority projects that may be too large for one county to accomplish.
Officials pointed to the Belford Bridge and projects like it to show how the program works. Currently, the bridge needs replacement, but the $13.3 million bridge replacement cost was more than anyone county could shoulder alone. Using federal grant funding and other monies, the state will oversee the collaboration and coordination between the state and counties to address the issue.
Other projects include $2 million to replace a Kingfisher County bridge damaged in the 2019 spring floods, $4.5 million to reconstruct a Custer County road that serves as a collector road for I-40 and $3 million to replace a one and a half lane, 600-foot-long bridge in McCurtain County to one with two lanes.