Tulsa Highway Lights To Be Turned On Next Week

By Emory Bryan, The News on 6

TULSA, OKLAHOMA -- The City of Tulsa plans to restore power to all highway lights by September 1. The lights were deactivated to save money last year.

8/3/2010 Related Story: Tulsa Mayor: City's Highway Lights To Be Turned Back On September 1st

The funding for highway lights was an issue between Mayor Dewey Bartlett and the City Council. The Mayor vetoed money for highway lighting in the budget this year, but the council restored it by overriding his veto.

After the budget started, the City Finance Department determined the budget only had enough money to pay for lighting over 10 months of the budget year, so the administration decided to wait until September 1 to reactivate the lights.

The City of Tulsa will spend $443,272 to run the lights for the next 10 months. Only some sections of highway lights were turned off, while lighting at intersections and on city streets remained on.

One-hundred circuits of lights along highways, including the Broken Arrow Expressway, will come back on. The money to turn on the lights was added to the city budget by the City Council, but later determined to be insufficient by the City Finance Department.