Tulsa Drivers To See Massive New Effort To Repair Streets

By Emory Bryan, The News On 6

TULSA, OK -- Tulsa motorists are about to see a massive new effort to repair the streets -- fueled by a combination of low prices on construction and plenty of money to pay for it.

The City of Tulsa has a lot of street construction underway, but that's about to multiply four or five times as the "Fix Our Streets" projects begin.

"Hopefully we're going to have 50 - 60 active projects at any one time in the transportation area," said Paul Zachary, City of Tulsa.

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As projects wrap up, like the one on 41st Street, new projects will start, creating a record pace of construction for the next two years. 

The city of Tulsa is already working off sales tax, bonds and stimulus money and now is adding the extra money and work from the "Fix Our Streets" package.

"So it's all coming together right now. We're going to see a lot of construction projects, even more than we're seeing now, all over the city for the rest of the year," said Tulsa Mayor Dewey Bartlett.

Projects like the one on Lewis will increase in number, but the city plans to coordinate projects so adjacent streets are not under construction at the same time. 

At least 122 new projects are scheduled. More could be added if the city continues getting low prices on the work.

"Contractors are excited about it, we gave them our schedule and they said bring it on. And we're getting incredible bids right now, anywhere from 60 - 70 percent of our engineers estimate, the contractors are hungry," said Zachary.

According to the city, only five will be widening projects. The rest will be rehabilitation or reconstruction. Police say they'll be watching drivers in the construction zones.

"One of the things we're going to be doing is enforcing the speed laws within the construction zones. The safety of the workers involved there is one of our main priorities," said Chief Chuck Jordan, Tulsa Police.

The city of Tulsa says it has $450 million coming in for the projects. The money will last through 2014.