City Of Tulsa: Street Construction Summer Coming

By Emory Bryan, The News on 6

TULSA, OK -- The City of Tulsa will soon have more streets under construction at once, more than ever before.

It's because the flow of money comes at the start of summer construction.

The city says 18 arterial streets are under construction now, and eight neighborhood streets are as well.

Paul Zachary, city of Tulsa Deputy Director of Public Works, said the city has 58 projects about to start construction, and 122 projects under design. In the next 12 months, the city will start 47 additional projects.

All this work is because voters approved new money for road work and the federal stimulus money is coming in as well.

Zachary said a convergence of funding is allowing the city to both widen and rehabilitate streets at a record pace, and because of competition between contractors, is helping the city save money.

Zachary said some bids have come back at 60% of what the city estimated they would cost.

"We're getting four and five times the funding now we've had historically and you're going to start seeing the fruits of that," Zachary said.  "The orange barrels, this is the start of construction season, and not only do we have the stimulus funding, we have 15 stimulus projects going, but we are then going to overlay with 05 bond issue, 06 sales tax and then start doing the fix our streets program as well."

While the city is asking for patience from drivers, the police say they'll try to step up enforcement against speeders in construction zones. The peak of the construction will last at least two years, but some of the work currently funded will go through the next four years.

Check on construction projects across the Tulsa metro at NewsOn6.com's Daily Detour.

Learn more on City of Tulsa street projects website.