All Tulsa Interstate, Downtown Street Lights Likely To Be Turned Off Due To Cuts

NewsOn6.com

TULSA, OK -- Thousands of city employees could find out how budget cuts will affect their jobs tomorrow afternoon.

We're learning balancing the budget could risk safety from school crosswalks to your drive home.

Getting Tulsa out of its $10 Million budget black hole could leave drivers in the dark.

The lights are already out on parts of the Broken Arrow Expressway but public works is talking about shutting them all off including interchanges and Downtown.

"This is only the expressways that are restricted from pedestrian access and bicycles therefore it minimizes the safety issues related to making those cuts," said Charles Hardt, Public Works Director.

Robert Cole runs the Oklahoma Driving School, "It's difficult for anybody driving, everything we do is visual and we lose that visibility at night."

"That's what I worry about right there, pulling over on the shoulder," Cole said.

Cole says just because people are not supposed to walk on the highway, it does not mean there are not people out there and with no lights to guide the way they are hard to see.

"This is where the real danger occurs, not activate their hazard lights."

He says there are two studies proving improper lighting drives up the risk of accidents.

Oklahoma's branch of AAA says they are against decreasing highway lighting but say they do not have any studies to back it up.

ODOT refused to comment at all on city budget issues.

Even Robert Cole says between expressway lights for all and jobs for some; he doesn't know which he'd pick.

"I don't know it's tough to say jobs are important and probably rate over this, you know," Cole said.

The budget cuts would not affect street lighting in neighborhoods or arterial streets.