Pothole Riddled Streets May Get Worse

Wednesday, August 1st 2007, 5:00 pm

By: News On 6

Itâ€™s the balance of building for the future, or taking care of what we already have. A News On 6, â€œTulsa Worldâ€ poll showed voters consider streets to be a much more pressing issue than river development. Our polling also showed many people never go to the river, but everyone uses the streets. And they are in terrible shape. The City of Tulsa grades streets on a 100 point scale and Tulsa's average right now is 60. The News On 6â€™s Emory Bryan reports according to the city, without a major new infusion of money for repairs and replacement the streets will get much worse than they are now.

It doesn't take an engineer to figure out that many of Tulsa's streets are bad and getting worse.

"I don't think they're very good," said one motorist.

It does take an engineer to solve the problem, and that is Paul Zachary's job. He's just finished a study of what it would take to bring Tulsa's streets up to an acceptable standard, generally about a 70 on a 100 point scale.

"We want to attain a 70, back to it," the engineer said.

Zachary says the city is spending less than one-fourth of what's needed to reach that level. Right now the city spends $21 million a year on road repair, but it would cost $100 million a year to reach the higher standard.

The mayor is considering a special $385 million bond issue to get the repairs started.

"We have to deal with the roads and we will, council is interested in it and we are working on a plan to do that, our streets have been neglected way too long," Tulsa Mayor Kathy Taylor said.

"Some are good, some are, nothing is being done about them," said a Tulsa driver.

The city says the money it has for roads is not enough to maintain them, even to the current grade about 60 on the 100 point scale. A special vote to raise property taxes to pay for streets could come as soon as the first of next year. The decision has not been made to put the bond issue to a vote, but no one in the city has found any other way to get the job done. If they stick to the regular schedule of bond issues the next one is a couple of years away, and it could only pay for about half of what the city says it needs.

To report a pothole in the Tulsa area you can call the Mayorâ€™s action line at 918-596-2100, or visit their website, www.cityoftulsa.org.