Oklahoma transportation director hopes to save roads with legislation

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) _ Oklahoma Transportation Department Director Gary Ridley is on a mission to raise money for state highways and bridges. <br/><br/>He's seen the department's state appropriation

Monday, May 17th 2004, 10:28 am

By: News On 6

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) _ Oklahoma Transportation Department Director Gary Ridley is on a mission to raise money for state highways and bridges.

He's seen the department's state appropriation from fuel taxes drop 6.8 percent _ from $209.3 million in 1985 to $195.9 million this year.

Ridley has traveled to more than 90 cities in the state and has talked to more than 9,000 people about the poor quality of roads and bridges. Along the way, he has championed legislation to raise the fuel tax to pay to fix the transportation system.

The state bill proposes raising the gasoline tax by 5 cents a gallon and the diesel tax by 8 cents a gallon. When fully implemented, the increases would raise $141 million a year.

Oklahoma gets most of its state highway money from gas and diesel taxes. That revenue is used for highway and bridge maintenance.

But Ridley says his department does not have enough money to take care of its maintenance backlog.

``We've seen an increase in traffic volumes of 25 to 30 percent (since 1985), but our budget has decreased,'' Ridley said.

Both factors only compound the problem of taking care of deteriorating roads.

More than a third of highway miles in the state _ 4,300 of 12,266 miles _ are in poor condition, Ridley said.

The Road Information Program, a nonprofit group in Washington that promotes policies to make highway travel safer, reports Oklahoma City's and Tulsa's highways and city streets have some of the worst pavement in the nation.

Tulsa ranks ninth in the country among urban regions for poor pavement, and Oklahoma City ranks 11th, TRIP reported.

Individual drivers end up paying for the poor road conditions by having to make repairs to their vehicles.

Tulsans pay an extra $610 a year because of poor highways, interstates and streets, and Oklahoma City drivers pay an extra $586 a year, according to TRIP.

Oklahoma has 135 bridges that are more than 80 years old, and in eight years, the state will have 400 bridges that are this old, Ridley said.

The Transportation Department plans to build 197 bridges in the next eight years and keep fixing older bridges in the meantime, he said.

At the Transportation Commission's May 3 meeting, emergency contracts were awarded to fix 10 bridges, and Ridley expects more emergency contracts.