Fixing Catoosa's ' dysfunction junction'

The Catoosa area is dealing with some major traffic troubles. The intersection where I-44 crosses 193rd Street has been labeled â€˜dysfunction junction.â€™ <br/><br/>Drivers who travel that area a lot

Monday, May 16th 2005, 4:40 pm

By: News On 6

The Catoosa area is dealing with some major traffic troubles. The intersection where I-44 crosses 193rd Street has been labeled â€˜dysfunction junction.â€™

Drivers who travel that area a lot say there's just too much traffic there for the roads to handle. Motorists are starting to see signs of progress.

News on 6 anchor Scott Thompson has more on why that progress is still further away than most would like. It's a growing part of town with a growing problem. The area near the new Cherokee Casino is booming, and commuters who travel the area says so is the traffic.

Lon Godwin has organized meetings to try to jump start expansion efforts, which would ease the traffic pressure. Many folks thought they saw some hope when survey crews came out and marked off the land slated for the I-44 expansion. The News on 6 has learned that crews would've done the survey work anyway and the expansion of the intersection is still on schedule, on schedule to start in 2008.

Lon Godwin: "We'd like to see it happen tomorrow."

Oklahoma Department of Transportation engineer Gary Evans: "Certainly, we acknowledge the problem, but it's not like I could start building it tomorrow, we don't have plans, we haven't purchased the property, we haven't moved the utilities, all that takes time. If money was no object and we were moving forward as quickly as possible, beating 2008 by much would be very difficult.â€

But money is an object. ODOT estimates the project will cost $40 million; right now the department has just half of that.