City Council Has Talk On The Streets

Street talk continues from the Tulsa City Council.  A plan to pay for streets repairs will be on the ballot in November.  But, The News On 6's Emory Bryan reports councilors have not decided how big the plan will be and they may pass that decision off to the voters.

The intersection at 11^th and Lewis is set for work on either of the two competing plans and the option of turning both of them down.  The options are 12 years or five years, $2 billion or $452 million.  It's the difference between fixing the streets or just getting started on them.

The question for councilors is not how much to spend on the streets because the cost is clear.

"To fix the streets significantly is $1.6 billion," said Dewey Bartlett, Jr. of the Save Our Streets Committee.

The question before the Tulsa City Council is how much to commit to spending and for how long.

"We're either committed to fixing the streets or we're not," said Tulsa City Councilor Bill Martinson.

The city council has competing plans with the same goal - but different timelines and costs.

Both use a scientific measure of street quality called PCI:  Pavement Condition Index.  Both have a goal of improving that score, which according to the city, has steadily declined since at least 1992.

The five year plan would improve the PCI to 62 by 2014 and could be extended to do more.  The longer plan would improve the PCI to 63 in five years, and go on to reach 70 by 2021.

Some streets are included under both plans, such as rebuilding the intersection of 31st and Harvard at a cost of $1.7 million.

But, the shorter plan puts off rebuilding Harvard from Admiral to Pine, leaving it on the list of backlogged projects.

The longer plan was shopped around in public meetings and the feedback convinced Mayor Kathy Taylor that voters might not support it.

Councilors Bill Christiansen, Jack Henderson, and G.T. Bynum agreed.

The six other councilors support the longer plan, though some on both sides believe it should be up to the voters.

"And, let the voters decide if they want to put the five year package or the 12 year package forward," said Tulsa City Councilor David Patrick.

Once councilors make the call on one or the other or both, the question for voters will be what it's worth to get better streets.

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