Highway

A $6bn, eight-year plan to upgrade highways and bridges has received approval from the Oklahoma Transportation Commission.

Designed a decade ago, the Federal Fiscal Year 2014-2021 Eight-Year Construction Work Plan includes improvement projects on more than 2,000 highways and bridges to be completed by the end of the decade.

It involves replacing or rehabilitating 924 bridges and upgrading 657 miles of two-lane highways, as well as 552 miles of high-volume highways and interstates across the state.

The new plan will also help advance projects to ease congestion on the state’s busiest interstate interchanges.

Oklahoma Department of Transportation (ODOT) executive director Mike Patterson said: "With this comprehensive eight-year plan, ODOT will continue to address our structurally deficient highway bridges and move Oklahoma over to the list of states with the best bridges in the nation."

Among the projects included in the plan is the ongoing Broadway Extension/I-235/I-44 interchange reconstruction, the $125m reconstruction of I-35/I-240 interchange on Oklahoma City’s southeast side, and the $18m project to rebuild over seven miles of the southbound lanes near Stringtown in Atoka County.

The plan also includes major bridge projects such as the $20m scheme to replace the US169 truss bridges over Bird Creek between Tulsa and Owasso.

The project will be financed by a combination of state and federal transportation funds.

The commission has also awarded contracts to revamp or replace 52 bridges, including 20 that are structurally deficient.

Image: The new plan will help advance projects to ease congestion on few state’s busiest interstate interchanges.