Oklahoma is on a mission to ensure it never again wins the dubious honor of having the nation’s highest percentage of substandard bridges. The Oklahoma Transportation Commission this month approved a $4.3-billion, eight-year budget to fund 1,750 vital bridge and highway projects from 2011 through 2018. The transportation budget is the state’s largest ever, says Oklahoma Dept. of Transportation spokeswoman Terri Angier.
In 2002, the non-profit organization The Road Information Program (TRIP) reported that Oklahoma had the country’s highest percentage of structurally deficient or functionally obsolete bridges—33%, or about 1,500 structures. Since then, DOT has sought to catch up on a backlog of projects, a consequence of “underfunding transportation work for 40 years,” Angier says.