OKLAHOMA CITY – The Oklahoma Capitol Improvement Authority will sell bonds to produce $500 million for financing three key state transportation projects, including one in Grady County.
The Oklahoma Transportation Commission on Dec. 2 authorized the sale of the tax-exempt bonds to finance much of the cost of:
• Realignment of U.S. Highway 81 near Chickasha; $175 million in bond proceeds are earmarked for that project.
• Construction on Interstate 35 in Cleveland, McClain, Garvin, Murray, Carter and Love counties; $162.5 million in bond funds would be dedicated to that project.
• Replacement of the bridge that carries U.S. Highway 70 over Lake Texoma; $162.5 million from the sales of the bonds would be devoted to that project, which might cost $181 million or more. Bond debt details The maximum principal amount of debt expected to be issued in one or more tranches “for reimbursement of capital expenditures related to the improvement projects” is $500 million, “after providing for costs of issuance, credit enhancement, reserves, capitalized interest, and other associated expenses related to financing,” a resolution adopted by the commission provides.
“We have relatively little debt” on the state highway system, said Bob Peterson, chairman of the Transportation Commission and chairman and chief executive officer of Melton Truck Lines, a long-haul flatbed trucking company based in Tulsa.
In terms of debt incurred by state transportation departments across the nation, “We’re in the bottom 10,” said Chelley Helmes, chief financial officer for the Oklahoma Department of Transportation. ODOT currently has $506 million in state-funded debt, Helmes told Southwest Ledger: $308 million in bonds issued by the Capitol Improvement Authority and $198 million Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act loans.
U.S. 81 realignment The realignment of U.S. 81 in Grady County is expected to relieve the volume of heavy traffic through downtown Chickasha. The highway merges from the northwest with Choctaw Avenue and then with South Fourth Street.
Average traffic volumes on U.S. 81 in Chickasha last year ranged from 5,700 vehicles per day (vpd) south of Chickasha Municipal Airport, between County Roads 1330 and 1340; 6,100 vpd a short distance south of Old Highway 62; 13,900 vpd on West Choctaw Avenue between Seventh and Eighth streets; 10,500 vpd on Fourth Street between Kansas and Colorado avenues; 14,100 vpd on Fourth Street between Minnesota and Dakota avenues; and 18,600 vpd on Fourth Street south of Grand Avenue and north of the H.E. Bailey Turnpike.
The realignment of U.S. 81 will feature construction of eight miles of a full access-controlled highway from just north of the SH-19 junction to north of the US-62 junction on the west side of town, said Mills Leslie with ODOT’s Strategic Communications Division.
The multiple projects will take more than three years to complete.
Eventually the project will include construction of four traffic lanes, six new interchanges and multiple bridges, at a “rough” estimated cost of $250 million to $300 million, Leslie said. Initially a two-lane highway will be constructed, “then hopefully we’ll add two more lanes later, depending on funding availability.”
Construction of the first two lanes, at an estimated price tag of $82 million, will take approximately 900 days – two and a half years – to complete, records indicate. The next phase will consist of bridge construction “and is tentatively scheduled to go out for bids in September 2025 for $21 million,” Leslie said.
The impact to traffic should be minimal, “as all of this will be constructed to the west of town,” she said.
Major safety and congestion-relief benefits of the realignment “will include moving freight traffic, including heavy commercial truck and oilfield traffic, out of downtown Chickasha onto the new alignment,” Leslie said.
For example, a 31.5-ton electric transformer being transported from south Texas to Oklahoma City slipped off a flatbed trailer and onto Fourth Street at Chickasha Avenue on July 26, 2023, blocking a major intersection for six hours.
Improvements to I-35 Bond proceeds earmarked for I-35 will be spent on projects that will expand the highway’s southern corridor to six lanes all the way from Cleveland County to the Texas border, ODOT Public Information Officer Kalie Eldridge said.
Average daily traffic volume last year on that 120-mile section of I-35 ranged from 126,200 in Cleveland County just south of the Oklahoma County line; to 77,400 just south of the Cleveland/Mc-Clain County line; 33,700 in Garvin County just south of the McClain County line; 32,800 in Murray County approximately three miles south of the Garvin County line; 45,600 in Carter County about three miles south of the Murray County line; 38,900 in Love County approximately three miles south of the Carter County line; and 51,000 a mile north of the Red River.
Lake Texoma bridge Roosevelt Memorial Bridge, constructed over Lake Texoma in 1942, is 4,943 feet long and carries two lanes of traffic lanes, one in each direction, on a 24-foot-wide steel-reinforced concrete deck. The bridge is supported on 87 spans. According to ODOT, “The bridge is functionally obsolete and at-risk of becoming structurally deficient.”
According to a November 2023 Oklahoma Transportation report, the bridge currently carries an average of 8,500 vehicles per day. “With major development underway, future traffic volumes are projected to exceed 27,000 vpd by 2050,” ODOT estimated.
A new multimodal bridge across Lake Texoma is planned on a new alignment south of the existing structure. The new bridge will have a total length of 10,625 feet and consist of 72 spans. The superstructure will be made of prestressed concrete girders that will support a concrete deck. The substructure will consist of multi-column piers with 10-foot diameter drilled shafts that will be founded on bedrock.
The bridge will have four lanes of traffic with 10-foot shoulders on each side and a median barrier to separate the directions of travel. The bridge also will have lighting fixtures to enhance visibility and safety at night.
Flooding of Lake Texoma has become more commonplace and more frequently overtops the bridge and causeway. Consequently, construction of the new bridge will raise its profile approximately 10 feet to provide additional clearance above high water, providing long-term resiliency to extreme weather events.