LAWTON – Mayor Stan Booker’s “10Wins for the Citizens” street repair program launched last fall quickly grew to 40 thoroughfares, and will continue to expand in the years ahead.
The City Council voted recently in favor of a minimum 2% increase from the previous years’ allocated budget for the Streets & Traffic Control Division’s Repair and Maintenance account for street mill-and-overlay and panel replacement projects.
According to City Manager John Ratliff, “We will take from other areas to fund the increases.” Each year the “payor” will be a different city department, he said.
City officials have adopted this approach because, “We’re having to fix years of neglect and we don’t want this to happen again,” Ratliff said.
“Not every street needs to be torn up and replaced,” said Councilman George Gill, chairman of the city’s Streets, Roads and Bridges Committee. “We need to use cost-effective and life-extending measures to repair our roads and bridges.”
Chris Serrano, project manager with EST civil engineering firm, said resurfacing with asphalt will extend the life of the streets for perhaps five to ten years. “The subbase of these streets is still in good condition,” he said. “The integrity of the roads is good” but patching will be required at some locations,” he added.
The Streets, Roads and Bridges Committee selected “some of the worst streets in Lawton” for mill-and-overlay work, councilman and committee member Kelly Harris said. “We also looked at traffic counts,” which factored into the selection of the streets.
Booker said he wants those 40 street repair projects finished by Thanksgiving 2024.
The first 10 streets were completed 19 days ahead of schedule, at a cost of $1.5 million, Gill said.Work on the next 15 is underway, in a $5.1 million contract awarded to T&G Construction of Lawton. A $5.1 million contract on the last 15 streets also was awarded to T&G, and that job is expected to start within the next 30 to 60 days, according to Caitlin Gatlin, the city’s communications and marketing director.
The Streets, Roads and Bridges Committee was created last August to develop an eight-year plan for street and bridge improvements throughout Lawton. The concept was borrowed from the Oklahoma Department of Transportation, which periodically updates its eightyear plan for state bridge and highway improvements.
Lawton’s streets have suffered from decades of inattention. Priorities established by the municipal committee are based at least in part on a pavement assessment that was completed in 2022.The evaluation concluded that 37.7% of Lawton’s streets were rated “good” to “excellent,” while 62.3% of them were deemed to be in “fair” to “very poor” condition.
In a related matter, the City Council approved a contract May 14 for reconstruction of about 1.3 miles of Goodyear Boulevard: from the railroad crossing just north of Southwest Neal Boulevard and extending north to Cache Road.
The $4.98 million contract was awarded to T&G Construction, the lowest of four bidders, and 200 calendar days were allotted for completion of the job. That project will be financed from the 2019 PROPEL Capital Improvement Fund, records reflect.
The council also approved an amendment May 14 to a contract for major construction work on nine roadways financed from the 2017 Ad Valorem Streets and Roads Program: Southwest 51st Street, Southwest Coral Avenue, Southwest 77th Street, Northwest Taylor Avenue, Southwest 43rd Street, Southwest Boyles Landing Road, Northwest Elm Avenue, Northwest Euclid Avenue, and Northwest 63rd Street.
That job includes paving, sidewalks compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act, driveways, storm drains, water lines and other improvements.
The price of that contract increased to $6,376,881. The 400-day job is not expected to be completed until sometime next year. Street, bridge bonds to be sold June 25 Last September, Lawton voters endorsed an extension of the 2017 Ad Valorem Streets and Roads Program, authorizing a $60 million bond issue for improvements to Lawton’s deteriorated streets and bridges.
The City Council voted May 14 to approve the sale of some of those General Obligation bonds. The $6.3 million tranche is expected to be sold on June 25; the principal on the bonds will be retired with nine annual payments of $700,000 each, starting Dec. 1, 2026.
The proposed street improvements listed in the $60 million bond issue Lawton voters considered last September included: Street Rehabilitation Projects
• Ferris Avenue between Northwest Second Street and Fort Sill Boulevard (eight-tenths of a mile).
• Southwest 52nd Street from Lee Boulevard to the railroad tracks (.45 mile).
• Cache Road between 67th and 82nd streets (one mile).
• SW 11th Street between Gore Boulevard and Lee Boulevard (one mile).
• Fort Sill Boulevard between Ferris Avenue and Rogers Lane (1.5 miles).
Estimated total cost: $37 million. Bridge Renovation Projects
• Replace bridges on 11th Street south of Interstate 44.
• Repair the Cache Road bridges west of 38th Street.
• Repair the East Cache Creek bridges on Gore Boulevard.
• Replace the Wolf Creek bridges on 11th Street and 44th Street.
• Rehabilitate the Numu Creek bridges on Park Avenue, 17th Street and Ninth Street.
• Repair/replace the Numu Creek bridge on Sheridan Road.
• Replace the Numu Creek bridge on 13th Street.
• Rehabilitate the Numu Creek bridge on Lee Boulevard.
• Repair the West Fork Wolf Creek bridge on Quanah Parker Trailway.
Estimated cost: $23 million.