OKLAHOMA
CITY – The Oklahoma Transportation Commission on Monday awarded $63
million for the largest and most complex phase of the massive Crosstown
Expressway project in Oklahoma City.
This stage of the $600
million project to move about 4.5 miles of Interstate 40 to the south
of its present downtown location will include a large amount of dirt
work and involve city streets, rail lines, drainage and retaining
walls, officials said.
“Pieces of what we kind of refer to as the
‘center section’ are part of our continuing plan to have the Crosstown
relocation completed in 2012, and we’re on target with that,” Gary
Ridley, director of the Oklahoma Department of Transportation, said
after the meeting.
A delay in the phase work was avoided when an
issue involving a Burlington Northern Santa Fe rail line that lies in
the project’s path was resolved, ODOT spokeswoman Terri Angier said.
The
federal Surface Transportation Board approved a request by the rail
line to relocate the mile-long section after reversing an earlier
decision that would have allowed the company to discontinue use of the
tracks.
The state wasn’t directly involved in the issue, but is
paying to relocate the rail line. A bridge will be built for rail
traffic and the highway will pass underneath it, along the route of the
rail line.
Work is scheduled to begin in the fall and last until spring 2011, officials said.
In
other business, Ridley told commissioners that the state Transportation
Department has submitted a preliminary application, or “letter of
intent,” for $1.99 billion in funding from President Obama’s high-speed
rail plan.
Under the proposal, high-speed rail service would be
provided from downtown Oklahoma City to downtown Tulsa. The route is
part of a nationally designated high-speed rail corridor that stretches
from Houston to San Antonio and Dallas and northward into Oklahoma and
Missouri.
“It really would tie the large population areas of Dallas, Oklahoma City and the Tulsa area to the Midwest,” Ridley said.
Improvements
to overpasses, acquisition of equipment and new signaling would be
needed between Tulsa and the Texas state line south of Ardmore, ODOT
officials said.
If the application is approved for further
consideration, a formal application will be submitted later this month,
officials said. Feedback from the U.S. Department of Transportation on
issues such as funding will determine how the state Transportation
Department proceeds, officials said.
Ridley said high-speed rail
service will become a bigger factor in the state’s future
transportation needs, but certain criteria have to be met.
“It
has to be dependable, it has to certainly be affordable for the people
who use it, it has to be convenient so that people will use it and it
has to be subsidized,” Ridley said.