Countywide & Sun
The completion of a project to four-lane Gordon Cooper Drive between Tecumseh and Shawnee “is finally coming to fruition,” the chairman of the state Transportation Commission told the Tecumseh City Council Monday night.
Dan Overland of Shawnee told the council that the Oklahoma Department of Transportation “remains committed” to paying for 80 percent of the estimated $2.4 million cost, and it appears that funding for the city’s 20 percent — about $400,000 — may be forthcoming.
“The Citizen Potawatomi Nation may apply for federal funds that would cover it all,” Overland said, “and the Absentee Shawnee Tribe has the ability to help and cooperate. There are a number of ways to approach the city’s issue of funding.”
The project would add two lanes to Gordon Cooper Drive (formerly Hwy. 18) from Bob Crouch Drive to Benson Park Road. The road was widened from the Hwy. 9 intersection to the U.S. 177 interchange in 2000 as part of a massive 1997 road program proposed by then-Gov. Frank Keating and approved by the Legislature.
The entire section of road, from Hwy. 9 to Benson Park, was approved in that package, but funding ran short and only part was done.
To read more about this project and other matters discussed at the Tecumseh City Council meeting, see Thursday’s Countywide & Sun.
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Thu, April 7, 2011
by John Cox