What do Oklahoma’s roads look like?

• Thousands of county and state bridges need repair or replacement
• Thousands of highway miles are rated critical or inadequate
• Hundreds of two lane narrow roads exist that are 56% more likely to cause accidents
• Hundreds of wooden bridges still in use, many built during President Roosevelt’s administration

What’s the problem?

Funding. Oklahomans pay more than $1 billion in road taxes and fees each year, but for decades only about $218 million of these tax dollars make their way back to state highways and bridges.  Funding for Oklahoma’s highways was stagnant for more than 30 years. In fact, Oklahoma spent more money in 1985 than in 2004 to maintain highways. During that same 30 years traffic on state roads increased 50% and the cost to build and maintain roads increased 75%.

Thankfully, the Oklahoma Legislature has provided significant increases to transportation funding over the last six years, providing over $625 million through 2015 in additional funding. This is a tremendous first step, however Oklahoma still has billions in unfunded road and bridge repairs.

How do we fix it?

Funding. At nearly $40 billion our state transportation system is our largest asset. We must protect its future by restoring it with continued funding increases and investments to insure Oklahoma’s future infrastructure.

This will take significant infusions of increased funding from a source that is dedicated and permanent. TRUST believes the most logical choice is to use more of the existing $1 billion in road taxes and fees Oklahomans already pay each year. Namely, TRUST believes the significant percentage of motor vehicle fees currently diverted to the general revenue fund be dedicated entirely to transportation-related needs.