Mayor debuts new centralized list for all OKC street projects

Oklahoma City Mayor David Holt took to social media on Wednesday evening to unveil a new resource - a centralized website listing all street projects in the Metro area. The website, part of the Better Streets, Safer City initiative, lists over 300 projects that are either planned, underway or already complete.

"There are so many street projects coming out of this remarkable commitment of funding that it can be overwhelming", the Mayor tweeted. "So, I wanted them in one place that people could easily review, both to understand the magnitude but also to look for your street."

The Better Streets, Safer City program was approved by the voters in 2017. By means of a bond issue and a one-cent sales tax the initiative is expected to provide a total of $766,580,000 dollars for street projects. The sales tax will be collected through March, 2020.

The Mayor pointed out the unique issues behind the city's continuing struggle with infrastructure, "(1) We have one of the largest cities by land mass in the US (620+ square miles). Compare that to Boston, which has almost the exact same population but across only 90 square miles). (2) We typically fund street maintenance through property taxes. Among other reasons, we do this because in Oklahoma we are the only state in the US that doesn’t allow cities to use property tax for any city operations. So we use it to fund infrastructure."

The website lists 43 projects currently in progress with another 260 planned and 3 already completed.

The website is located at : https://data.okc.gov/portal/cu... Mayor Holt promised to update and share the list regularly.

(image courtesy Lost Ogle)