ODOT Cancels Project Due To Budget Cuts

Monday, October 2nd 2017, 6:51 pm

By: Karl Torp

The Oklahoma Department of Transportation lays out their new eight-year plan and it has much fewer projects than before.

On Monday, ODOT outlined the impact $840 million in budget cuts over the past seven years are having on their eight-year project plan.

ODOT was cut by $153 million by lawmakers this year.

“Eventually you get to the point that you can’t do everything you told people you can do,” says ODOT Executive Director Mike Patterson.

ODOT says 40 state projects have been removed from the eight-year plan, which is the first time projects have ever been canceled from the plan.

42 percent of the roughly 1,500 projects in ODOT’s eight-year plan have been pushed back at least a year. That includes an interchange at I-40 and Douglas Blvd.

The project will start in 2025, not 2020 as originally thought.