U.S. Transportation Secretary Tours New Tulsa Bridges

The country's top transportation official is in Tulsa on Thursday afternoon.

United States Secretary of Transportation Anthony Foxx is in town to see how Oklahoma is improving its corridors.

Foxx said the vision in Oklahoma is relevant in Washington, and the way Oklahoma is working to improve again roads and bridges show what can be done by focusing on transportation investments.

He complimented the newly opened and improved Interstate 244 Bridge over the Arkansas River.

But there's still a lot of work to be done.

The Oklahoma Department of Transportation says there are nearly 2,000 projects scheduled in its eight-year construction plan.

There's a constant stream of traffic along Interstate 44 at the Highway 75 exchange.

It's a historic stretch of the Oklahoma Interstate System, the oldest in the state that was built in 1953.

It was great then, but wasn't built at that time to withstand the 80,000 cars and trucks that drive it every day now.

“The drivers who are traveling on this freeway are driving on infrastructure that was not designed for the 21st century,” Foxx said.

Foxx is traveling the country, to make the case that projects, like reconstructing I-44, are vital in our country. He says the better the roads, the better the commerce. But right now, he says the vision of generations past is in jeopardy.

“We're at a critical juncture as a country, we're at the precipice of passing off worse infrastructure system than we inherited,” he said.

ODOT says it would cost somewhere around $350 million to bring the interstate up to today's standards by widening lanes and adding shoulders.

And U.S. Sen Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) says the cost of keeping up what we have now is adding up.

“If you just look at maintaining what we have today, that would cost an additional $15 billion over the proceeds of the Highway Trust Fund.

But funding, on both the state and national level, is hard to come by.

“This summer, in fact, the funds that support the transportation system nearly went bankrupt and at the last minute Congress was able to patch up some funding that will take us through May of next year,” Foxx said.

Foxx is asking Congress to approve the Grow America Act, a $302 billion, multi-year proposal that would boost funding for all forms of ground transportation while focusing on the future.

“You want to know you're that you're leaving the next generation better than you found the place,” Foxx said.