Bypass project halted; bridges ODOT priority

By Liz McMahan
Assistant City Editor

January 11, 2009 12:46 am

— A proposed bypass of Wagoner and Hulbert on Oklahoma 51 likely won’t happen anytime soon, said Darren Saliba, Division 1 engineer for the Oklahoma Department of Transportation.
The area between Wagoner and Hulbert was under an environmental clearance study in preparation for the project, but that request for clearance now has been halted.
The requested environmental clearance study area now includes only the approaches to the Grand River bridge east of Wagoner, Saliba said.
The reason:
“With available revenues, it’s a matter of establishing priorities, and certainly bridges are a priority right now,” he said.
He hopes the right of way to the bridge approaches will be acquired sometime this year. Construction is to begin in 2011, he said.
The right of way acquisition and contract for moving utilities from the right of way from the Taylor Ferry area east to the Sequoyah State Park entrance (2.6 miles) is expected to be let in July, according to a plan posted on ODOT’s Web site.
Bridge construction is scheduled to begin in 2011, Saliba said.
Other bridge replacement priorities he listed in this area include:
• 14-Mile Creek between Wagoner and Hulbert.
• Eastbound bridge over Verdigris River west of Wagoner.
• Eastbound bridge over Billy Creek, which is east of Verdigris River and west of Wagoner.
Saliba said Division 1 — Muskogee, Wagoner, McIntosh, Cherokee, Adair, Okmulgee, Haskell and Sequoyah counties — has a lot of projects included in the eight-year plan.
“Certainly, I wish there were more,” he said.
He said he and other ODOT officials are hopeful the state’s transportation system might be helped by an economic stimulus plan proposed by President-elect Barack Obama.
“We are working very, very hard on preparing projects (to propose),” he said.

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