Mayor Bartlett presented the streets and traffic portions of his public safety proposal to city councilors today.
Streets and Stormwater Director Roy Teeters said it’s clear how those areas tie in with public safety.
"All the traffic — potential accidents caused from trying to dodge potholes and also pay attention to the red light," Teeters said. "Is it yellow and it's fixing to turn red? And I've got to dodge this pothole and make it through that intersection."
Tulsa has nearly 4,400 lane miles of streets and not many workers to maintain them.
"Presently, we have five crews," Bartlett said. "Each crew is staffed by four to five people. That's what we use now to maintain our street system."
Bartlett told councilors his proposal will pay for three in-house street maintenance crews. Those crews can perform 720 permanent paving repairs and seal 18 lane miles per year, stopping the formation of potholes in the repaired areas.
The city filled 25 percent fewer potholes last year than in 2010, and Bartlett said there are no permanent repairs happening now, leading to large repair projects that are contracted out.
Extending part of the expiring Vision sales tax would also pay for enough workers to bring Tulsa’s traffic engineering department up to federally recommended staffing levels.
"What the citizens would see out of that is improved striping, those stop signs that don't reflect as good would be inspected on a regular basis and swapped out," Teeters said. "When you see that traffic signal, and you see that left-hand turn and there's no one there to left-hand turn? That's simply a maintenance issue."
Bartlett told city councilors there are just 40 positions to take care of the entire city traffic system. Tulsa has 515 traffic “signals,” which really refers to every traffic light at a given intersection.
Bartlett said his public safety funding proposal will more than double the number of traffic signal technicians in the city.
"Federal Highway Administration recommends one signal technician for every 30 to 40 signal systems," Bartlett said. "We presently have five. One technician for every 103 signal systems."
