Putting public safety funding toward maintaining Tulsa streets can cut down on accidents, especially if the right materials are used.
Part of that street maintenance money would be for striping and signs. Traffic Operations Manager Kurt Kraft said accidents could be reduced 12 to 16 percent by using retroreflective materials.
"If you have a matte finish, it just diffuses the light," Kraft said. "If you have glossy, it bounces it away from you, but retroreflectivity, there's actually glass beads in the pavement markings that are directing that light back toward your eye so you can see it."
Retroreflective markings can be seen from farther away, which is important for an older population.
"By the time you're 46, you need four times the amount of light to see the same thing as a 20-year-old does," Kraft said. "It goes all the way up to, like, 32 times for an 85-year-old."
Kraft told city councilors his employees can’t do much with their current budget.
"We don't have a pavement marking inventory. We don't schedule reviewing pavement markings," Kraft said. "We're not proactive, we're reactive in our pavement marking, you know, we basically go, we get the little funding we do and we spend it all."
City officials are considering a total of three-tenths of a cent in sales tax to fund public safety: two-tenths of the potential Vision renewal and one-tenth from an Improve Our Tulsa renewal.
