How Can Oklahoma Have Both the Best and Worst Roads?

Everybody has an opinion about Oklahoma roads.

Actually, scratch that...

Everybody has a study about Oklahoma roads, and they all contradict each other.

One report I wrote about a couple of years ago ranked Oklahoma as having some of the best roads in America.

Then another one published earlier this year suggested our roads were almost dead last.

Now there's another report putting Oklahoma back near the bottom.

So... which one is it?

Opinions of Oklahoma's roads apparently vary as much as the reports do. And beyond word of mouth, the reports all have charts and data. Rankings. Percentages. The whole works.

None of them actually measure the same thing.

One looks at pavement conditions. Another leans heavily on road roughness. One factors in maintenance spending. Another focuses on how much vehicle damage drivers report.

It's almost like asking who makes the best hamburger.

Some people care about the meat. Others praise the lettuce and fresh tomatoes. There are even people who will order and eat a subpar McBurger just because the fries are so good.

I think we can all agree, Oklahoma's roads aren't amazing. But if you've traveled outside the state, you'd also agree they're not that bad either... but it really depends on the road, I suppose.

If you're entering or exiting the state on I-35 at the Texas or Kansas line, Oklahoma's roads might as well be cobblestone. But the other highways in every direction tell a very different story.

That's probably why these road rankings bounce all over the place.

Then again...

Ask somebody from Lawton whether our roads have been good over the last forty years, and you'll probably get the same answer from just about everyone.

No.

For a long time it felt like every election season came with another promise.

"We're going to fix the roads."

Then we'd patch a few holes, cut a ribbon on some new unrelated city property they forgot to mention came from the road budget, and back to campaigning for the next round of new road (and other things) special tax collections.

It just became a normal thing in Lawton.

We gave extra money for roads and projects, and all that road money went to the other projects, time and time again, and we would complain.

I was super vocal about it, especially when the pandemic kicked off, and we all had nothing to do except sit around and find things to occupy our time. I waged a war of words on the city about our roads, without mercy. Things got to the point that a city official stopped by one day and asked us to chill out talking about it.

Now, in hindsight, I don't think it was the government censorship we perceived to be, but I don't think that particular elected official walked out feeling any better about that meeting than we did...

That's also why the local Facebook pages are somewhat hilarious right now.

Half the comments are new people complaining about all of the road construction and how inconvenient it is.

"This road is closed."

"Traffic is terrible."

"Why are they tearing everything up?"

They have no idea that for the first time in my lifetime, they're actually fixing our roads.

It's decades in the making, and I can't tell you how happy I am that the city official who asked us to stop talking about roads will get the last laugh from that meeting. His legacy will be a great one. He'll be known as the mayor who finally fulfilled the endless promises and built Lawton's new roads.

It's a huge win/win.

Maybe that's why these national rankings are all saying different things. Some see the progress as a long-endured and positive payoff. Others see orange cones and think their day is ruined.

Whether Oklahoma is fourth, forty-fourth, or somewhere in between depends on who made the spreadsheet that particular day.

What matters more is what you feel through the steering wheel, which I'm happy to say, in Lawton, things are finally smoothing out.