US 75 Closed at I-244

[US71]

US 75 southbound is closed at I-244 in Tulsa after a chunk of concrete falls on a motorist.

[Scott5114]

Not the first time this has happened in Oklahoma. About 10 years ago the SH-145 bridge over I-35 in Paoli dropped a chunk of concrete on a woman from Texas and killed her. It resulted in legislative panic and ODOT got some cash for bridge repairs.

[bugo]

This happened on I-44/US 66 on the east end of Tulsa a few years back. I'm wanting to say it was the 177th E Avenue bridge (which has since been replaced).

[bugo]

This section of highway is secret I-444 as well as US 75.

[brad2971]

Oklahoma only fixes roads when they catastrophically fail. That's a sign of a dysfunctional government.

At least Tulsa has some ways around that little issue. From the land of supposed functional government:

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=newssearch&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CBwQqQIoADAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.vox.com%2F2014%2F10%2F9%2F6951745%2Fkiel-canal-german-austerity&ei=PtxCVP2YLNj_yQT8toGIDg&usg=AFQjCNEg-XcQPZqfviRmUnjHoGprXkVxXg&bvm=bv.77648437,d.aWw

The shipping companies in the area are dunning their customers for "emergency surcharges."

[NE2]

Austerity != functional government.

[brad2971]

Austerity != functional government.

The European Union's common market aside, I'm  becoming amused at how, slowly,  Germany is emulating 1980's US economic and government behavior.

[english si]

Austerity != functional government.

But at the same time is spending money you don't have function government?

The European Union's common market aside, I'm  becoming amused at how, slowly,  Germany is emulating 1980's US economic and government behavior.

The whole point of the common market is so Germany can control economic policy in Europe (which is a key reason why the UK and the EU don't really get along): provided they subsidise France's farmers and Eastern Europe (and in previous decades southern Italy, Spain, Portugal, Ireland, etc) they can flog their wares across Europe and close the continent off (well those in the EU - EFTA and non-members are free to make their own free trade deals) from competitors like the US, Russia, China, Japan, India, Taiwan, etc via draconian tariffs if they so desire. It's not too disimilar to the US foreign policy supporting Dole et al in Latin America in the 80s - even going as far as coup d'tats (Italy and Greece) to hold the economic status quo which heavily favours Germany at the expense of the periphery.

[J N Winkler]

To be fair to Oklahoma, in Kansas we had a similar panic several years ago when a bridge carrying a county road over the Turnpike dropped concrete, fortunately not on traffic.  Old infrastructure is just old, wherever it is located.

[Scott5114]

Oklahoma's government was dysfunctional before the current austerity fad. The SH-145 incident mentioned above occurred in 2004. Oklahoma simply fails to keep up with maintenance on a lot of things, and ODOT fails to force contractors to correct sloppy work before paying them.

These problems are worse in Tulsa, which seems to get less in the way of DOT attention than the Oklahoma City area does. I-35 through south OKC was expanded to six lanes through the 1990s and early 2000s, while I-44 in Tulsa is just now getting the same treatment. There used to be a little bit of a roadgeek joke that the ODOT budget for the Tulsa region is twelve dollars.