Editorial--Vote Yes on SQ 723

In spite of record high gasoline prices Oklahoma motorists have no choice but to vote Yes on State Question 723 on September 13. Oklahoma leads the nation in obsolete bridges, built to last 50 years. Some 660 of them were built before the Model A car. Many won't hold today's school busses or ambulances. Some are just falling down, in pieces. We still have 135 bridges built before 1920 including 190 built out of wood. We have 162 bridges over 80 years old.
Consider this: Of our 6700 bridges, 1600 are functionally obsolete and structurally deficient, too narrow for today's traffic and never designed for today's loads.
Every eight days, 14 people die on our highways, including at least one child, due to inadequate roads and highways, roads without paved shoulders, recovery areas, passing opportunities, median barriers, or multi-lanes where needed.
The proposed tax will be phased in over three years; the first year gasoline would cost two cents more; the second year another two cents and the third year, a penny more, for a total of five cents. It will raise another $150 million for highway improvements, put in a "lockbox" to be used only for roads and bridges. A Trust Fund an oversight board will see to it. The new tax would bring us up to our neighboring states' level.
People go into Arkansas, Missouri and Kansas and note that their roads are better than ours.
There's a reason...they pay more in taxes than we do.
Nobody likes more taxes, but in this case, we must do it, bite the bullet. The alternative is that in 10 years many of our roads and bridges will be unusable. The two most important items in the growth of a state are education and transportation.
Vote Yes on Sept. 13.