News from the Oklahoma Corporation Commission

OKLAHOMA CITY – The Oklahoma Corporation Commission has closed five railroad crossings in Bartlesville, but no one has been inconvenienced. Tracks of the South Kansas and Oklahoma Railroad that crossed Third Street, Short Avenue and Virginia, Pennsylvania and Rogers streets were removed sometime ago.

"Presently there are no tracks through the streets. The closure is a formality to remove the crossings from the national inventory of active crossings," G.R.(Buddy) Combs, Railroad Department manager, said.

The closures are part of an agreement reached between the commission and the SK&O Railroad that also includes rehabilitation of 15 crossings in Bartlesville, Dewey, Owasso, north Tulsa County and Tulsa.

Crossing surfaces improvements at Hensley and Frank Phillips boulevards and Cheyenne, 14th and 20th streets in Bartlesville and state highway 123 in Dewey have been completed. The other nine crossings will be upgraded at 60-day intervals with all improvements due for completion by June 30, 2000, Combs said.

Those crossings are at North 86th and North 76th streets in Owasso, a county road in north Tulsa County, and 1500 N. Lewis, 3200 N. Harvard, 3500 N. Yale, Pine Street and U.S. highway 75, 1000 Lansing, and Pine Street at Midland Avenue East in Tulsa.

The Corporation Commission regulates the opening, closing, modifications, site distance requirements and maintenance of all public railroad crossings in Oklahoma.

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