“Hairy streets” were what Ward 1 councilmember “Midway Bob” Thompson called the City of Norman’s untrimmed arterial roads at a September 2007 council retreat.

“We need to look good as you are driving down our streets,” Thompson said at that retreat.

And then-new City Manager Steve Lewis replied that there was no document that shows what the City of Norman mows and what is mowed by property owners’ associations and other entities like the University of Oklahoma and Oklahoma Department of Transportation.

“We’re going to be getting all those areas mapped,” Lewis said at the retreat.

Public Works Director Shawn O’Leary presented to council at Tuesday’s study session the 2008 Right-of-Way Maintenance Program that shows the responsibilities of different entities and how they interrelate.

Part of the challenge to taking care of Norman’s streets is that there are so many of them. The City covers 196 square miles, more than twice as large in area as its closest benchmark city of 92-square-mile Fremont, Calif., and Edmond, with 88 square miles.

And the City has about 650 miles of roads to maintain, with 819 miles of roads in the city limits. The additional roads are private roads, miles of state roads and highways.

“This is not a new issue — we’ve been maintaining right-of-way for a long, long time,” O’Leary said. He said the plan works to maximize resources.

With the growing season having started March 15, street crews are swinging into motion. Norman’s season typically lasts until Oct. 15 or about 30 weeks of maintenance.

Goals of the right-of-way maintenance program improvements are:

• Providing safe, visible, esthetically pleasing and well-drained right-of-way

• Improving turf maintenance throughout the City of Norman

• Maximizing resources for the program

The program stakeholders include the City of Norman’s parks, street and code compliance departments, OU, Cleveland County, ODOT, Norman Public Schools, neighborhood property owner associations, private property owners and the BNSF Railway Company.

He listed priority areas as portal entries into Norman, major arterial roads, major section line roads, downtown and Campus Corner and locations where special events are planned.