OKLAHOMA CITY – Tolls will rise next year on Oklahoma’s turnpikes, in varying amounts based on infrastructure improvements planned in the long-range ACCESS Oklahoma plan.
According to Oklahoma Turnpike Authority Executive Director Joe Echelle, effective Jan. 1 toll rates will increase:
• 15% on the I-44/H.E. Bai ley, Creek, Indian Nation, and Muskogee turnpikes.
• 20% on the I-44/Turner, I-44/Will Rogers, I-344/John Kilpatrick, and I-335/Kickapoo turnpikes.
• 10% on the Cima rron, Cherokee and Chickasaw turnpikes.
In addition, a resolution the OTA board approved Dec. 10 reported that beginning on New Year’s Day 2027, “and on each two-year anniversary date thereafter,” all toll rates for use of Oklahoma’s turnpike system “shall be adjusted automatically by an increase of 6% to reflect inflation.”
The OTA cited inflation in announcing that its ongoing 15-year ACCESS Oklahoma Project will cost $8.2 billion rather than the $5 billion initial projection.
ACCESS Oklahoma is intended to improve and enlarge the state’s turnpike network. The agency’s goal during the process has been to make those renovations while maintaining low toll rates.
“This new estimate factors in 60% inflation in material and labor costs since the program’s announcement in December 2021 and anticipates future inflation,” Echelle said.
OTA Legislative Liaison Jordan Perdue announced last month that three system improvement projects costing a total of $125 mil lion have been added to the ACCESS Oklahoma plan.
One of those will be a n H.E. Bailey pavement reconstruction project between mile marker 20, at Walters, and mm 30 south of Lawton at the SH36 junction. That work is scheduled to start in 2026 and will cost an estimated $47 million, OTA spokesperson Lisa Shearer-Salim said.
Oklahoma’s population of 4,088,000 ranks 28th in the nation but this state has the nation’s 14th largest transportation infrastructure, at 238,754 lane miles, Echelle said. The 20-cent per-gallon fuel tax is the fourth lowest in the nation – w hich is one reason why Oklahoma has 12 turnpikes totaling more than 600 miles.
Prior to the toll road system, much of Oklahoma’s highway system in the 1940s “was unimproved,” Echelle related, and Route 66 was “the state’s busiest highway.”
In 1947 the Legislature authorized construction of the Turner Turnpike, and the 86-mile route – a paved, divided highway between Oklahoma City and Tulsa – opened in 1953.
Although originally the Turner was to become a “free” highway after its bonds were retired, subsequently the law was changed, reportedly around 1954, to allow cross-pledging of tolls, thereby enabling the Turner and other more profitable routes to subsidize other toll roads.
Approximately one-third of all toll revenue is devoted to maintenance of the turnpikes, one-third supports operation of the turnpikes, and one-third is earmarked to pay the debt service on bonds sold to finance Oklahoma turnpikes, Echelle said.
After the OTA made its Jan. 1, 2024, debt service payment, the system owed $2.167 billion that would be retired in 2053. However, that was before the OTA board voted to enter the bond market early next year for an additional $1 billion in bonds, Salim noted.
The Turnpike Authority has made its payments on time for 71 years, since 1953, Echelle said.
Turnpike tolls have been raised several times over the past seven decades, records show. The rate increased 14.3% in late 1969 to pay for the Indian Nation and Muskogee turnpikes; 12.5% in 1975 to pa y for the Cimarron Turnpike; 30% in 1991, 10.1% in 1993, and 4.1% in 1995 to pa y for the John Kilpatrick, Creek, Chickasaw and Cherokee turnpikes; in 2001 to pa y for extension of the Kil patrick and Creek turnpikes and construction of the Bailey spur near Norman; 12.5% in March 2017, 2.5% in January 2018, and 2.5% in July 2019 for the “Driving Forward” program.
Tolls also were raised twice for reasons that had nothing to do with turn pike construction, Echelle said: 11.1% in 1979 because of a petroleum crisis, and 16% in 2009 because of a f inancial crisis.
The increases of 1991 and 1993 were incentives to persuade customers to abandon cash in favor of the PikePass transponder system, the director said. Today the OTA has 3.4 million active PikePass toll tags, Salim said. Okla. toll rates among lowest in the nation Despite the toll hikes, Oklahoma’s toll rates are among the lowest in the nation, records indicate. Passenger vehicles pay approximately 7 cents per mile of toll road in Oklahoma, compared to a national average rate of 22 cents per passenger mile.
In comparison, the most expensive toll road in the U.S. appears to be the Pocahontas Parkway in Virginia – an 8.8-mile turnpike connecting Interstate 95 with Star Route 150 and the only crossing of the James River. The cost for a two-axle vehicle is $5.75.
In comparison, the toll for an automobile or pickup driving the 88-mile Turner Turnpike between Oklahoma City and Tulsa is $4.50, or 5.11 cen ts per mile; after the increase Jan. 1 the rate will be $5.40, or 6.13 cents per mile.
“More than half of our turnpike users are from out of state,” OTA Board Chairman John Jones said.