At least one state lawmaker believes the Legislature should have a voice in setting turnpike tolls.
Rep. Gabe Woolley, an incoming freshman legislator who was elected to office this year, issued a press release earlier this month in which he said, “Having to pay to drive across your own home state is … frustrating” for many Oklahomans. But citizens “feeling like they are further removed from having a say in the process is perhaps even more frustrating.”
The Broken Arrow Republican stated unequivocally, “I do not support these turnpike fee increases or the manner in which they are determined and enforced.”
Oklahoma has 11 turnpikes, and the Oklahoma Turnpike Authority recently voted to raise the tolls on them, effective Jan. 1, by:
• 10% on the Cimarron, Cherokee and Chickasaw turnpikes.
• 15% on the I-44/H.E. Bailey, 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.
Woolley contends that the OTA should be “accountable to the people of Oklahoma” and that “any financial adjustments that impact” the public should be “approved by the state Legislature.”
In a recent conversation with Southwest Ledger, Woolley conceded that traveling a turnpike rather than driving on an alternative state or federal highway is a voluntary, not compulsory, choice. Even so, “The people have not elected any board member on the Turnpike Authority,” he said.
The difference is that so-called “free roads” are constructed and maintained with public tax dollars, while turnpikes are supported entirely by user fees a/k/a tolls.
Approximately one-third of all toll revenue is devoted to maintenance of the turnpikes; one-third supports operation of the turnpikes, including salaries and expenses of the Oklahoma Highway Patrol troopers who monitor traffic on those highways; and onethird is earmarked to pay the debt service on bonds sold to finance Oklahoma turnpikes, OTA Executive Director Joe Echelle said during a recent OTA board meeting.
“Oklahoma’s Legislature chose decades ago to pay for highway infrastructure with two separate funding mechanisms,” OTA spokesperson Lisa Shearer-Salim related. Motor fuel taxes, state and federal funding “pay for the state highway system” operated by the Oklahoma Department of Transportation, “and a direct-user pay-as-you-go toll network” is operated by the Oklahoma Turnpike Authority.
OTA’s sole source of funding is toll revenue and the Authority does not receive any state appropriations from the Legislature, she pointed out. “I’d also note that Oklahoma’s motor fuel tax is the fourth lowest in the nation and OTA’s toll rates are among the lowest in the nation,” she added.
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.
The OTA “historically has been viewed positively by credit rating agencies and investors” because of the OTA governing board’s “conservative oversight of the agency and its strong and effective management to operate and maintain the turnpike system,” Shearer-Salim continued.
The Turnpike Authority “is obligated through its trust indenture to set toll rates sufficient to pay bond debt, operate and maintain the turnpike system,” she said. Toll rates are reviewed by an independent consultant “to ensure that the Authority meets all requirements of its trust indenture while also considering toll sensitivity.”
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 in early 2025 for an additional $1 billion in bonds, Shearer- Salim reported.
The Turnpike Authority has made its payments on time for 71 years, since 1953, Echelle said.
State Capitol veterans recall that in the late 1990s the Democrat-controlled Oklahoma Legislature reneged on its vow to repay the federal government for construction of Sardis Lake.
In January 2007 the U.S. Supreme Court let stand a June 2006 ruling by the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver, which decreed that Oklahoma was “legally required to perform its obligations” under a 1974 contract for construction of the lake.
That contract required Oklahoma to repay the federal government in 50 annual payments and to pay future operating costs for the reservoir in Pushmataha County.
The lake opened in 1983. The state made six payments through 1990, then fell behind until 1996, when federal officials threatened to sue. That resulted in two payments totaling $1.6 million, but payments stopped altogether in 1997. By then the state had paid $4.4 million of a $38 million construction debt.
In 2010 the Oklahoma Water Resources Board approved a $42 million agreement with Oklahoma City that gave Oklahoma City access to 90% of the water in the lake in exchange for the city paying off the state’s debt on Sardis Lake.