Amidst Rising Oklahoma Turnpike Tolls, Here’s Why They Still Cost Money to Travel

Early on Tuesday morning (12/10/24) the Oklahoma Turnpike Authority held a board meeting to discuss many things. While there was a bit of cheerleading employees and awards given, the main topic to come out of this meeting was the rate change for Oklahoma turnpikes.

Rates will rise beginning on January 1st across all toll roads in the Sooner State.

OTA insists it will equate to a +/- 15% increase in toll prices, but the OKC to Tulsa trip jumped a dead-even 20% either way you drive it. Additionally, as OTA builds out the ACCESS Oklahoma Program (a bunch of new toll roads), they've laid the groundwork that tolls will continue to rise 6% every two years until the project is done.

OTA knew this would be an unpopular decision, so much so that they've limited comments across social media platforms such as YouTube and the like. Trying to get ahead of the public outcry, OTA Director Joe Echelle did offer the following quote.

Sometime in the future, when it's no longer necessary to increase tolls, we won’t

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We've heard all of that before.

Depending on how long you've lived in Oklahoma, this has always been the selling point of new toll roads.

"We build it and when travelers pay it off, we no longer need to collect tolls."

This was literally the selling point in 1947 when the Oklahoma Turnpike Authority was created, but it continues to operate and continually collects tolls thanks to some slick political jargon someone snuck into the original bill.

Here's why long-paid-off turnpikes still cost Oklahoma travelers money.

When America entered its greatest time of prosperity after WWII, state officials wanted to piggyback on the country's road plan. This was before the US Interstate Highway system and those plans didn't matter anyway. Oklahoma was looking to connect itself to its capital city. The easiest way to do this was by selling bonds to pay for a toll road that drivers could eventually pay off.

The Oklahoma Turnpike Authority was created in 1947, and charged with connecting Tulsa and Lawton to Oklahoma City.

Oklahoma's governor at the time, Roy Turner, was a strong supporter of this idea since it would expedite the state's infrastructure faster than anyone at the federal level could, but it didn't come about without some strong arguments.

Looking out for the people, Governor Turner insisted that any and all toll roads must become free to travel after the debt had been paid. Best estimates put this paid-off timeline at forty years per toll road. The state legislature agreed and this is how our Turnpike system started, but it didn't last long.

Too good to be true.

For whatever reason, with so much buzz about the promise of good and efficient roads to be built across the state, politicians managed to sell the public a ballot question about a turnpike extension from Lawton to the Texas border. Naturally, the public voted YES on it without a second thought, but there was something tucked deep into the fine print.

Oklahoma State Question 933 was the vote on whether the H.E. Bailey/Lawton Turnpike should extend all the way to the Texas state line, but it was also amended to include a blurb about cross-pledging tolls.

The long and short of it was this... It would allow two or more Turnpike projects to be combined and financed as one project. It also allowed for the tolls of all toll roads to be collected and used to pay for any others, even after they'd been paid off.

It was sold to the public on a promise that the Turnpike toll roads would be paid off faster if all could collect on a single debt, so it passed the vote without a second thought.

Little did Oklahoma voters know that they really opened a really expensive can of worms.

The key term here is "cross-pledging tolls."

Simply put, as long as there is one toll road to collect for, all toll roads will keep charging.

Even though the H.E. Bailey has been paid off since the 1990s, we still pay tolls on it because the Oklahoma Turnpike Authority keeps coming up with toll roads to build.

They keep adding turnpikes or improvements because the law says we have to keep paying tolls to fund them until everything is paid off.

This is likely why Oklahoma keeps building/rebuilding/renovating new toll booths all the time. As long as there is a bill on any toll road, all toll roads continue collecting.

ACCESS Oklahoma Program

The current price-hike of tolls is all credited to this program. A series of new toll roads around the OKC metro area to better alleviate congestion.

While that sounds fine and dandy, especially if you get through our capital city often, it may be time to start speaking up about amendments to the OTA's actual authority. It certainly is a large talking point among Oklahomans. Norman residents have vehemently fought this for years now.

While I'm sure we'd all appreciate a governor, state house, and state senate to stand up to the OTA... the public would also welcome a chance to vote to abridge the "cross-pledging" any toll/all tolls verbiage out of the charter.

Want to build new toll roads? Great. No problem. We welcome that, but the drivers who utilize the new toll roads should be the only people paying for it. The rest of us have long paid our Turnpike dues, many times over.