Oklahoma Turnpike Authority Leaders Explain 2025 Toll Hike

The Oklahoma Turnpike Authority is raising tolls by at least 15% beginning in 2025.

The OTA says the extra funds will be used towards new turnpike projects, but the increase is receiving negative reactions from Oklahomans.

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News 9 spoke with OTA Executive Director Joe Echelle, who said there are more reasons why the cost of tolls is going up that are not just to increase OTA funding.

Q: Your reaction, first off, to hearing some of those comments, Oklahomans not happy about this toll increase?

A: "So, the Turnpike Authority provides some major connections in our state that either wouldn't be there otherwise or would have required a tax increase at some point in the past in order to fund those," Echelle said. "The other option would be that at the cost of some other project, some other road that the Department of Transportation currently operates, wouldn't be there if the Turnpike Authority didn't fulfill the needs that we deliver."

Q: We're talking about a 15% increase starting in January, and then an additional 6% increase every other year, starting in 2027. That's a lot of money. What is that money used for? Why do you need it?

A: "Obviously the cost of everything has gone up, especially over the course of the last few years, astronomically, really, and especially in highway construction," Echelle said. "So what this toll increase is about is allowing us to get back in the bond market, achieve extremely low interest rates on the money that we're going to borrow, that we eventually have to pay back. Those will fund the Access Program, primarily the widening of the Turner Turnpike, widening of the Kilpatrick, a section of some work on the Creek Turnpike, widening the Will Rogers in the northeast part of the state, as well as some of the new alignment work that we're doing on the south side of the metro area."

Q: You still count axles, but you're going to classify them as either small, medium, or large. Does anything change if I drive a pickup truck? Am I still in the same category? Am I bumped up to a higher pay category? Explain that.

A: "We're just trying to modernize our tolling structure so that we don't have so many different levels of tolling. Currently, we have five or more, depending on the number of axles that you have, and so what we're doing is categorizing your number of axles," Echelle said. "We're still counting them, but we're categorizing you as a small, medium, or large. So if you're still a two-axle vehicle, nothing has changed. The three-axle vehicles and fours are now lumped together [as a medium], and five or more axles are all lumped together as a large. That really is our way of trying to toll appropriately for a heavier vehicle, to make sure and charge them a little bit more for the damage that they're that they are doing to the highway."

Q: What's happening right now in Cleveland County? The City of Norman has fought the Access Project extensively. Where are you guys with that?

A: "Since the very beginning and the announcement of the program, we've reached out to the municipalities and local governments that we intend to serve or are going to be the new neighbor in the neighborhood, the City of Norman chose not to have service roads and additional interchanges," Echelle said. "We as transportation officials think that that would have provided additional service and better connectivity within the city, but they chose not to have those, and that's OK. We're still building interchanges in Oklahoma City, and with the highway system we also intend to really provide a reliever route for both I-35 and I-44 on the south side of the city."

Q: Oklahoma is growing, and it sounds like you guys are trying to adjust accordingly.

A: "Oklahoma is a growing state, [the] Oklahoma City metro area is one of the top 20 largest communities in the country now, and so we're just trying to provide additional routes," Echelle said. "As we grow, we add vehicles to our highway system, its additional strain causes congestion. We're just trying to relieve some of that."

Q: Are you cashless on all turnpikes?

A: "Now we're cashless on all turnpikes," Echelle said. "It's the most tremendous, the greatest safety improvement we've added to our network, aside from the concrete or cable barrier that we put down the center. So we're very proud of that, and we've had a great team working on it."