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Oklahoma turnpike tolls to see average 15% increase Jan. 1

The Oklahoma Turnpike Authority has placed hundreds of thousands of holds on vehicle registrations due to unpaid toll charges.
Kyle Phillips
/
For Oklahoma Voice
The Oklahoma Turnpike Authority has placed hundreds of thousands of holds on vehicle registrations due to unpaid toll charges.

Oklahoma turnpike users will see an average 15% increase in tolls effective Jan. 1.

The Oklahoma Turnpike Authority on Tuesday voted 6-0 to approve the hike to pay for a roadway extension and improvement project.

The 15-year Advancing and Connecting Communities and Economies Safely, dubbed ACCESS, was announced in 2021, with an initial cost of $5 billion.

But that figure has risen to $8.2 billion due to inflation of about 60%, said Joe Echelle, OTA executive director.

At the time of the announcement, OTA officials had predicted a 10% toll increase, with 5% hikes every other year after that, Echelle said.

“Inflation is real,” said OTA Chairman John D. Jones. “We’re all affected by it.”

Jones said the ACCESS program is a job creator for the state.

After the Jan. 1 hike, tolls could rise an additional 6% every two years to compensate for a 3% yearly inflation rate, Echelle said.

The OTA would have to vote on any additional hikes in tolls, he said.

If the system has enough users, it is possible the rate would not have to be increased by 6%, but it could also be more, he said.

“We would have to evaluate that every time,” he said.

The most recent hike was in July 2019 when cash customers saw a hike of 2.5%, Echelle said. The OTA recently became a cashless system with drivers using PlatePay and PikePass.

Under the PikePass system, tolls are automatically deducted from a prepaid account when vehicles pass certain points on the system.

The PlatePay system takes a picture of the tag and sends the person it is registered to a bill for the tolls. PlatePay tolls are higher than those of PikePass users.

The OTA’s average per mile cost currently is 6 cents per mile based on PikePass rates, which will rise to 7 cents with the increase, Echelle said. The national average is 22 cents per mile, a figure that doesn’t include planned increase in other states, he said.

The toll increases will vary, Echelle said.

It will be a 20% increase on the Turner Turnpike and Kilpatrick Turnpike, while the Creek Turnpike will see about a 15% hike, Echelle said.

The Cimarron, Cherokee and Chickasaw turnpikes will see a 10% increase, he said.

About 42% of the traffic on the system is from out of state, Echelle said.


Oklahoma Voice is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Oklahoma Voice maintains editorial independence.

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