A recent Supreme Court ruling gives the Oklahoma Turnpike Authority the go-ahead to sell more revenue bonds to fund its new 15-year turnpike expansion and improvement plan. Six-laning the Claremore to Tulsa portion of the Will Rogers Turnpike is part of that plan.
Representative Terry O’Donnell’s recent statement that “turnpikes aren’t for everyone” underlines how transportation continues to have a stranglehold on the pocketbooks of everyday working Oklahomans. In our case – our friends case and in the cases of our neighbors and relatives living in more rural reaches of our county and region – time and travel are money.
Anyone who lives in rural Rogers County who commutes and works in the metro Tulsa area or beyond on a regular basis – and that’s about 59 percent of us – understand the huge financial hit gas and turnpike fees can have on a working person’s take-home pay.
In one month, one commuter from east Claremore to south Tulsa (in an attempt to minimize travel time and traffic stress) will have paid out between $40 and $60 in turnpike fees (with a Turnpike Pass) and purchased between $300 and $400 in gasoline (give or take a few dollars) and spent between 20-25 hours commuting. That could be a week’s pay for some.
These dollars spent, to ride the turnpike and commute to Tulsa, are sales tax dollars that will never be spent in the City of Claremore, will never be used to buy local groceries, local housing, local goods and services or local entertainment. There is no retribution plan to reinvest any of the revenue from OTA into Claremore City streets, parks, electric, water or county roadways.
We need to make sure there is always a good, quality toll-free access road to all jobs. Access that does not require turnpike fees and tanks of gasoline every week.
The math and the logic is simple. Toll roads = more toll roads to generate more money for upkeep and building of more toll roads.
The final summation is correct, “Turnpikes aren’t for everyone.”
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