HEYBURN, Okla. — The Oklahoma Turnpike Authority is celebrating a milestone in its Turner Turnpike projects.
On Thursday, Dec. 19, Kellyville and Heyburn are set to receive a new connection to the Turner Turnpike.
2 News Oklahoma’s Douglas Braff talked to OTA about how it plays into the agency's move toward cashless tolls.
When people from the Kellyville area head home Thursday evening, they’ll find three new on- and off-ramps they didn't have when they left that morning, right along State Highway 66.
The OTA’s 15-year, long-range ACCESS Oklahoma plan aims to connect more communities to toll roads. Braff spoke with OTA spokesperson Lisa Shearer-Salim, who said the agency recently bidding farewell to physical toll booths helps advance that.
“All of these projects really are aimed at improving safety, emergency response time, and access to communities,” she told 2 News.
“It allows access to more people in those communities to get onto the Turner Turnpike,” said Shearer-Salim.
“Now that we have gone fully cashless on the entire turnpike system ... it opens up the possibilities of us to add tolling locations and allow more access and entry points to the turnpikes,” she added.
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This interchange, she pointed out, is the first example of that coming to fruition.
Toll booths, instead of automated cameras overhead, can take up a lot of precious space along interchanges. Removing them frees up that space and money to build more turnpike access points, meaning more people can readily hop on and off the highway.
As for increasing safety and helping first responders, Shearer-Salim told us, “If you have a crash along the Turner Turnpike corridor, because our current exits are so far so spaced so far apart, having more interchanges will allow emergency response faster access to those areas from these local communities.”
She said it would also allow them to move traffic over — and off and back on the interstate quicker — to keep traffic moving despite a crash.
All this is coupled with widening the Turner Turnpike to six lanes between Heyburn and Bristow.
Shearer-Salim explained that they essentially rebuilt the SH-66 bridge, about 70 years old when work began, to accommodate a wider interstate.
It's expected three of the four ramps at the new SH-66/I-44 interchange will open to traffic for the first time on Thursday at 3 p.m.
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