oklahoma turnpike

Oklahoma Turnpike reports strong traffic first quarter of the year - 37.35m transactions in the first quarter of the year up 9.6% on the first quarter of 2011's 34.08m. Vehicle miles traveled on the network were 734.47m vs 677.28m, 8.4% up. Revenue at $54.37m is 8.7% up on the same quarter last year.

The Oklahoma Turnpike is making a rapid recovery from a fire that devastated their PIKEPASS electronic toll center in Oklahoma City Monday night. By lunchtime today less than 30 hours after the fire they have a new back office/customer service center operating from temporary premises a few doors away from the burnt building.

The Oklahoma Turnpike's main customer service and accounts office for PIKEPASS brand transponder toll collection was badly damaged by a fire that raged late Monday night. It took firefighters 45 minutes to put out the blaze which reportedly started at the back of the offices.

Fitch Rating has reaffirmed the existing 'AA-'  on $1,034m of Oklahoma Turnpike Authority bonds being refunded. The raters say toller's outlook is "stable."

They report that Credit strengths include:

- a mature and stable traffic profile, supported by significant rate-making flexibility and competitive toll rate structure

-  availability of fuel taxes as a last resort to pay debt service

- lack of competing free roads for long-distance travel

At Oklahoma Turnpike Authority (OTA) they are aiming to replace about a million hardbodied vintage 2001 Allegro transponders with TransCore eGo Plus ISO 18000 6B-variant sticker tags by end-2012 in an upgrade of their PIKEPASS brand electronic tolling.  They'll need perhaps 1.2m of the new tags for the switchover.

Raw rage was directed at the Oklahoma Turnpike Authority last week by people protesting that the Turnpike wouldn't waive tolls for the funeral procession last Saturday of US Army Private First Class (PFC) Cody A Board - a 19 year old soldier sadly killed October 4 by a Taliban roadside bomb in Afghanistan.

Oklahoma Turnpike Authority would be required by law to exempt "emergency vehicles" from tolls under a bill proceeding through the Oklahoma House of Representatives. The bill HR2533 also bars tolls on police even when not on duty.

Oklahoma Turnpike is voiding about 1,300 violation notices issued for non-payment during a blizzard around Christmas. Motorists complained that snow and ice made it impossible or unreasonable for them to pay tolls because booths were unstaffed, or equipment wasn't working. In some cases lanes were blocked by snow.

Most of the notices were for the standard $25 non-payment violation. Turnpike officials decided today that sending the violation notices out as usual had been a mistake, and they are voiding them.

Oklahoma state senator Earl Garrison has introduced a bill to lower the speed limit for trucks from 75mph to 65mph  on the Oklahoma Turnpike system following a terrible crash last summer when ten people were killed. The crash on the Rogers Turnpike (I-44) June 26 eastbound at MM321 in Ottawa County OK occurred when a tractor-trailer plowed into stopped traffic at the scene of a minor non-injury crash.

Oklahoma Turnpike Authority is planning several third laning projects in their mainly 2x2 lane network of pikes. Director Phil Tomlinson said this at a state legislative "roads task force" meeting this week.

Subjects for third laning are: