State to test electronic billing on Creek Turnpike

Cash customers entering or exiting the Creek Turnpike at the Peoria Avenue/Elm Street interchange in Jenks will be billed monthly rather than having to stop and toss coins into a hopper under a pilot program to be implemented Thursday by the Oklahoma Turnpike Authority.

If the program proves successful, it could later be expanded to the Kilpatrick Turnpike and other locations, said Jack Damrill, spokesman for the Oklahoma Turnpike Authority.

For now, however, the change will be limited to the one interchange in Jenks.

Cash customers will get the benefit of being able to drive through without stopping, just like Pikepass customers. A camera will take a picture of their license plates as they drive through and they will receive an invoice once a month for the tolls they owe.

The benefit comes at a significant cost, however. The toll for cash customers will double to $1.60 as turnpike officials attempt to provide an additional incentive to persuade them to switch to the Pikepass system, Damrill said.

The toll for Pikepass customers will be 75 cents.

That’s 10 cents more than Pikepass customers have been paying and represents a 12 percent rate increase that the rest of the turnpike system will see implemented Feb. 1.

Safety concerns

Existing Pikepass customers, whose vehicles constitute nearly 90 percent of those that enter or exit the Creek Turnpike at that intersection, should notice no other change, Damrill said.

Safety is one of the major reasons for implementing the pilot program, Damrill said.

A number of rear-end collisions happen when cars are stopped in line to pay tolls, he said. When those lines back up onto the turnpike, it becomes even more dangerous, he noted.

The toll machines cause other problems, as well. Sometimes drivers can’t find the proper change and don’t know what to do, so they just sit there while traffic backs up and other drivers get frustrated, Damrill said. The machines also frequently break down when motorists toss things other than coins in there, he said.

(When problems like that arise, Damrill said motorists should just drive on through and then call turnpike officials later at 1 (800) Pikepass.)

More sites possible

Although the new toll billing system initially only will be implemented for the one Creek Turnpike interchange, it may be expanded later after officials have a chance to monitor compliance, Damrill said.

Urban turnpikes like the Creek Turnpike and the Kilpatrick Turnpike are the best candidates for expanding the program, he said.

Texas and a number of other states have already switched or are in the process of switching all or part of their turnpike systems to eliminate toll booths and coin machines.

“All-electronic tolling is the wave of the future,” Damrill said. “Whether we can go systemwide — we don’t think so, but maybe we can do it more in the urban areas.”

Customers who are billed under the new system will be given a variety of payment options, Damrill said. They can pay by check or credit card, or if they still want to pay by cash they can go to a PayNearMe site such as Reasor’s Foods to make their payments, he said.

The Jenks interchange where the system will be implemented first includes the exit many use to go to the nearby Oklahoma Aquarium.

The westbound offramp will switch to the new system at 11 a.m. Thursday, while the eastbound onramp is expected to change over about two hours later, Damrill said. The on-ramp will be closed down for a few hours Thursday morning while equipment is changed out.