‘WE’VE REALLY MESSED UP’

Transportation secretary admits agency missteps in turnpike plan near Choctaw

CHOCTAW — Minutes before he was scheduled to speak in front of more than 700 mostly hostile residents of northeast Oklahoma County, state Transportation Secretary Gary Ridley knew he was in for a rough night.

“This is not going to be fun,” he said Thursday as he left a small conference room inside the Eastern Oklahoma County Technology Center. He was right. In an intimate public meeting, Ridley took it on the chin for well over an hour as local residents demanded more information about a recently proposed turnpike project, one of six in the works throughout Oklahoma.

“Put it to a vote,” one man screamed, repeatedly. “Liar,” screamed another. Even local residents who spoke in support of the turnpike were verbally lambasted by the crowd.

“Go move to the city then,” one woman screamed when a member of the audience said he was happy to see a turnpike coming to the area.

Ridley said he and the other officials on hand deserved what they got.

“We’ve really messed up,”

he told The Oklahoman shortly before the public meeting started. “The turnpike authority, myself. We really messed up as to how the information was distributed to the public.

“And they have every right to be upset with us. ... What we’ve got to do tonight is kind of calm their concerns.”

After publicly apologizing once the meeting began, Ridley wasted little time telling the crowd that a new turnpike is coming to the area — one way or another — because the Oklahoma City metro area desperately needs another north-south thoroughfare to ease the traffic load of Interstate 35. He said traffic accidents and fatalities in other parts of the metro area will decrease when, not if, the so-called Northeast Oklahoma County Loop is constructed.

Ridley, who pointed out that a precise route of the new toll roads had not been decided, also warned that not acting now could lead to major traffic problems in the near future.

“You have good eastwest movement of traffic that allows you to have good mobility,” Ridley said of the Oklahoma City area’s traffic infrastructure. “The problem is north-south. ... Twenty, twenty-five years from now (it’s going to get a lot worse).”

According to officials, the area in northeast Oklahoma County being considered lies between Triple X and Luther roads.

The project near Choctaw calls for the construction of 21 miles of new toll roads to link Interstate 40 and the Turner Turnpike, or Interstate 44.

Plans for the new toll roads, along with five other turnpike projects, were announced in October at the state Capitol.

The projected $300 million cost of the projects near Choctaw will be funded by bond issues, which will be paid using toll revenue. Turnpike authority officials have said a 16 percent, system-wide toll increase is likely.

Gov. Mary Fallin has expressed support for the projects, calling them “a comprehensive blueprint for the state to modernize our turnpike system.”

Talk of the turnpike plan has sparked intense public interest. The crowd was so large that meeting organizers said they had to turn people away, and even those residents waited outside with handmade protest signs.

Jerry Williams, 53, owns five acres of land near the proposed project area. His father has 30 acres nearby. His brother owns property in Choctaw, as well.

Holding a homemade sign that read “Pig-ina-Poke,” Williams said he and others he knows feel like turnpike authority officials “are being underhanded with the way they’re doing things.”

“A lot of people have a lot of money invested in their property and they feel like maybe they’re not going to get a fair deal,” he said.

Williams also criticized the idea of a new turnpike in northeast Oklahoma County because its proponents say it will bring new businesses and development opportunities to the area.

“That’s why we live in a rural area, we like it like this,” he said. “If we wanted to live in the city, we’d live in the city.”

Ridley said turnpike authority officials will take the information they gathered at Thursday’s meeting and will hold another public input meeting in “four to five weeks.”

“I know that the unknown is a killer for you. ... but quite frankly we don’t have all the answers right now,” Ridley said.