New turnpike authority director set to review authorized new toll roads
Oklahoma Turnpike Authority commissioners on Tuesday unanimously approved naming Joe Echelle as director following the resignation of prior director Tim Gatz.
Gatz resigned as secretary of transportation and director of the Oklahoma Turnpike Authority on Feb. 28, just hours after Attorney General Gentner Drummond released an opinion declaring Gatz could not serve those two posts and as director of the Oklahoma Department of Transportation.
Commission Chairman John Jones praised Gatz’s work for the turnpike authority and announced that Echelle will be paid $240,000 a year. The state Transportation Department reported last week it intends to continue paying Gatz the $245,000 he was earning as director of both the state Transportation Department and the turnpike authority.
“Tim Gatz was a wonderful and very successful leader for OTA throughout his tenure of approximately eight years as executive director,” Jones said. “He and his team successfully completed and accomplished projects and made OTA better with each and every year. Without a doubt, he will be missed. But OTA has always been bigger than one person.”
'Never did I think it would happen like this'
Echelle called the recent events “a strange two weeks.” He was first hired by the turnpike authority in 2016 and was named deputy director in 2021.
“We had a little bit of pre-notice about the opinions, and we were able to work on some things and ensured we have continuity at OTA and at ODOT,” Echelle said. “Never did I think it would happen like this. It was always a career goal to end up as director of OTA or ODOT.”
The attorney general’s opinion coincided with ongoing challenges to the turnpike authority triggered by the controversial 15-year, $5 billion ACCESS Oklahoma turnpike expansion program, which is likely to cost dozens if not hundreds of Norman-area residents their homes.
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Echelle told commissioners that lawmakers are looking at the enabling legislation passed decades earlier to allow for construction of future turnpikes including the contested toll roads to be built as part of ACCESS Oklahoma.
“There have been several bills introduced that would edit or delete several lines (in the enabling legislation),” Echelle said. “There have been bills in the last several years that would add lines.”
Echelle said he wants to do a review of the previously authorized routes. ACCESS Oklahoma opponents sued unsuccessfully to stop new toll road construction, arguing it did not follow the routes outlined by lawmakers in the 1980s.
“There are routes in the statute that in my opinion, and I’ve read it recently, that we have already built or built much of the road,” Echelle said. “The Indian Nations Turnpike is described as Tulsa to Hugo to Paris, Texas. OTA built a section of that in the 1960s and ODOT built U.S. 75 north of there to Tulsa. There is need to edit that. It will never be feasible for the turnpike authority to build next to U.S. 75. That’s not even possible.”
Echelle said the statute also authorizes a new toll road between Woodward and Enid.
“U.S. 412 is a four-lane divided highway most of the way from Woodward to Enid,” Echelle said. “There is no need for that to necessarily be there. We need to look at future needs, what exists today, traffic counts, put that together and bring it back to the board in a few months.”
This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: New OTA Director Joe Echelle to review plans for unbuilt toll roads
