Turnpikes of Oklahoma - Turnpikes - Surveyed But Not Built

Surveyed But Not Built

Shortly after the Turner Turnpike was built in 1953, the Oklahoma Turnpike Authority proposed other toll roads including one to be built from Oklahoma City north to the Kansas border near Braman to tie in with the southern terminus of the Kansas Turnpike at the state line. That routing was included as part of the Federal Highway Act of 1956 which created the Interstate Highway System. As a result, the OTA could not obtain financing to build that proposed turnpike and turned the initial plans including surveys and blueprints over to the Oklahoma Department of Transportation in 1956 for the construction of Interstate 35 as a freeway on that same alignment, which was completed in several stages between 1958 and 1962.

Also proposed but never built was a toll road roughly following what would later become I-35 between Oklahoma City and the Red River north of Gainesville, Texas that included a spur route veering from the main route north of Ardmore veering northeastward past Ada to tie in with the Turner Turnpike near Stroud.

Also proposed in the 1990s but never built was an extension of the Muskogee Turnpike from its current southeastern terminus at Interstate 40 southeastward toward Poteau.