Sixty years ago, when the full length of the Ohio Turnpike opened to motorists following a historic order from Ohio Gov. Frank Lausche, the 241.2-mile trip cost a car driver $3.
Today, you’ll pay $11.75 to drive that distance on Ohio’s toll road if you have an electronic toll tag in your car, $17.50 if you don’t. You’ll also have a lot more company: Ohio Turnpike traffic last year was roughly five times as heavy as it was in 1956, the toll road’s first full year of operation.
Officials gathered Thursday morning at the turnpike’s Exit 64 toll plaza near the Rossford/Perrysburg Township line focused, however, on different numbers when they celebrated the 60th anniversary of its opening.
Those included the $500 million in annual economic activity they said the turnpike generates in northern Ohio, the 950 direct jobs and 3,000 indirect jobs associated with the toll road, and the more than $1 billion the state “leveraged” from turnpike revenue to pay for the expansion of other nearby highways.
AUDIO: Listen to Gov. Lausche opening the turnpike in 1955
“That’s $1.2 billion eight years sooner than they would have if we had not passed that transportation budget” in 2013 that allowed turnpike revenue to be spent on other roads, State Sen. Randy Gardner (R., Bowling Green) said during the rededication ceremony.
Tony Reams, president of the Toledo Metropolitan Area Council of Governments, said the turnpike has been as vital to the Toledo area’s economy as the region’s natural assets, Lake Erie and the Maumee River.
“For the last 60 years, we’ve had the man-made resource — well maintained and well managed,” Mr. Reams said.
The jobs figures don’t include employees of construction companies working various toll-road projects, which include the ongoing replacement of all of the turnpike’s original pavement, a campaign begun in 2011.
Randy Cole, the turnpike’s executive director, said that work is currently expected to take 25 more years to complete.
The reconstruction campaign “will ensure future generations have a smooth and safe road to travel,” Mr. Cole said.
The rededication ceremony Thursday at Exit 64 was one of four such events the turnpike staged to mark the 60th anniversary, with others later Thursday near Cleveland and the Pennsylvania border following an initial ceremony Wednesday afternoon near the Indiana border.
It was at the Westgate Plaza in Williams County that Mr. Lausche had given the order to open the turnpike to traffic.
An audio recording of that order, closing with, “Remove all barricades, open the gates, and let the traffic flow,” was played at the Rossford event.
The easternmost 22 miles, between the Pennsylvania border and State Rt. 18 west of Youngstown, had opened the previous December to alleviate traffic congestion on rural Mahoning County roads that arose after the Pennsylvania Turnpike was extended from the Pittsburgh area to the state line several years before.
Based on the federal Consumer Price Index, turnpike tolls have not kept up with inflation over the years.
It now costs about $8.79 to buy what a dollar paid for in 1955; on that basis an end-to-end turnpike trip would cost a car driver about $26.40 now.
The turnpike’s original enabling legislation provided for tolls to end and the highway to be turned over “in good condition” to the Ohio Department of Transportation when the original $326 million in construction bonds were paid off.
But a report the turnpike prepared in 1985 estimated repair needs exceeding $300 million, and in 1990 the Ohio General Assembly approved controversial legislation allowing toll collection to continue.
That and a phased-in 82-percent toll increase imposed during between 1995 and 1999 enabled the turnpike to add a third lane in each direction for 160 miles between Toledo and Youngstown, rehabilitate or rebuild four major pairs of bridges including the massive Cuyahoga River viaducts, add several interchanges, and replace 14 of the toll road’s 16 service plazas.
Contact David Patch at: dpatch@theblade.com or 419-724-6094.
First Published October 2, 2015, 4:00 a.m.
