Construction For Expanded Truck Parking At Stroud Westbound Service Plaza To Begin In 2025, OTA Says

You may have seen big rigs lined up parked alongside the Turner Turnpike between Tulsa and Oklahoma City.

To fix the problem, the Turnpike Authority plans to add more truck parking at Stroud.

Sometimes dozens of trucks are parking on the shoulder of the Turner Turnpike.

It's a safety issue and indicates insufficient parking in safe places.

Even in the middle of the day, it's common to see semis parked on the shoulder of the Turner Turnpike.

It's meant for emergency parking only, but sometimes truckers have to stop because they've run out of hours and their trucks automatically make it impossible to go any further.

"So wherever you're at, if you didn't stop, you're on the side of the road for the next 10 hours," said truck driver John Eric Swallow.

The turnpike doesn't have enough truck parking to meet demand at Stroud's only westbound service plaza. The Turnpike Authority plans to realign the Turnpike and reconfigure the plaza to handle more trucks. The OTA has it scheduled for construction in 2025.

"When that happens, a lot of trucks that are parking on the shoulder will have another place to go, a safer place to park, but we're working with the highway patrol to enforce keeping the shoulders clear and trying to work on that safety issue as well," said OTA Deputy Director Joe Eschelle.

The OTA does not plan to incorporate the parking lot that was the outlet mall at Stroud but it is reworking the interchange nearby as part of the widening project on the Turner.

The expanded service plaza at Stroud is under design now with new input from Love's Truck Stops.

The more updated, eastbound service plaza at Chandler has more parking already, but it's the last spot on the Turnpike before Tulsa, and that's why Swallow had to stop.

"Between Oklahoma City to Tulsa, that's about it," Swallow said.

The Turnpike Authority is working all along the turnpike from Heyburn, westward, and will be for years to come as they widen the road, add a few interchanges, and reconfigure the service area with more parking.