Interstate 44 (I-44): Wichita Falls to St. Louis, Tolls and Safety

How long is I-44?

As of January 2026, FHWA's Route Log credits I-44 with 626.28 miles. Oklahoma holds the biggest piece, 317.68 miles, and Missouri has 293.19. The Texas section is 15.41 miles, from Wichita Falls to the Oklahoma line near Burkburnett.

Wikipedia and Interstate Guide each list 636.69 miles, about 10.4 more than the federal figure. Almost all of that gap sits in Oklahoma, where Interstate Guide has 328.53 miles and Wikipedia rounds to 329. Interstate Guide matches the Route Log in Texas and is 0.20 miles higher in Missouri.

According to the Route Log's overlap notes, I-44 shares 4.37 miles with I-35 in Oklahoma City and 1.00 mile with I-55 in St. Louis. I-44's rows in both states are longer than the I-35 and I-55 rows, so those shared miles count toward I-44 here, and the crash rates on this page use I-44's three state rows as printed. The Oklahoma shortfall is bigger than any shared stretch in the notes.

Where I-44 starts and ends

The western end is in Wichita Falls, where I-44 starts on the Central Freeway (US 277, US 281 and US 287) at the Broad and Holliday Street ramps near 8th Street. At the other end, I-44 meets I-70 in St. Louis at the west end of the Stan Musial Veterans Memorial Bridge.

From Wichita Falls the road crosses into Oklahoma and heads north to Lawton and Oklahoma City, then bends northeast to Tulsa. In Missouri it passes Joplin, Springfield and Rolla on the way to St. Louis. Its 293 Missouri miles make it the longest Interstate in that state.

Interstate junctions along I-44

Read from southwest to northeast, the list has no entries in Texas or southwest Oklahoma. The first crossings come in Oklahoma City, where I-44 meets I-40 and then runs about four miles with I-35 before the Turner Turnpike begins. After that nothing is listed until Joplin, where I-49 shares the road from exit 11 to exit 18. The last three entries are in St. Louis: I-55, which I-44 overlaps for about a mile, I-64, and I-70, where I-44 has ended since the 2014 renumbering downtown.

Fatal crashes on I-44

Between 2020 and 2024, 274 fatal crashes on the I-44 main line killed 305 people, roughly 61 a year. Spread over the route, that is 9.7 deaths per 100 route miles a year, a shade over the network-wide Interstate figure of 9.5. Counting down from the highest rate, I-44 places 22nd of the 56 routes that are long enough to rank. Deaths jumped from 52 in 2021 to 79 in 2022, fell to 68 in 2023, and were back at 52 in 2024. The first year, 2020, had 54.

Missouri recorded 161 deaths and a rate of 11.0. Oklahoma had 139 deaths and a rate of 8.8, though that rate uses the Route Log's 317.68 miles; on Interstate Guide's 328.53 it would be about 8.5. The 5 deaths in Texas are counted, but 15.41 miles is too short to give a rate. Oklahoma County had the most deaths of any county on I-44, 34, and Tulsa County had 26. Franklin County, Missouri, was next with 25, then Lawrence County, Missouri, with 21 and Creek County, Oklahoma, with 20.

Counties with the most I-44 crash deaths

Bridges on I-44

I-44's main line crosses 532 bridges in the federal inventory for 2025, and half of them date from 1964 or earlier. Only 7 rate Poor, about 1.3 percent, and every one of them is in Missouri, which has 191 of the bridges. None of Oklahoma's 301 bridges or Texas's 40 rate Poor. Across the route, 217 rate Good and 308 Fair.

Interstate Guide points to two of the larger structures: the Central Freeway viaducts in Wichita Falls and the viaduct over Washington Avenue and Carr Street near the Gateway Arch in St. Louis.

Tolls on I-44

All three toll facilities on I-44 in FHWA's January 2023 inventory are Oklahoma Turnpike Authority roads. The H.E. Bailey Turnpike carries I-44 in two pieces north and south of Lawton, the Turner Turnpike links Oklahoma City and Tulsa, and the Will Rogers Turnpike goes from Tulsa to the Missouri line. I-44 in Texas and Missouri has no tolls.

None of the three takes cash anymore. The H.E. Bailey switched in June and July 2022, the Turner on May 1, 2024, and the Will Rogers, the last Oklahoma turnpike to change, on November 20, 2024. You pay with a PikePass transponder, or PlatePay reads the plate and bills the registered owner. Wikipedia lists 2025 full-length tolls for a two-axle vehicle of $5.40 with PikePass or $10.50 with PlatePay on both the Turner and the Will Rogers, and $5.69 or $12.61 on the H.E. Bailey. Paying all three end to end comes to about $16.49 with PikePass and $33.61 by plate. Those rates apply through 2026; the Oklahoma Turnpike Authority has approved higher tolls starting January 5, 2027.

The miles in the table are FHWA's figure for each whole facility, which may include roads that are not I-44. The H.E. Bailey's 94.6 miles equals its 86.4-mile main line plus the 8.2-mile Norman Spur, which is signed as SH-4.

I-44 auxiliary routes

Three auxiliary routes carry I-44's number, and all of them are in Oklahoma. Tulsa has I-244, at 16.31 miles, and the 2.86-mile I-444, which Wikipedia notes is unsigned. I-344 is the Kilpatrick Turnpike in Oklahoma City, 30.97 miles long. St. Louis once had an I-244 of its own, which was retired in 1974 and replaced by I-270.

How I-44 was pieced together

The oldest parts of I-44 are Oklahoma toll roads. The Turner Turnpike opened from Oklahoma City to Sapulpa on May 16, 1953, and the Will Rogers Turnpike followed on June 28, 1957. The I-44 designation dates from August 14, 1957, and it was applied to the Will Rogers Turnpike in 1958, the year the new Tulsa bypass opened. That bypass, planned in 1948 as the 51st Street Bypass, opened on November 21, 1958, at a cost of $15 million and was later named for oilman W.G. Skelly.

From Oklahoma City to St. Louis, I-44 took the place of US 66, and Wikipedia counts it among five Interstates built to bypass that highway. In Missouri it replaced the old road entirely from Halltown to downtown St. Louis. Long pieces of Route 66 survive as Oklahoma Highway 66, Missouri Route 66 and I-44 business loops. The Route 66 Association asked AASHTO for the number Interstate 66 and was turned down. I-44 was finished through St. Louis in 1972.

The west end used to be at the I-35 interchange in north Oklahoma City. AASHTO approved a southwest extension to Wichita Falls on June 28, 1982, and on August 12 that year the Texas Highway Commission approved 15.398 miles of IH 44. Oklahoma signed I-44 along the H.E. Bailey Turnpike, open since 1964, as part of its 75th statehood (Diamond Jubilee) celebration. Wichita Falls later rebuilt its section: work on viaducts over Broad and Holliday Streets began on February 16, 1999, and the $47.8 million job wrapped up on May 10, 2002, seven months early.

In the 1999 Oklahoma tornado outbreak, an F5 tornado that killed 36 people crossed I-44 and damaged the road. Near Tulsa, I-44 was moved in July 2002 onto US 412 east to a new interchange with the Creek Turnpike, and AASHTO signed off on May 30, 2003.

In Missouri, the Kansas Expressway interchange in Springfield, exit 77, was rebuilt in 2009 as the first diverging diamond in North America. I-44 also runs along the south edge of Route 66 State Park, the site of Times Beach, a town known for dioxin contamination, demolition and a Superfund cleanup. In St. Louis the road used to end at the Poplar Street Bridge. On February 9, 2014, the new Stan Musial Veterans Memorial Bridge opened, and I-44 was then extended north over the old I-70 route to meet I-70 at the bridge, though eastbound I-44 traffic cannot get onto the new bridge directly and uses I-55, I-64 and the Poplar Street Bridge instead. MoDOT's Forward 44 program is rebuilding I-44 in stages. Its $471 million southwest project, under way since fall 2026, will make about 19 miles between Springfield and Webster County six lanes and redesign the I-49 and Kansas Expressway interchanges by fall 2031.

I-44 traffic and road conditions

Many I-44 searches are about today, such as a wreck near Springfield or a closed ramp in Tulsa. Texas, Oklahoma and Missouri each post crashes, closures and work zones on a traveler site, and the links below run in that order, southwest to northeast.

I-44 questions