The cost of the vibration strips that play “This Land is Your Land” along the Southwest Boulevard Bridge just west of downtown breaks down to about $5,800 per second of music.
But you’ll only hear the 19 seconds of the Woody Guthrie anthem if you follow these directions exactly: You must be driving in the bridge’s middle lane cruising west to east into downtown going exactly 35 miles per hour.
The total taxpayer-funded project cost $110,000 with $90,000 from the Oklahoma Route 66 Commission, part of the state Department of Commerce, and $20,000 from the City of Tulsa.
The result: Oklahoma’s first musical road, officially rolled out Tuesday in honor of the centennial.
“I’m fiscal conservative and want my tax dollars to be spent the right way. I think the plan they put forward has really yielded some results for taxpayers in the state of Oklahoma,” said Thomas Tillerson, chairman of the Oklahoma Route 66 Commission.
Tax dollars paid out for the project include $95,000 to the company Route 66 Musical Roads for the installation, engineering, materials and subcontracting for a portion of labor and traffic control. The other $15,000 spent covered additional traffic control, labor and signage. Music licensing rights to “This Land is Your Land” were granted by the Woody Guthrie Foundation.
Lt. Gov. Matt Pinnell said the state is in the process of hiring a firm to complete economic impact studies for most state tourism programs, including Route 66 public funds.
“What we hear now from entrepreneurs is anecdotal, and we want to be able to prove it,” Pinnell said. “What the entrepreneurs who have opened new businesses along Route 66 over the past couple of years have told us is that they have done so because they see the city and state are invested. That was the final thing that made them take the risk.”
”We hope the public investment will pay off in private investment along the road,” he added. “We can’t do it all nor should we try to do it all. But we know it is encouraging the private sector to invest more in Route 66.”
The state commission was formed in 2022 through House Bill 4457 and receives $6.6 million a year to provide grants for Route 66 revitalization projects. Its first grants were awarded in April 2024. So far, it has awarded $22 million among 47 projects along the Mother Road.
Tulsa has received about $753,000 in state grants for four projects: the musical road, the Church Studio sculpture, visitor and attraction maps and a dinosaur statue in Howard Park located west of the city. Statewide projects that include Tulsa among the beneficiaries are $125,000 on neon signs, $406,000 on commemorative monuments and $1 million for the May 30 Capital Cruise that seeks to break a Guinness World Record.
“I can say with a straight face that I believe, by far, it will be double or triple the impact of what the state dollars are we have paid out or going to pay out,” Tillerson said. “Projects like this coming to fruition are what make us able to continue to do this, makes people appreciate it and gets our tax dollars spent the right way.”
Mayor Monroe Nichols said the payoff for public spending on Route 66 projects needs to be considered in its entirety.
“When you look at a project like this, it doesn’t exist in a vacuum,” Nichols said. “Think of all the things that we’re doing as a community and as a state investment along Route 66. It’s going to lead to people coming here.”
Nichols used the BOK Center as an example of how a single public property can attract tourists and new private businesses around it.
“One could argue any building or piece of infrastructure by itself is probably not a great return on investment. But when all things work together, that’s where you get it,” Nichols said. “What people see and what we all understand is what these investments lead to. The true impact will double and triple as folks come to Tulsa.”
And some of them will get here on a musical road.
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