Indiana Toll Road: Before and after the lease to a corporate consortium

[nexus73]

http://www.landlinemag.com/todays_news/Daily/2011/Jun11/062711/062711-01.shtml

Once again the government promised to drop tolls when the debts incurred building the road were paid off.  Instead the government sold off the road to a corporate consortium and tolls went through the roof! 

Rick

[mgk920]

http://www.landlinemag.com/todays_news/Daily/2011/Jun11/062711/062711-01.shtml

Once again the government promised to drop tolls when the debts incurred building the road were paid off.  Instead the government sold off the road to a corporate consortium and tolls went through the roof! 

Rick

What are traffic numbers on US 20 and US 30 these days, compared with 'before'?

Mike

[NE2]

To be fair, truck tolls should go through the roof given their proportional damage to the road.

[NWI_Irish96]

Not sure why somebody from Oregon is telling Hoosiers how to manage their highway system.  The toll road lease funded several much-needed projects (see threads on the US31 Kokomo bypass, I-69 construction, and SR 25 upgrades).  Leasing a road used very heavily by out-of-staters to fund in-state projects is brilliant, no?

[xonhulu]

Not sure why somebody from Oregon is telling Hoosiers how to manage their highway system.

What does that have to do with anything?  He's just as entitled to an opinion as anybody else on the forum.

The toll road lease funded several much-needed projects (see threads on the US31 Kokomo bypass, I-69 construction, and SR 25 upgrades).  Leasing a road used very heavily by out-of-staters to fund in-state projects is brilliant, no?

This argument I can somewhat buy, but I can see it also meaning residents of northern Indiana, who are also more likely to want to use the Turnpike, being made to indirectly fund projects in other parts of the state that aren't of much immediate benefit to them, like I-69.  A small gas tax increase would've spread the burden more evenly and kept the Turnpike revenues as a consistent income generator.  If you want to have out-of-state trucks pay a higher share proportional to the damage they do to the roads, you can collect that via permits.

It's a hard sell to convince me that privatization of roads is a good way to go.

[Brandon]

Not sure why somebody from Oregon is telling Hoosiers how to manage their highway system.  The toll road lease funded several much-needed projects (see threads on the US31 Kokomo bypass, I-69 construction, and SR 25 upgrades).  Leasing a road used very heavily by out-of-staters to fund in-state projects is brilliant, no?

Try selling that to a South Bend resident, a Gary resident, or even a Fort Wayne resident.  It's a road used heavily by the bulk of Indiana's populace which lives north of Indianapolis.

[NWI_Irish96]

In addition to the state funds, the counties that contain the toll road received direct payments for local road improvements.  Every day I speak to people who whine about the toll road rate increases and turn around and rave about the Capital Avenue project in St. Joe county or the CR 17 project in Elkhart county.

[brad2971]

Let's see: A 5-axle semi going the entire 157-mile trip is going to see the toll go to $36.30 starting July 1. The folks at the OOIDA (publishers of Landline mag) should be entirely thankful that it's not necessary to have to use the entire route of E-470 as a bypass of Denver. That toll for a 5-axle semi is $58.80 for a non-Express Toll customer ($47.00 if you have the transponder) going only 47 miles.

And the E-470 Public Highway Authority is not about to transfer operations to the likes of Brisa/CCR (operators of the adjacent Northwest Parkway).

[mukade]

Major Moves marks halfway point:

http://www.indystar.com/article/20110629/NEWS/110629010/Daniels-Major-Moves-remaking-Indiana-s-highways?odyssey=tab|topnews|text|IndyStar.com

185 miles of new road, almost 600 new or rehabbed bridges so far... It seems like a lot of good came from that lease of the Toll Road.

[JREwing78]

Hopefully Indiana will be able to continue to maintain the infrastructure once the Major Moves money runs out. Frankly, I don't think that's going to be possible on the 18 cents from the feds and the 18 cents excise tax Indiana levies.

[ShawnP]

Apparently this so called trucker has never traveled in Missouri much. He would be singing a different tune concerning Indiana's pavement shape. I have lived in both and it's a no contest to Indiana.

[mobilene]

Try selling that to a South Bend resident, a Gary resident, or even a Fort Wayne resident.  It's a road used heavily by the bulk of Indiana's populace which lives north of Indianapolis.

I dunno, I used to live in South Bend, and I always found ways to avoid the Toll Road if I really wanted to.  -Jim

[ShawnP]

INDOT is also sitting on 500 cool millions from the Lease deal. Apparently INDOT thinks it's now a investment banker.

[J N Winkler]

The principle of capitalizing a revenue stream is sound, so from that point of view, there is nothing particularly wrong with the Toll Road lease deal.  I'm just skeptical that a private company can innovate enough to deliver a better-quality result than the state at less cost to tollpayers, while still collecting enough of a profit to make the enterprise worthwhile.  This is the crucial test for evaluating whether the Toll Road deal is in the public interest.  If it doesn't pass this test, then Indiana would probably have been better off choosing a different capitalization mechanism, e.g. issuing bonds to finance Major Moves and then using toll road revenues to retire them.

It is also still an open question what happens if something goes wrong at a location where the Toll Road interfaces with the state highway system (e.g., a Toll Road overpass starts dropping chunks of concrete on a state highway) and Indiana DOT needs as-built construction plans and other forms of cooperation from the Toll Road, and is not able to get them through the lease agreement.  There is already no open-records pass-through for the Toll Road.