Latest news on leasing plans for Ohio Turnpike & an Indiana Toll Road question.

[thenetwork]

Here is an article in today's Cleveland Plain Dealer on the continuing studies on whether to lease the Ohio Turnpike to a private company.

http://www.cleveland.com/open/index.ssf/2011/08/gov_john_kasich_moves_ahead_wi.html


They also take a look at the deal made to privatize the Indiana Toll Road, and some of the concessions that Indiana agreed to before the deal was made.

The most notable clause I saw in the article was: 

Indiana: Has clause preventing state from upgrading any road within 10 miles of the toll road to a four-lane highway for 55 years.  

I'd love to get a better clarification on this particular clause, because I cannot see this being the case for ALL existing 2-laners in the shadows of the ITR.   Supposing a town has a local congestion problem which warrants a primary road to be widened?  There has to be some right for the city &/or InDOT to adequately widen the street in question.

On the flip side, would the Michigan DOT ever take advantage of this clause if and when they have road-building money again??? 

[NE2]

I'd love to get a better clarification on this particular clause, because I cannot see this being the case for ALL existing 2-laners in the shadows of the ITR.   Supposing a town has a local congestion problem which warrants a primary road to be widened?  There has to be some right for the city &/or InDOT to adequately widen the street in question.

Here's the agreement: http://www.in.gov/ifa/files/4-12-06-Concession-Lease-Agreement.pdf
Page 4 (12/112) defines "competing highway". At least 20 continuous miles of the newly-constructed highway must be within 10 miles of the toll road, and it must be "interstate quality" (see the definition of "comparable highway"). If I'm interpreting it correctly, doesn't this make anything perpendicular to the Toll Road a competing highway? (This doesn't affect a US 31 upgrade, since most of it is already "comparable highway". But it might affect a freeway extension of US 131 south through Goshen if Michigan upgrades it from Kalamazoo, unless only the portion in Indiana counts for the 20 miles.) The only use of "competing highway" that I can find in the text is on page 76 (84/112); its opening is a "compensation event" that requires the state to pay the decrease in income directly attributable to the competition.

In short, if INDOT builds a long-distance freeway along or near US 20, they must pay the company any losses caused by this. Any other corridor is fine, including US 30 (though maybe not on the current alignment west of Valparaiso).

ODOT's agreement might require an exception allowing the extension of the SR 2 freeway to Toledo.