Holiday drive on the Indiana Toll Road

[mukade]

I took the Indiana Toll Road from Mishawaka to Gary East on my way to Portage on Sunday. Later, I hopped back on at Gary east, went to Cline Avenue, looped around and came back eastbound. So I drove everything from Mishawaka west. Not living near ITR, I wanted to see if the reports of poor maintenance were true in addition to just checking out anything new.

Pavement: It seemed pretty good to me. Rather than a complete resurfacing They are resurfacing areas that where the surface appears to have deteriorated. If I had to estimate, that is about a third of the pavement. For anyone who has driven I-70 in Indiana, it is somewhat similar in appearance, but this seems to be fixing pavement surface issues where the I-70 is clearly experiencing pavement failure. Anyway, the ride was very smooth the entire way, and they are doing a neat job.

Widening: It has been a while since I drove the section in Northwest Indiana. The highway is now six lanes from I-94 to Cline Avenue (Gary West interchange). It is also six lanes from the Cline Avenue west interchange to the Illinois line. Traffic flowed nicely and seemed to be light to moderate on this holiday weekend.

Signage: Yes, the westbound sign at Cline Avenue is in Clearview , but that is the only one I noticed. Apparently they must have made the signs for Broadway with the word "Ave" or something, because "Broadway" is always left justified with a blank area on the right. Oops. The enhanced mile markers are installed every 0.1 miles, and they have a green background unlike the blue background you see in the rest of the state.


Clearview sign


Enhanced mile marker with a green background

Toll Collection:
The iZoom seemed to work great. I bought a tag a couple of years ago, but now all the lanes are in place so that was my first real test on ITR. The only glitch I was was that I came in behind an iPass driver whose tag did not work so an attendant had to manually scan his tag. That wasted 90 seconds, but that really is a much better system than Illinois Tollway, where you would never know that your tag didn't register until you get a bill for over $100 in the mail months later. Then, if you refuse to pay within 30 days, it goes up to $500 - and no, you cannot just have them debit your iZoom tag.

Rest area:
We stopped at the rest area near LaPorte. It was clean and well-maintained even though the traffic design is probably still what it was when they built it. Inside, with two restaurants and a shop, it was full, but our order for food was taken and delivered efficiently. It was much, much more efficient than an airport fast food place, for example, as it would comapare to that.

So all in all, except for the electronic tolling and widened area in Gary, it looks like it always has. I did see a bridge or two that needed painting, but it otherwise looked well maintained. As far as litter like tire debris, it was clean unlike the LaPorte INDOT district's sloppiness and ineffectiveness in such things. Speed though most of the region is 70 which is nice.

[tdindy88]

Well...thank goodness that the ITR is no longer an INDOT-maintained route (for now of course,) so their track record for no Clearview remains intact, though that sign isn't too bad. At least the SR 912 shield looks no different. I was on the stretch of the toll road from SR 9 to I-69 last February and it looked like nothing had changed on that segment, my last time through the Gary portion was probably in 2008, so I may want to check out that highway in the future to see what has changed.

[mukade]

Yeah, it is interesting to do just that from time to time. A couple of people had posted how bad the road was last year so I was curious. I had been on it in January 2011, and except for potholes related to the construction going on then, it was not too bad. I guess I would say there was a slight exaggeration in a couple of posts. The pothole season was generally bad last year, though, so I am sure ITR had its share.

So the interesting thing is in addition to getting money to fund Major Moves, the ITR has finally been widened in key places after all these years. We'll see on the long-term, but at this point, it is hard to see a down side to the ITR leasing plan. Didn't Daniels say the state was losing money on running the toll road before the lease?

[mgk920]

I also note that the Toll Road's concessioner is working to add value to their 'product', such as the six-lane upgrade west of the Borman and its increased speed limit.  I have also been periodically hearing ads from them on Chicago radio stations (ditto the Skyway).

I do find it odd how the Toll Road did the lane add/drop at the Borman interchange - those lanes end immediately west of that connector - on the inside (left) - while the connector's ramps merge/diverge on the outside (right).  Check the close-in Google Maps aerial images of that section to see just how.  Do they have plans to farther extend the six lanes to the east?

Mike

[mukade]

I noticed that also, but I think the strange lane configuration was done with the assumption that there will be a new interchange eventually. If or when it gets built, it would probably make more sense than it does now.

[JREwing78]

So the interesting thing is in addition to getting money to fund Major Moves, the ITR has finally been widened in key places after all these years. We'll see on the long-term, but at this point, it is hard to see a down side to the ITR leasing plan. Didn't Daniels say the state was losing money on running the toll road before the lease?

The only reason the ITR was losing money was because there wasn't the political will to raise tolls. It's not like ITR suddenly became much more efficient at spending toll funds when government got out of it. Not at all - the first thing the concessioner did was raise tolls. The difference was, Indiana politicians didn't have to hear the whining about it from residents, and the concessioner could tell them to take a flying leap.

I'll grant you that Gov. Daniels timed the sale well and got maximum value for it. Certainly, a $3.8 billion lump sum did wonders for INDOT's ability to build roads, and it's hard to pull that kind of cash out that quickly without the kind of lease done on the ITR. That's all well and good.

However, there's no evidence of long-term thinking in this deal. That $3.8 billion is spent, and Indiana has to wait another 90+ years to get a similar cash infusion. They could've have made considerably more if they just raised tolls, and there's no reason other than political cowardice that they couldn't have raised fuel taxes instead to fund the build-out of US-31, I-69, and so on.

There is an opportunity here - politicians can demonstrate the good that the $3.8 billion did for Indiana highways, jobs, the economy, and so on. They can parlay that into a highway funding formula that raises fuel taxes 10-20 cents, then indexes it to inflation so it doesn't lose purchasing power. That will see them through upcoming road needs without having to resort to more political trickery. But that would also require politicians whose vision extends beyond the Tea Party rhetoric.

[realjd]

Are they still using the goofy long and wide lane stripes on the new construction? I never understood why the ITR needed to do lane stripes differently than the rest of the country.

[tdindy88]

The Chicago toll roads all have the long stripes, IIRC, I always thought that the Indiana Toll Road was just trying to be like Chicago.

[hbelkins]

Are they still using the goofy long and wide lane stripes on the new construction? I never understood why the ITR needed to do lane stripes differently than the rest of the country.

They have the same style of striping on the NJ Turnpike.

[rawmustard]

I definitely noticed the spot HMA overlays driving west from Mishawaka to Lake Station on Saturday. Many of those spots looked pretty fresh, too.

[realjd]

Are they still using the goofy long and wide lane stripes on the new construction? I never understood why the ITR needed to do lane stripes differently than the rest of the country.

They have the same style of striping on the NJ Turnpike.

So that's where the toll money in Indiana, Illinois, and New Jersey goes I guess. They've got to pay for the extra white paint some how!

[Alps]

Are they still using the goofy long and wide lane stripes on the new construction? I never understood why the ITR needed to do lane stripes differently than the rest of the country.

They have the same style of striping on the NJ Turnpike.

Didn't know about Indiana, but I confirmed that NJ and IL arrived at their 25/25 spacing independently.