Gov. Mitch Daniels is looking for private investors to take over the Indiana Toll Road .

In the meantime, plans are to go ahead and increase tolls along the 157-mile route by 72 percent for cars and ultimately 120 percent for large trucks. The state also wants to keep truckers off alternate routes.

The initiatives are part of the governor’s 10-year, $10.6 billion statewide construction plan dubbed “Major Moves.”

To help pay for the plan, the state is preparing for offers by several private firms to lease the toll road for 75 years, Daniels said. Bids for the lease are due by Jan. 20.

“There’s a good chance that again, we’ll be offered money that we could not generate in this state without doubling the gas tax, or doing something equally unthinkable,” the governor told WISE-TV in Fort Wayne.

The lease amount – estimated at more than $2 billion – would help the state to cover a gap of $2.8 billion needed for road and bridge work throughout the state for the next decade as well as possibly pay for an extension of Interstate 69 from Indianapolis to Evansville.

In return for taking over operation and maintenance of the toll road, a private group would keep all of the toll money collected.

Any leasing plans would require approval from the Indiana General Assembly. With that in mind, Rep. Randy Borror, R-Fort Wayne, will be carrying the governor’s plan to the legislature.

Congress encouraged such public-private partnerships in the Highway Bill, which President Bush signed into law in August 2005. The legislation authorizes $15 billion in tax-exempt bonds for privately financed highways and simplifies their environmental planning process.

Daniels’ office reached an agreement with the state’s trucking association to phase in proposed toll increases on the Indiana Toll Road over four years.

If the fare increase is approved after public hearings in March, the rate for tractor-trailers traveling from the Illinois line to Ohio would rise from $14.55 to $18 this year. The rate would climb to $22.50 in 2007, $27.25, in 2008 and $32 in 2009.

Passenger vehicle rates for driving the same distance would rise from $4.65 to $8 this year. No other increases are planned.

In exchange for the phased-in truck rate, the Indiana Motor Truck Association has endorsed the governor’s transportation initiative.

The toll increases could generate as much as $770 million in 10 years.

The state officials are relying on in-state and out-of-state vehicles in their toll revenue projections. Indiana Department of Transportation figures show that 66 percent of 2004 toll road revenue came from out-of-state vehicles, 18 percent from in-state cars and 16 percent from in-state truck traffic.

Todd Spencer, executive vice president of the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association, said the gradual phase-in is more reasonable than the alternative. But he said Indiana truckers should demand a credit for fuel taxes paid on toll road miles.

“When you talk about more than doubling the toll rate set for vehicles operating on that road, you’re talking about a tremendous increase that most people would concur would be really hard to swallow,” Spencer said.

“At a minimum, truckers should be urging state officials to approve allowing them to take a credit on their fuel taxes for miles run on the toll road.”

The governor said the revised truck fare increase is intended to counter a possible diversion of truck traffic onto nearby U.S. 20 after the new rate takes effect.

If unsuccessful in avoiding diversions, Daniels said the state could redesignate the highway a state road. The change would enable weight limits to be put in place that would prohibit large truck traffic.

“A lot of pains will be taken to ensure there is not a diversion of traffic off the Toll Road ,” Daniels told the Journal Gazette in Fort Wayne.

Rick Craig, OOIDA’s director of regulatory affairs, said re-designating a U.S. federally-funded highway as a state highway is not a simple process.

Craig said the portion of the highway that is part of the National Highway System would require authorization from the Federal Highway Administration to make the switch and ban trucks. For the rest of the road, a switch over simply would cost the state federal funding it now receives.

Spencer said “the fact there is such a discussion (to reclassify the highway) points out what really is the underlying agenda for toll roads: these are moneymakers. The trucks that operate on those roads are nothing more than cash cows.”

– By Keith Goble, state legislative editor
keith_goble@landlinemag.com