Derek Smith, Daily Reporter Staff Writer
Trucking companies appear to be as divided on the need for a new metro-area tollway as other skeptics.
Trucking firms' reaction to Gov. Mitch Daniels' proposed Indiana Commerce Connector is illuminating because it's one sector of business that will be most affected by the new road. Daniels proposed an outer tollway around Indianapolis earlier this month that would run through Morgan, Johnson, Shelby, Hancock and Madison counties.
Many government officials and economic development experts say the road would be a catalyst for development in the area. Perhaps even more significantly, many think the road would solve Greenfield's traffic congestion on Ind. 9.
For that to happen, a lot of Greenfield truck traffic would have to start using the connector. That's not a guarantee, says Greenfield trucking executive Dan Cook, who isn't yet sold on the idea of the tollway.
Cook is president of Online Transport Inc., a Greenfield-based trucking company whose 240 drivers haul freight across the Midwest.
"I don't think it's real practical," Cook said. "Generally, trucks go around toll roads when they can."
Acknowledging that many details have to be worked out, including the toll rates, Cook said companies would have to compare the cost of the toll against the benefit of saved mileage, adding that companies driving east or west through Indianapolis probably wouldn't be inclined to pay a toll.
"I could see how it could help local companies more than the ones that are coming through," he said.
Jerry Abraham, senior executive vice president of S. Abraham & Sons Inc., has a different take on the tollway.
SAS currently uses other tollways in Indiana Illinois and Ohio, he said.
"Generally, any time we've had a tollway, we've had easier access to our customer base," Abraham said. "Anything to make transportation easier for us obviously will be a benefit."
A wholesale distributor that specializes in the food industry, SAS serves retail stores throughout the Midwest.
One of three facilities for the Grand Rapids, Mich.-based company is in Hancock County. Others facilities are in Milwaukee, Wis., and Grand Rapids, Mich.
The Indiana facility sends products to customers across Indiana, and in central and southern Ohio, northern Kentucky and southern Illinois, Abraham said.
Wholesale distribution is a business with slim profit margins, so company officials are constantly evaluating the routes taken by the company's drivers, Abraham said.
"Anything we can do to save fractions, or pennies, we do," he said.
Daniels advocates using a public-private partnership to design, build, operate and maintain the proposed outer tollway.
Indiana isn't the only state to consider a public-private partnership road project.
Public-private road projects for new toll roads or toll lanes were underway in six states - California, Colorado, Georgia, Oregon, Texas and Virginia - as of early 2006, according to the annual privatization report of Reason Foundation, a Los Angeles-based public policy research group.