Private Toll Road pitched as Northwest Indiana RDA's ticket

The newly minted Northwest Indiana Regional Development Authority has a "dog in the fight" over privatization of the Indiana Toll Road.

"If a lease is successfully done, part of the Major Moves plan the state has made is $100 million over 10 years will be set aside and paid out to us," RDA chairman John Clark told the board at its regular meeting Tuesday night.

Privatization of the toll road under a long-term lease agreement is one proposal floated in Gov. Mitch Daniel's "Major Moves" plan for modernizing highway funding in Indiana. Clark is a senior adviser to the governor and involved with formulation and promotion of the plan.

Any Indiana Toll Road privatization plan will need the approval of the General Assembly.

Trucking groups and others are already gearing up to oppose proposed toll increases contained in Major Moves.

When Daniels laid out the transportation plan in late September, it directly linked RDA funding to the toll increases. But Clark's comments and others out of the Daniels administration now appear to link RDA funding to the effort to lease the toll road to a private operator.

"I don't mean to say absent of the successful passage of Major Moves we have a funding problem," Clark said in qualifying his comments to the board. "But if that (Major Moves) does happen, we will be able to exhale."

Daniels has already said he supports a full $10 million in funding from the state for the RDA's first two years. That money would come out of current Indiana Toll Road revenues.

The RDA will get $17.5 million more per year in funding from local casino revenues and local income taxes.

Clark confirmed the state is already talking with major private firms that specialize in managing infrastructure about a Toll Road lease. The Daniels administration hopes to secure serious expressions of interest to "inform the legislative debates."

Toll increases could generate $770 million for the state over the next 10 years, according to the Daniels administration. The increase would be about 72 percent for cars and 119 percent for trucks.

A long-term lease of the 157-mile Indiana Toll Road could generate in excess of $2 billion in that time, according to Indiana Department of Transportation estimates.

Board members had little to say about Clark's comments Tuesday night. Most of the meeting was spent laying plans for identifying transportation projects the RDA can get involved in.

The board resolved to arrange a full day of meetings with consultants in early January to begin developing a "vision" of what it can do. U.S. Rep. Pete Visclosky, D-Ind., will also meet with the board at that time to tell them what federal funds can be secured.

Clark said the federal funding outlined by Visclosky will help determine some, but not necessarily all, of the RDAs early goals.

The board chairman also reported on his Nov. 16 meeting with leaders in LaPorte County, some of whom are in favor of their county joining the RDA. Clark said it would not be up to the RDA whether or not LaPorte County could join. It would take a desire on the part of LaPorte County plus legislative action on the part of the Indiana General Assembly.