BY KEITH BENMAN and PATRICK GUINANE,
Times of Northwest Indiana Staff Writers
Northwest Indiana commuters making the daily trek to Chicago might want to start collecting their loose change now to handle toll increases of as much as 169 percent.
A Toll Road concession agreement released Monday by Gov. Mitch Daniels shows a private operator will collect dramatically increased tolls in Northwest Indiana.
Someone starting their commute at Milepost 23 at Willowcreek Road in Portage will see the cost for the round-trip Indiana portion of their commute soar to $840 yearly from its current $384.
Throw in the Chicago Skyway one-way toll of $2.50, and the round-trip commute to the Loop will cost someone $2,040 yearly. That's before filling up the tank.
Also gone will be a 33 percent commuter discount program that more than 4,000 commuters take advantage of, according to Toll Road figures.
The concession agreement was released Monday as Gov. Mitch Daniels announced a Spanish-Australian consortium had bid $3.85 billion for the right to collect tolls and operate the Indiana Toll Road for 75 years.
The toll increases range from just 20 cents at Willow Creek to 75 cents at West Point, the last toll plaza where everyone using the road pays before getting to the Skyway. The increases add up.
The Northwest Indiana portion of the Indiana Toll Road is by far the heaviest traveled in the state, with 4 million passenger vehicles and 2 million commercial vehicles passing through the Milepost 23 plaza every year.
The concession agreement contains toll increases for six toll plazas in all from Willow Creek Road to West Point.
The toll schedule contained in the agreement omits Milepost 13 at Grant Street and Milepost 15 at Broadway. A 15 cent toll currently is charged for cars exiting westbound at Grant and entering eastbound. No toll is charged at Broadway.
It will cost 50 cents to enter the Toll Road at Valparaiso/Chesterton and Michigan City plazas and $1.25 at LaPorte.
A trip east from Portage to the Ohio border will cost $6.75, or 63 percent more than the current $4.15. Driving from Illinois to Ohio would cost $8, or 68 percent more than the current $4.75.
In 2010, the private Toll Road operator could increase tolls by at least 8 percent or about 65 cents over the entire 157-mile highway (a compound increase covering 2006-09).
In a strong economy, the increase could be double that. Every year after 2010, the operator gets to use the greater of 2 percent or the annual growth in either consumer price index or gross domestic product.
Gross domestic product, for instance, grew 4.2 percent from 2003 to 2004, according to the U.S. Department of Commerce Bureau of Economic Analysis.
The lease also calls for implementation of electronic tolling, such as I-Pass in Illinois, by mid-2008.