A governmental professor at the College of William and Mary in Virginia has concluded that the Major Moves lease of the Indiana Toll Road was a bad deal for Indiana taxpayers in the long run. John Gilmour, in an article published in the Public Administration Review, an Indiana University journal, said that Major Moves may have been good in the short term, but it has important consequences in "intergenerational justice." He said it may enrich current citizens and governments at the expense of future citizens and governments by transferring future revenue to current budgets.
What a bunch of baloney!
In the 2006 transaction and under the leadership of Gov. Mitch Daniels, Indiana leased the Indiana Toll Road in Northern Indiana to the ITR Concession Co. for a one-time payment of $3.8 billion. In return, the private consortium took control of the toll road for 75 years. The company gained the tolls, but is also responsible for maintaining the highway.
Gilmour concluded that in the long run, Indiana taxpayers would have been better off retaining the toll road, maintaining it and collecting the tolls.
Of course, it is Major Moves that made Interstate 69, now open to traffic from Evansville to Crane, possible. The highway is expected to be open to Bloomington in 2014, and eventually to go on to Indianapolis. In addition, Major Moves has funded other highway and bridge improvements in Indiana.
Without Major Moves, none of this work would have been possible during the big recession. And the tolls collected on the Indiana Toll Road would not have helped had Indiana retained control. Because in the years before Major Moves, the toll road operated at a loss, with all income going merely to maintain the toll road.
Gilmour argues that could have been fixed by Indiana increasing the tolls, as the private consortium has done. But that presumes that elected officials is Indiana would have found the political courage to do so. Fat chance. Businesses do that, but politicians usually don't. Even more, it is doubtful that politicians would have done it in an amount that provided income for other highway projects around the state, as Major Moves has done.
As it turned out, tolls were increased and the Indiana Toll Road is being maintained by the private concern, while billions have been poured into highway work around the state. Long term or short term, that was the smart move for Indiana taxpayers and motorists. Long term, think of the Hoosier lives that will be saved, especially when I-69 hooks up with Bloomington, and takes major traffic off those dangerous, curvy roads south of the university city. So-called experts can't put a value on the lives taken away on those narrow roads. Saving lives now and in the decades to come strikes us as real "intergenerational justice."
Interstate 69 and other projects carried on by the state will have exactly what the professor discounts — incalculable long-term value. That, and a privately maintained Indiana Toll Road.