Northwest Indiana transportation leaders seek toll parity

PORTAGE | The Northwestern Indiana Regional Planning Commission is gearing for two state hearings next week on hiking tolls on the Indiana Toll Road.

The transportation and economic development group says it isn't arguing against higher tolls, it just wants increases to be fair to all users.

"We want to bring the entire Toll Road under one system of collecting tolls which is distance-based," NIRPC Director of Transportation Planning Ken Dallmeyer told the group's transportation committee Tuesday.

The committee then approved a resolution advocating equal tolls across the Toll Road. That resolution will go to the NIRPC executive committee for approval later this week. It then will be submitted to the Indiana Department of Transportation and the Indiana Finance Authority, which must approve any toll increases.

As it stands now, under Gov. Mitch Daniels' proposals, tolls for some stretches in Northwest Indiana will go up as much as 169 percent. The average increase across the state for passenger vehicles will be 72 percent.

Those increases, or revenue to match, have been guaranteed to the Spanish-Australian consortium that has signed a concession agreement giving it the right to collect tolls along the 157-mile road for the next 75 years.

In Northwest Indiana, tolls ranging from 15 cents to 50 cents are collected at gates for cars both exiting and entering the toll road. Most Toll Road motorists crossing the state line between Indiana and Illinois pay tolls twice.

Under the proposed increases, tolls in Northwest Indiana would range from 5 cents per mile to as high as 41 cents per mile, according to NIRPC figures. Across the Toll Road as a whole, they would average 5.1 cents per mile.

The same sort of discrepancy currently exists between tolls paid in Northwest Indiana and those paid along the rest of the road.

Putting in electronic tolling similar to I-Pass in Illinois would make toll equalization possible across the entire Toll Road, Dallmeyer said.

Legislation to authorize leasing the Toll Road for 75 years to the Cintra-Macquarie consortium was still being worked on late Tuesday in the Indian General Assembly. The latest version of the bill provided for discounts for northern Indiana residents. But exactly how those discounts will work out is unclear.

The cost of any toll discount will be taken out of Northwest Indiana's $1.3 billion share of the $3.85 billion in lease proceeds. The cost of the discount would then be refunded to the Cintra-Macquarie consortium.

NIRPC members previously passed a resolution calling for further study of the Toll Road lease and its effect on development in Northwest Indiana.

State hearings on the proposed toll increases will take place March 23 and 24. Daniels has said with or without a lease, tolls are going up.