COMMENTARY: Indiana's bridges over troubled policies

Rocks and debris fall through holes around the edges of that broken, 4-foot-by-8-foot section of pavement, onto U.S. 41.

The busy highway below is visible through those gaps.

That alarming scene — captured in a photograph snapped Tuesday afternoon Feb. 23 by the Tribune-Star’s Jim Avelis — stands as the poster child of Indiana’s aging roads. The bridge deck wasn’t struck by a meteorite or a safe that tumbled out of a moving van. The roadway simply deteriorated. “The deck and the joints are worn out and are at the end of their life cycle,” said Debbie Calder, communications director for the Indiana Department of Transportation’s Crawfordsville district.

Crews worked Tuesday through the afternoon and night to repair the bridge. The driving lane reopened in the wee hours of Wednesday morning.

The damaged section had been patched previously, before its most-recent crumbling and forced lane closure. INDOT patches bridge decks annually, Calder explained. The I-70 bridge that spans above U.S. 41 was already scheduled for a more significant upgrade, beginning in April. Plans call for a widening of the bridge and replacement of its decks in both the westbound and eastbound lanes. Those repairs are part of a $6.9-million project that also includes improvements to the I-70 bridges above Thompson Ditch and the Indiana Rail Road next year. In November, INDOT awarded the bid for the work to Superior Construction Co.

Indeed, a makeover is coming for the I-70 bridge over 41, but its vulnerable condition in the meantime is troubling. “Similar issues could arise, [INDOT construction officials] said, but we do plan to do additional deck patching before April,” Calder stated.

Obviously, improvements should happen before a road or bridge disintegrates.

A total of 1,717 bridges in Indiana are rated as structurally deficient by Federal Highway Administration. Some are maintained by the state and others by local governments. Bridges, roads and highways need rebuilt and renovated for Indiana to legitimately claim its “Crossroads of America” slogan. A debate continues in the current session of the Indiana Legislature over the level of funding for roads and infrastructure, and the erosion of the I-70 bridge in Terre Haute exemplifies the urgent need for the state to act boldly.

“It demonstrates how dire the situation is,” state Rep. Dan Forestal (Indianapolis), the ranking Democrat on the House Roads and Transportation Committee, said of the Tribune-Star photo of the deteriorated roadway. “The amount of damage that is evident in that picture says to me that we have had at least a decade of neglect of our roads and bridges, and now we’re starting to see really extreme instances of the degradation of the roads.”

As legislative leaders like to remind everyone, Indiana pumps a lot of money into its roads and bridges. It’s clearly not enough, though, and that photograph proves it. Tight spending policies — a political hallmark in Indiana — win votes and look appealing, but Hoosiers pay for that frugality anyway. The cost of vehicle repairs caused by driving on substandard roads averages $225 per motorist a year, according to the American Society of Civil Engineers infrastructure report card. That totals $1.25 billion per year.

Besides the bills everyday people pay at the repair shop, a crumbled highway bridge is plainly dangerous. The I-70 bridge over U.S. 41 isn’t some backwoods path over a culvert. An estimated 10,875 vehicles — semis, pickups, mini-vans, SUVs and compacts — drive over the I-70 bridge every day, according to INDOT.

The General Assembly heralded its current session as focused on addressing Hoosier roads and infrastructure. After wrangling over two different Republican plans, the Senate GOP did surgery on a stronger, long-term roads bill crafted by their House counterparts. A Senate committee on Thursday announced a compromise that transformed the House proposal by eliminating its two tax increases — an extra dollar per pack on cigarettes, and an extra 4 cents added to the state’s 18-cents-per-gallon gasoline tax, which hasn’t changed in 13 years — and forming a task force to formulate a long-term plan.

Governor Mike Pence staunchly opposed any tax increases to fund roads, and applauded the compromise. That amended House Bill 1001 now moves to the Senate floor. Pence’s own roads plan amounts to $1 billion, including $200 million pulled from the state’s $2 billion-plus budget surplus, and covers four years.

Meanwhile, the contents of the original House bill, with the tax cuts, have been inserted into Senate Bill 333, and it remains alive in the House.

The back-and-forth negotiating will likely go down to the session’s final day, Forestal predicted.

A long-term fix is needed immediately, despite the likely election-year backlash from raising gas and cigarette taxes. As Republican House Speaker Brian Bosma (R-Indianapolis) told the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette after Thursday’s Senate compromise, “It’s very clear that [Governor Pence] wants a program that only funds the next governor’s term and doesn’t look beyond that. I think it’s very clear we should be acting now.”

The original House proposal, with the two tax increases, is “a pretty good bill,” said Rep. Clyde Kersey, a Democrat from Terre Haute. When it passed legislative chamber and went to the Senate, Kersey opposed it because he favored using the cigarette tax funds for smoking related health-care costs and cessation efforts. But, given the Republicans’ super-majority status in the House and Senate, those objections got buried, and Kersey now favors that plan. It would index the gas tax for the rate of inflation, a jump of 4 cents per gallon and $25 per driver annually.

In the big picture of Indiana’s need for reinvestment in its roads, both parties share blame for avoiding an update of the gasoline tax, which was last done in 2003.

Until roads and bridges began falling apart, infrastructure investment hadn’t been a priority. “No, it hasn’t,” Kersey said, “and I think I have to blame both Democrats and Republicans for ignoring the gasoline tax and indexing it for inflation.”

The gas and cigarette tax jumps would push Indiana closer to the level of reinvestment necessary to sustain roads and bridges — $1 billion annually. House Republicans also want to free up local income tax revenue for local governments to fix county roads, which desperately need reconstruction as well.

“It’s not the evil government trying to eek another penny out of their constituents. It’s reality,” Rep. Ed Soliday (Valparaiso), the Republican chairman of the House Roads and Transportation Committee, told the Tribune-Star by phone Thursday morning.

Later that day, the Senate announced its tax-increase-free compromise, assuring the public, “We don’t really have a crisis.”

Take another look at that photo of the bridge, built in 1964, where nearly 11,000 vehicles cross daily. It sure looks like a crisis.