The Indiana Toll Road sees added traffic heading into a Notre Dame football home game weekend on Friday, Oct. 10, 2014, in South Bend. (SBT Photo/ROBERT FRANKLIN)
Timeline
1951:General Assembly passes legislation creating Indiana Toll Road Commission
1954: Construction begins on $280 million roadway
1956: Toll Road opens
2006: State agrees to lease roadway to Spanish-Australian consortium for $3.8 billion over 75 years
2008: Electronic tolling implemented along entire route
September 2014: Consortium files for bankruptcy
Looking ahead:
A bankruptcy judge has agreed to consider a proposal by ITR Concession Co., the group that operates the Toll Road, to either sell the road or restructure with $2.75 billion in new debt, Bloomberg News reports. A hearing is set for Oct. 28 in Chicago.
Speaking to Governing Magazine about the proposed lease of the Indiana Toll Road back in 2006, then-Gov. Mitch Daniels reportedly boasted that if “the leasing consortium goes bankrupt, the Toll Road reverts back to the state’s control.”
State Sen. Ryan Mishler, R-Bremen, provided the same assurance, writing in The Tribune at the time, “If (the operator) goes bankrupt or violates terms of the agreement, the state will resume operations of the Toll Road and keep the $3.85 billion.”
Now that the possible has happened — the Spanish-Australian Consortium that operates the 157-mile roadway filed for bankruptcy last month — some local politicians believe it’s time for the state to exercise its rights under the lease agreement and take the road back.
It doesn’t look like that’s going to happen.
“From my perspective, I never wanted the state to lose control of the asset for 75 years, so if the state has the legal option to seize the road back, I think that would be the optimal solution for users, for the state and, frankly, for all of the parties involved other than the bankrupt party,” state Sen. John Broden, D-South Bend, said.
County commissioners in LaPorte County have gone so far as to adopt a resolution asking the state to intervene in the bankruptcy proceedings “to protect the public interest” and, at the same time, “explore options available under the lease to re-take full control and ownership of the Toll Road.”
LaPorte County Attorney Shaw Friedman, a prominent member of the Democratic Party in the county, drafted the ordinance.
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