It began with the tolling of two new bridges over the Ohio River thanks to former Gov. Mitch Daniels and now they want to erect toll booths on the state's busiest interstate highways, I-65 and I-70. "If we toll I-65 and I-70, that would free up $365 million a year that would allow us to pave and maintain six lanes from border to border," Rep. Ed Soliday (R-Valparaiso) told the Indianapolis Star.
Rep. Soliday doesn't believe the $400 million in new taxes proposed by House Republicans to fund transportation needs in the future gets the job done. Soliday claims polls show many Hoosiers support tolling the roads to pay for better roads. HB 1001 currently includes an addition 4 cent per gallon charge on gasoline and a $1 a pack tax on cigarettes. A new $100 registration fee will be charged to electric car owners, and cities will now be allowed to levy a wheel tax of $50 to fund local road projects.
23 comments:
You can't toll interstates built with federal money. Other states have tried to pursue this and got nowhere. Put the damn gas tax where it needs to be and be done with it.
I recall paying a toll to drive on I-70 when I entered the state of Kansas several years back.
There is hardly a road built anymore that doesn't have federal money, to one level or another. I've driven on (federal) interstates out east that had tolls. Not sure what the rules are on that...I doubt it's an outright ban. Nonetheless, this is a terrible idea. Contrary to what the legislator says, tolls are terribly unpopular.
Tri-State Tollway around Chicago has
portions where vehicles throw money
into a basket.
The over $3 billion received for Mitch's lease of the Indiana Toll Road is long since gone and more gone.
I don't like tolls and I don't want to increase the gas tax. Remember, gas prices can swing wildly. There are steady assertions that an interruption of oil tanker activity in the Strait of Hormuz due to increased war activity between Saudi Arabia and Iran, a place where just yesterday our Navy got humiliated by the Iranians, could cause the price of oil to swing violently to $200 a barrel from today's price of $30. It wasn't that long ago that oil was hovering near $100 a barrel. If we increase the gas tax now, it will never come back down, and when the price of oil and gasoline rises, it will be even higher. We can find road and bridge repair revenues by tightening our belt and cutting the waste and fat from the budget.
Turning public assets into private revenue streams, it's the Republican Way.
Soliday didn't think this up on his own. An investment bank lobbyist wrote it, shopped it around, and Soliday agreed to be the corporatist patsy to introduce it.
Indiana will lose all federal money for I-65 and I-70, and they should. Indiana is not an essential state. Commerce and travelers will look elsewhere.
These politicians at the statehouse are thieves. They want to steel our money and use it to get more campaign contribution.They spend day and night thinking how to take more of our money. They should all be thrown out of office.
This behavior invites corporal punishment.
Gary you also pay tolls on i80-90 across northern Indiana on the Indiana toll road. Illinois tollway roads in the Chicago area are all interstate routes. None received money from Feds for construction or maintenance as 65 & 70 do in Indiana. Just because a road is or is not an interstate doesn't necessarily mean it gets federal aid
On exactly which planet does this Rep. Ed Soliday (R-Valparaiso) live? My comment to his proposed lunacy: What John Accetturo said. And what Anon 9:35 said, too.
The problem is our Politicians have in recent decades not wanted to face up to the fact a first class road system costs money. We end up paying Brand "A" Prices and receive Brand "X" quality.
I do not have a problem with paying a higher gas tax for a first class road, whether it is Interstate, State or Local. The problem I have is all the taxes diverted or not collected at all to support Crony-Capitalism such as: Colts and Pacers, Corporate Schools, and these damn TIFs.
Actually our lawmakers received a study that was commissioned and executed by Cambridge systematics on alternative revenue generation. It's likely that the study showed by tolling certain roads what affects wouldn't have to secondary roads that would pick up added capacity due to people avoiding toll roads. Then taking a look at the condition of the secondary roads and at what point in the future preservation cost would need to be implemented and what the revenue would look like at that time. It's a complicated matter that quite frankly the public has not been educated well on. The roads are a consumable product unless we go to a user fee based on mileage traveled and axle weight tolling appears to be, at least at this point the fairest way to increase revenue .
Don't fall for 1:07's scam. Pay-per-mile and user fees are an attempt to declare war on driving.
There is no amount of driving a motorcycle or a Honda Civic can do that will wear down a road. Pay-per-mile is a farce.
And are semi truck weigh stations are closed. At least n/bound 65
coming from the south. Frequently travel to Nashville and I haven't seen any activity for years.
Unless the law has changed, you cannot make a toll road out of a freeway, only a newly built highway can be designated a toll road. Or was that an 'old wives tale'?
"You can't toll interstates built with federal money."
That is true. The toll roads we all know such as the Indiana Toll Road, ISTHA (Illinois Tollway), NJ Turnpike, etc etc were built with state and local bonding authorities. The scam back in the 1940's and 1950's was when the bonds issued to build the road were paid off, the toll roads would become free roads in about the 1990s. However in classic Capital Improvement Board style most of these states just refunded the bonds over and over and over and kept the tolls in place. ISTHA within the past few years finally admitted they have no intention of removing tolls. The only state I'm aware that followed its own laws and removed the tolls when the bonds were paid is Kentucky.
What I'm seeing in some states - Georgia and Maryland in particular - is utilizing extra tolled lanes on an existing road. So an interstate that was built with USDOT money (and therefore - free to the driving public) can have extra lanes added to it by the state with state revenue bonding money and put tolls on the extra lanes. I-85 in Atlanta is like that, as well as I-95 around Baltimore.
Missouri is trying or tried to petition USDOT to allow the state to issue state revenue bonds to pay for a ground-up rebuild of I-70 from STL to KC, make it no less than three lanes wide each way, and allow tolling to pay for the road improvements.
Why toll it? So they can sell it. By the way, did we burn there the money from the sold toll road? Why are we raising taxes with all the billions Gov. Daniels made from the sale of the toll road?
I actually support tolls on interstates. Just because Indiana is the Crossroads of America doesn't mean we are the destination of America. We should be shipping goods via rail to suburban distribution hubs. Lighter box trucks, and some semi-trailer units could be then used for local deliveries. Instead politics dictate we use the most inefficient model of shipping goods: one engine for one container (some semis haul two containers, but most are only pulling one trailer). These heavy trucks are tearing up our roads and yet many are just passing thru. I have no problem with tolls and believe they should be based on the weight of vehicle using the road.
Some posters are commenting that this can't be done, but it is being done. Texas added toll lanes to the Katy Freeway (IH10) in Houston. There are still free lanes, so maybe that's a loophole, I don't know. I also know that laws are really irrelevant. If these folks want to do something, they'll do it.
Years ago the Indy Star mentioned the state of Indiana was losing over $6 million a year running the toll road in northern Indiana. If this is true how much will it cost to run more of them?
Truckers will use State Raod 40 instead of I-70.. it runs thru Indiana.. So now city and county roads would bear most of the traffic..not a good solution.. Use the 2.4 billion reserve.. after all its tax payers money not Govenor Pinch
The third party "Republican" establishment is not one of small or less government- that's false advertising. Defund & fire the toxic, statist establishment.
"Years ago the Indy Star mentioned the state of Indiana was losing over $6 million a year running the toll road in northern Indiana. If this is true how much will it cost to run more of them?"
This was back when the Gannett cabal was preaching Gov Mitch's idea of the toll road lease to the plebs. INDOT could have corrected the situation itself if it were allowed to - but The Powers That Be wouldn't allow it.
The Toll Road was losing money - mainly because before it came under INDOT jurisdiction (back in the ITRC days) it was collecting tolls and not putting anything into maintenance (Democrat slush fund?). INDOT took control of the Toll Road in the 1990's and had to spend a bunch of money fixing bridges and performing deferred maintenance on the road. Raising the tolls was not popular with the Dems up north who controlled Capitol Avenue back then, so it was throwing good money after bad.
Along comes Gov Mitch who jumped on the same bandwagon that King Richard II jumped on - leasing their toll road/bridge - for a one time infusion of cash. Mitch went 75 years for 3.8 billion for ITR, King Richard went 99 years for not quite a billion for the Skyway and the same company bought the contract for the connecting roads. As we all now know the company that did the initial leases went belly up and the leases were assumed by another company.
"Texas added toll lanes to the Katy Freeway (IH10) in Houston. There are still free lanes, so maybe that's a loophole"
Refer to my answer above. USDOT is allowing states to add tolled lanes to roads built with federal aid money. The state uses their bonding authority to pay for the road improvements and collects tolls on the extra lanes. Ohio wants to toll the Brent Spence bridge to finance an improved bridge at Cincinnati, similar to whats going on down in Louisville. And as previously mentioned Missouri wants to toll I-70 to pay for a complete rebuild of the road from St Louis to Kansas City.
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