For Whom the Road Tolls
I have always maintained that in politics if you stick around long enough, you will eventually see everything. Already, my Democratic friends are lamenting that money from the lease of the Indiana Toll Road is about to expire. And because there are still 69 years left on the lease they say that this clearly demonstrates the lease was shortsighted and bad public policy.
My how things gets curiouser and curiouser. Please note while the Democrats opposed the Toll Road lease, they had no problem trying to divert the money from state road projects into education, Medicaid and whatever else they could get their hands on. Ironically, they even supported efforts to block the deal from going through back in 2006 via a lawsuit. Luckily no one had the more than billion dollars on hand to post the bond that would have been necessary to stop the deal.
I bring this up, because a couple things have been forgotten in all this. First, the money from the lease of the toll road was never intended to be a long-term fix to Indiana’s transportation issues. It was to help shore up a backlog of road projects. In fact, taking a quick look at the Indiana Department of Transportation’s website here’s what’s been done so far…
- 50 roadway projects complete and open to traffic
- More than 4,500 miles of road completed or repaired.
- 615 bridges rehabbed or replaced
- $6.5 billion invested in construction through FY 2011
And here’s what’s on schedule to be completed by 2015
- 87 roadways will be completed or substantially under construction
- 65 new or reconstructed interchanges
- 413 miles of new roadway will be constructed
- 6,350 mile of highway resurfaced-49 percent of the state’s inventory
- 1,070 bridges will be rehabilitated or replaced-19 percent of the state’s inventory
- More than $11 billion invested in Major New and Preservation
None of this would have happened without Major Moves. I take that back. It would have happened had the state kept the toll road under its control and used fees to pay for those projects. It just would have taken 50 years to generate the money needed to address one year of Indiana’s transportation needs. And that doesn’t include the dollars needed for necessary maintenance on the road itself.
So before complaining about the money running out from the Toll Road deal, critics should ponder just how much road work was made possible by Major Moves. Perhaps they can think about that on their next drive on U.S. 31, the Hoosier Heartland, Fort to Port, I-69 or I-465 or I-65 or I-70.
Ask not for whom the road tolls, it tolls for thee.
