Posted on 01/25/2006 1:42:20 PM PST by Willie Green
OOIDA Opposes Indiana Toll Road, Calls Drivers to Action
2006/01/25 13:18:00
Layover.com
(Grain Valley, MO)-The Owner-Operator Independent Driver's Association is urging its Indiana members to contact their state lawmakers and Governor Mitch Daniels to oppose legislation that would permit the state to lease the Indiana Toll Road.
The governor has reviewed bids received to operate the Indiana Toll Road for the next 75 years. A Spanish-Australian consortium has emerged as the frontrunner with a $3.8 billion bid from Cintra of Madrid, Spain, and Macquarie Infrastructure Group of Sydney, Australia.
"The toll road is an integral part of the National Interstate Defense Highway System - and the governor wants to sell it to a foreign country," says Todd Spencer, OOIDA Executive Vice President. "This isn't thinking outside the box. It's thinking outside the planet. Truckers have even more at stake than anyone else. If the heavily traveled Indiana road can be auctioned off so can every other route in the nation."
The governor says the money would be used for various transportation projects in the state including extending Interstate 69 from Indianapolis to Evansville with this section, too, being a privately owned toll road.
With more than 4,600 members across the state, OOIDA believes the lure for supporters is having a hand in or sharing in the billions that will be raised up front with little or no thought to where the state will be just a few years down the road.
"We think this is more than a lousy idea. It's an outrageous one for the state, for truckers and for the nation," Spencer says. "The toll road isn't the governor's to sell. It belongs to the people of Indiana and to the highway users who have paid for it and continue to pay for it with their tolls and taxes."
Documents produced by the governor's office show that the toll road is a moneymaker for the state right now. Even at the toll road's existing toll rates, the road netted nearly $12 million in income in 2005. Increasing the tolls as planned by the governor -120 percent for big trucks -could likely net $100 million a year over expenses.
In addition to highways, this legislation also gives the governor the authority to lease other transportation infrastructure including river ports and airports.
The House Ways and Means Committee is expected to consider the bill today. Lawmakers have until Feb. 2 to vote the legislation out of the House and send it to the Senate.
BWAAHAHAHAHAHA! What are they going to do, put a couple of barriers out and stop people from driving on it? Or cut it up and take it with them when they leave?
They are putting a huge amount of money up front to build these roads, money this state doesn't or couldn't ever get any other way and they are going to then hurt the thing that they spent the money on? I hate to see the money going overseas for 75 years yes, but this clown is a moron to think they would build these roads and then screw the cash cows that they need to get their money back.
The road is already built and paid for, dummy.
The governor is auctioning it off dirt-cheap to cronies who will gouge the traveling public with excessive tolls.
Should not that toll road have paid itself off by now and converted to a free interestate? Wonder what the original law said.
Revenue over 75 years (until 2080) if at 12M$ now, plus 3% more per year would be 3,271 Million dollars. 3 Billion. A modest increase in rates would allow the revenue to match the 3.85B$ offer.
Revenue over 75 years if at 100M$ now, plus 3% more per year, would be 27,263 Million dollars. 27 Billion for those of us in USA. (Not sure how the math is working that a 120% increase on truckers would take the net revenue from 12M to 100M per year, but that's what the news blurb said)
So, Indiana is willing to give up future revenues of as much as 27 Billion dollars for 3.85 Billion now, a net loss of 23 Billion dollars
Brilliant work there, governor.
The money isn't necessarily going overseas. For example, I hold shares in Macquarie Infrastructure Trust. So the revenues could end up in Indiana anyway.
Cintra is going to own the whole hemispheric transportation corridor, when all is said and done.
The taxpayer built that roadway, and the taxpayer owns it. The governor has no more right to sell it to a foreign country, than you have the right to sell the Eiffel Tower.
Aren't they the ones who are involved in the Trans-Texas Corridor?
What do we know about them?
Who are the cronies behind this crap?
(as if I really need to ask.)
Why do yankees love their toll roads so much? Just about every state from Illinois to Maine is loaded with toll roads. I spent nearly 50 dollars in tolls recently going from Chicago to Portland,Maine in a class c motorhome.
We southerners are pretty dumb but we aren't dumb enough to let our politicians turn all of our interstate highways into turnpikes.
To all those people decrying the Toll Road Lease, what would be YOUR solution to Indiana's road problems? I'm sure most of you would oppose a gas tax increase right off the bat.
Any knowledge of whether the Indiana transportation fund, if it even exists, is being plundered to balance the budget or fund skrools or whatever the political preference of the day is? Would anyone be willing to seal off the transportation fund to plundering, even when that plundering is used to further conservative social policy?
Indiana Toll road is Interstate 80.
I-90/94
From Portage to the Ohio state line it's Interstate 80/90.
It's Interstate 80/90 from Ohio to Portage, Indiana, then it's 90 from Portage to Illinois.
I avoid using the I-80 Tollway through northern Indiana as MUCH as possible.
The tollway IS Interstate I-80. It's the same I-80 that crosses ALL the way across the entire United States from East to West.
I-94 is NOT the Indiana Tollway. I-94 continues on around the bottom of Lake Michigan and goes up through Battle Creek and continues on east over to Detroit MI.
OK, I knew there was a "90" in there.
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