[BobL]

“State officials last month completed a plan on adding tolls to Indiana’s interstate system.”

Thanks Tol. For the above, am I missing something or are states now free to start tolling what are today Interstates, as I read the above.

As to the article, what the governor’s doing is total BS: Having a private entity, that essentially was given a monopoly, raise its prices and give the state a cut. If that’s permitted, then why bother having legislatures?

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

Nope. Tolling on Interstates is still forbidden, unless Indiana captures one of those slots in that pilot program. Then they could toll I-70 OR I-65 OR I-94, but not all three.

[Paladin2]

The Indian[a] Toll Road predates the initial Fed. Interstate build-out.

[Alberta's Child]

I think the issue here is that the toll road does NOT have a monopoly. One of the reasons a lot of these privately-run toll roads are in financial distress is that their revenue projections have consistently fallen short over time. As tolls go up, more and more motorists simply decide to take slower alternative routes and save themselves the money.

I've started doing that myself on regular trips I take every few months across Pennsylvania. The PA Turnpike is the shorter route by about 30-40 minutes, but once the toll firmly trip exceeded $20.00 I started using I-80 instead.

This may be a great political move in Indiana anyway. It's only about 160 miles across the state on the turnpike, and I'll bet a disproportionate number of its users are from outside the state anyway. So charging them tolls is a great way to raise revenue for the state without taxing only its own residents. It's really no different than a special hotel or rental car tax imposed by many states and cities.