Indiana Toll Rd Concession Company drops tolls on west end for 54hrs to help in flood

Northwest Indiana and parts of the Chicago area got a foot of rain (300mm) and suffered severe floods starting Sept 14. The Little Calumet River overflowed its banks. Despite the recent completion of a major rebuild the Borman Expressway I-80/94, the major area freeway was put out of service for five days by the floods, and the Indiana Toll Road was called on to provide relief.

The ITC Concession Company agreed to suspend tolls at their main Westpoint toll plaza making travel toll free from MP23 in Portage westward to the Illinois border in order to encourage traffic to use the ITR (I-90) rather than alternate surface routes to the flooded Borman Exwy. The ITR and the Borman run parallel for about 50km (30 miles), the Borman (as I-94) to the north of the ITR east of Portage and south of the ITR as I-80/94 west of Portage (they form an X).

ITR spokesman Matt Pierce tells us the Toll Road itself never suffered seriously from the floods. At times of very heavy rain there were a few 'hydroplaning' incidents in which vehicles lost control because of water on the road, but it was never out of service.

By contrast the state highways were heavily affected.

As a result the ITR got a lot of diverted traffic, most without transponders. Extra toll collectors were called to duty Monday and Tuesday, and although many had trouble getting to work "their response was fantastic," Pierce says. The Westpoint plaza was running 12 toll lanes westbound mornings (they recently added 2 toll lanes to the old 14 lanes for a total 16 lanes, 8 lanes being reversible).

They managed to handle the extra traffic without undue backups.

No legal obligation to suspend tolls

ITR Concession Company was under no legal obligation under the toll concession to suspend tolls, but did so Tuesday 1600 (4pm) Central 09-16. ITRCC had representatives at the region's Traffic Management Center in Gary IN, the "war room" for managing traffic during the flood.

"We were part of the team," says Pierce. "There was agreement Tuesday with the Borman still closed and more people trying to get around that the area needed to get some traffic off US20, US30 and other ancillary surface streets and onto an expressway. We had the capacity. To attract the traffic it made sense to suspend tolls."

Tolls were kept off 54 hours, until 2200 (10pm) Central Thursday 09-18, after the new-old Borman had finally been cleared of water.

In the concession contract there is no provision for compensation for lost tolls under a voluntary act by the concessionaire.

Verbal undertakings

But Pierce says some verbal undertakings were made by state officers that the state would make good on tolls lost, details of which he doesn't know.

"We were in this together. There was no hesitation about going with the plan."

COMMENT: You'd think that flood mitigation would have been part of the much trumpeted half billion dollar upgrade of the Borman, but the incompetence of state DOTs is never to be understimated.

TOLLROADSnews 2008-09-21