Illiana Expressway, Ohio River bridges get Indiana enabling legislation for toll concessions

The Indiana legislature has passed enabling legislation (SB382) allowing toll concessions to be procured for construction of the Illiana Expressway in the far northwest of the state and two new toll bridges over the Ohio River in the southeast. Governor Mitch Daniels said he was "excited" saying: "This is exactly what we've been advocating a long time."

However the Governor cautioned that there is no guarantee the transactions can be effected and the projects built. Daniels said the legislation "clears the way" for moving on to test the feasibility of the projects.

Both require cross-border cooperation and both have to demonstrate financial viability. Both are projects with many options to be chosen from.

In the case of the Illiana Expressway - an east-west route to connect I-65 in Lake County IN with I-57 near Joliet IL - Illinois authorities have to move to support complementary arrangements for construction of their half of the new road. So far there has been distinctly less enthusiasm in Illinois than in Indiana.

Also it is unclear whether the road has the prospect for generating the tolls needed to support construction costs. The new pike would parallel the I-80 Borman Expressway but a considerable distance to the south so it is unclear how far it could function as a congestion reliever.

A feasibility study of a 56km, 35 mile stretch IN/I-65 to IL/I-57 by Cambridge Systematics released June 2009 by Indiana DOT was rather discouraging.  

It put 4-lane costs at around $550m, 6-lane at $720m (including right of way costs of $31m and $34m).

No corridor is chosen yet but three tentative routes are modelled from south to north.

Traffic projections for 2030 are quite modest, especially for the far southern route - 16k to 17k veh/day in 2030.

The middle route is barely better - 19k to 24k/day.

Only the northern route gets 25k to 40k - and that will run into higher right of way costs and likely some local opposition.

CS found that toll revenues were only likely to cover raising about 30% of project costs in the case of the southern corridor, 32.5% in the case of the central and 34.5% in the case of the northerly route. (p9-6)

Inexplicably CS wanted 8-lanes for traffic volumes that could comfortably be carried by 4 lanes (Table 9.1) so costs could be trimmed somewhat.

The Illiana Expressway perhaps makes more sense as the center part of a much longer belt route (see larger map nearby) with an extension northwest to I-355 at I-80 in Joliet on the Illinois side and an extension northeast  to Valparaiso and north to the Indiana Toll Road and I-94 near Michigan City.

But that is not planned or studied.

Louisville KY bridges to southern Indiana

The legislation also allows negotiation of a toll concession to pay for the Indiana portion of multiple toll bridge projects long in study, planning and argument on the Kentucky River at Louisville KY.  The project has been called the Louisville Southern Indiana Ohio River Bridges project or LSIORB.

A Wilbur Smith traffic and revenue forecast in 2008 was done of eight different toll scenarios. Two of the eight generated decent toll revenues.

The projects depend mainly on traffic generated on the Kentucky side and regional planners and officials still have to firm up what they want and what they'll toll.

COMMENT: Most discouraging is the nonsense spouted by some of the champions of these projects. Senator Ed Charbonneau (Repub) for example called the bill "the jobs bill of this session" claiming it will "create 30,000 jobs."

He was quoted: "Right up until the last, until I saw those green lights go on, my heart was pounding fast, and I wasn't breathing very well. It's done. It's a great day for Indiana."

Such enthusiasm is touching, but road projects are not to "create jobs." If they were we'd ban all machinery and have all the work done with picks and shovels.

These projects are to serve motorists by saving them time and travel expense and they have to be judged by the financial viability - whether they can attract sufficient in toll payments by motorists to support the costs - which have to minimized with the optimum mix of labor and equipment, not with "job creation" in mind.  

TOLLROADSnews 2010-03-03