Taking its toll

Governor Mitch Daniels' "Major Moves" plan to privatize the Indiana East-West Toll Road has finally been sealed -- much to the chagrin of many Indiana residents. For the up-front price of $3.8 billion -- which will be used for a variety of highway projects, including the beginning of construction on the I-69 Southern Toll Road -- an international consortium has leased the north toll road for the next 75 years.\nIt may be a positive development for Indiana, and it may be a negative one; we'll only know when the results are unavoidable and irreversible. However, regardless of the result, the next time taxpayers and the state government have any say in the road's operation will be in 2081. That's a heck of a long time.\nAnd, given that the Indiana taxpayers have already funded the construction of the East-West Toll Road and paid its additional tolls since 1956, we have to ask ourselves if $3.8 billion over three quarters of a century is really that good of a deal. Do we need to keep paying, and paying, and paying even 125 years after the road was built? We now have the money to undertake many state highway projects -- but Cintra-Macquarie will reap the immense long-term benefits that could have been used to improve Indiana infrastructure beyond just roads.\nThe new owners, whose priorities may not correspond to those of the taxpayers, will control maintenance. But how well will their profit-margins correspond with the need for easy access to the communities along the Toll Road? Between the added costs of using the Toll Road for one route, and the toll-funded I-69 for the other, what will the impact on Bloomington be? Piling more and more costs upon the transportation of goods to a community seems like an awfully effective way to lower its living standards.\nOpposition to the plan was basically crushed by legal costs. After the Indiana State Senate voted 31-19 in favor of the measure, the Indiana Green Party filed suit, attempting to receive a legal injunction against the deal. When the opposition's filing was ruled to be a "public lawsuit," the Green Party was ordered to post a $1.9 billion bond in order to continue. Understandably, they were forced to withdraw the suit, and the deal closed on June 30, despite public opposition of more than 60 percent. Thus, more than half the state doesn't want it, but we've got it anyway. This issue has been resolved in hardly the most democratic of ways.\nWe believe a state government as dynamic as ours should have found a more reasonable way to raise funds for highway projects -- bonds, loans, even taxes. It could very well be that the privatization of roads will improve efficiency and reliability, but to make the experiment in privatization a road so vital to Indiana's economy seems quite dangerous.\nIndiana is supposed to be "The Crossroads of America" -- but, in its rush to gouge Indiana taxpayers and American travelers, the state has infested that crossroads with Highwaymen.