Toll fences don't make good neighbors

April 25, 2007

THE TIMES

I've been fortunate during nearly 20 years of owning a home that I've had good neighbors and not the kind who throw their dog poop into my yard after dark or leave a rusty junker up on blocks in the driveway.

Now I find out that I am -- courtesy of the state of Indiana -- being just that kind of neighbor to our friends in Illinois.

Not that Illinois folks are perfect. A lot of them think we are all redneck hicks and that our state is basically a 100 mph nuisance between them and their $250,000 cottages in New Buffalo.

(If they would just get off the highway, they would find some of the finest truck stops, strip clubs and smoke shops in the nation!)

But when Illinois instituted its I-Pass tollway transponder that gives users of the electronic device a break on toll costs, it sold the things at Indiana locations and gave Hoosier drivers the same discount.

It's 80 cents for cars to go through most Illinois toll booths without I-Pass. It's 40 cents with it. The transponder cost me $10, and it was well worth it. For those who travel the Illinois tollways daily, it's worth a lot more.

Now Indiana has taken away the abacus from its toll booths and is installing its own transponders, called I-Zoom.

One would think, given the existing highway hospitality, that Indiana would extend to other states the courtesy those states have extended to Hoosiers.

Well, you thought wrong.

Oh, the I-Zoom will continue (for now) to allow Indiana drivers to get the 50 percent discount in Illinois. But Illinois drivers who have the I-Pass won't get any reciprocal consideration.

Why? Apparently it all traces back to the political machinations surrounding the lease of the Indiana Toll Road to ITR Concession for $3.8 billion last year. And the tolls are going up from between 72 to 119 percent, depending on the trip.

Matt McPartlin, of the Illinois Toll Road Authority, said drivers will be able to make the trip from the East Coast to the Midwest with one transponder, which will give discounts to motorists in all states but Indiana. If they want that discount, they will have to buy a separate I-Zoom.

ITR Concession is owned by a consortium of interests from Spain and Australia, and its primary responsibility is to its owners, not Indiana taxpayers and much less to those of Illinois, Pennsylvania, Ohio or elsewhere.

Was this potential Hatfield and McCoy situation envisioned by Gov. Mitch Daniels when he pitched leasing the tollway for 99 years? The tollway that goes nowhere near Indianapolis, where he lives?

I-Doubt It.