Truck tolls in Indiana will soon increase by 35% as part of a billion dollar plan to improve the overall infrastructure of the state.
The 35% increase in truck only tolls on the Indiana Toll Road was announced by Indiana Governor Holcomb on September 11th and will go into effect on October 5th of this year.
Governor Holcomb amended the initial contract to allow for the 35% increase in truck only tolls in exchange for an additional $1 billion from ITRCC, the private third party company that runs the toll road. The extra money will then be used for improvements on railroads, airports, ship ports, walking and biking trails, and even broadband internet – all important improvements, but not necessarily ones whose cost should fall on the backs of toll-paying truckers.
President of the Indiana Motor Truck Association, Gary Langston, says that it doesn’t make sense to only tax truckers in order to pay for these sorts of infrastructure improvements when all kinds of vehicles use the Indiana Toll Road daily.
“The top semi-truck configuration, which is probably a triples-combination, will probably cost more than $100 now to go from one end of the toll road to the other… In that configuration, that is a 30-to-40-dollar increase,” Langston said.
“The other problem with this plan is that there are hundred of millions of dollars in this plan that are going places that are in no way associated with the roads… They are going to towards hiking and biking trails and things like that.”
“It’s a bank shot is what it is,” he continued.
“The administration likes to make people think that as long as it’s only on trucks no one else will be impacted when really that’s actually not the case.”