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EspañolINDIANA TOLL ROAD
The 'Indiana Toll Road', officially the 'Indiana East-West Toll Road', is a tolled highway running east-west across the northernmost part of Indiana. It is a part of the New York-Chicago Toll Road system, and has been advertised as the "Main Street of the Midwest".
To the west, it leads directly to Chicago, Illinois via the Chicago Skyway; to the east it leads toward Toledo, Ohio and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania via the Ohio Turnpike, and Pennsylvania Turnpike.
It is owned by the Indiana Finance Authority and operated by the Indiana Toll Road Concession Company, a Spanish-Australian joint-venture between Cintra Concesiones de Infraestructuras de Transporte and Macquarie Infrastructure Group.
| Contents |
| Route Numbers |
| Tolls |
| Facts |
| History |
| Service Areas |
| Ownership |
| Future Activities |
| Exit list |
| References |
| External links |
Route Numbers
The entire Indiana Toll Road is part of the U.S. Interstate Highway System. It provides a direct connection to the Chicago Skyway to the west, and the Ohio Turnpike to the east.
The toll road is signed with the following route numbers:
★ 'Interstate 80'. Interstate 80 joins the toll road at the Lake Station exit, number 21, and continues east to the toll road's eastern terminus at the Ohio state line.
★ 'Interstate 90'. Interstate 90 runs the entire length of the toll road, joining at the western terminus at the Illinois state line, and continuing east to the Ohio state line.
Tolls
Between the Westpoint barrier toll, near the Illinois state line, and the Portage barrier at mile post 23, tolls are collected by fixed-amount tolls at exit and entrance ramps.
Between the Portage barrier, east to the Eastpoint barrier toll, near the Ohio state line, it is operated as a closed ticket system toll road, where one receives a ticket upon entering and pays a pre-calculated amount based on distance traveled when exiting. Standard passenger cars are charged a toll of $4.15 along the section from Portage to Eastpoint, with an extra $0.50 at the Westpoint barrier.
Originally the entire toll road was on a closed ticket system, with Westpoint at current Exit 5, roughly under the East 141st Street overpass. This changed after the INDOT takeover in 1981. (see the History section).
Effective June 25, 2007, the Indiana Toll Road began electronic toll collection with the i-Zoom system. The system is currently only operational for tolls from the Illinois state line to the Portage toll barrier at mile post 23. The remainder of the toll road will have electronic toll collection operational later in the year. i-Zoom is fully compaitible with the E-Z Pass and I-Pass electronic toll collection systems. Indiana becomes the 12th state using the E-Z Pass system.
Facts
In what may serve as a "test case" for the privatization of other major highways in the United States, on June 29th, 2006 Indiana received $3.8 billion from a foreign consortium made up of the Spanish construction firm Cintra and the Macquarie Infrastructure Group (MIG) of Australia, and in exchange the state ceded operation of the 157-mile Indiana Toll Road for the next 75 years to these outside corporations. The consortium would collect all the tolls. [1]
Exit points are based on the mile-post system, with exits starting at 0 at the Illinois state line, and increasing to exit 153 at the Eastpoint toll barrier near the Ohio state line (technically, not an exit, as the only access from there is to the Ohio Turnpike, but toll tickets issued at the barrier are marked "Entry 153"). The Toll Road opened in 1956 with sequential exit numbering, which was converted to the current mileage-based scheme in 1981. The original number sequence was amended slightly in 1964 with the opening of the then-Burns Harbor, now Lake Station exit.
The furthest it gets from the Michigan state line or Lake Michigan is about 10 miles (15 km).
Although it never enters Michigan, the toll road lies within ten miles (16.1 km) of the Michigan state line between La Porte, Indiana and the Ohio state line. Looking north at exit 121, the State Road 9-Howe/LaGrange, the "Welcome to Michigan" sign is visible in the distance. At one point in northern Indiana, the toll road comes within about 200 yards (meters) from the Michigan border[2].
Control cities on guide signs are Chicago and Toledo. Originally they were "Chicago and West" and "Ohio and East".
In December 2006, ITR Concession Company announced that a South Bend student, Andrea Hebster, will receive $5,000 towards her educational expenses for being selected as the grand prizewinner of the Indiana Toll Road logo design contest. The new ITRCC logo rollout is scheduled for the spring of 2007.[3].
History
The Indiana Toll Road was publicly financed and constructed during the 1950s. It opened in stages, east to west, between August and November, 1956[4]. The formal dedication ceremony was held on September 17, 1956.
In addition to the "east-west" toll road, a "north-south" toll road was planned, roughly along the path of today's Interstate 65, but the plan was dropped after the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956 was passed.[4]
Originally the Interstate 94 designation was applied to the highway west of where the current interchange with I-94 was eventually built, with I-90 following I-80 to the west along the Borman Expressway as I-94 does now, the completed portions of the Borman being designated as I-80, 90, and 294. The current arrangement was applied around 1965, to avoid confusion, resulting in a stretch of I-94 actually running further south of I-90, and I-90 running the entire length of the Indiana Toll Road. I-294 was cut back to the Tri-State Tollway at that time.
Service Areas
Like all other toll highways built in the 1950s, the Indiana Toll Road has had service areas ever since it opened. Originally, there were eight pairs of service areas located approximately every 18 miles. Of these, five featured sit-down restaurants operated by the Host Restaurant chain while the other three had only snack bars. Each service area was named after a prominent Indiana native or resident. Gasoline and other auto services were available at all service areas. Originally, various oil companies including Standard Oil, Sinclair, Pure, Gulf, Texaco and Citgo operated each of the service areas. Eventually Standard Oil, later Amoco, assumed operations at all service areas. The westernmost snack bar at milepost 37.5 remained open until the mid-70s while the other two at mileposts 72.9 and 108 were closed in 1972. All were demolished except for one, the former Benjamin Harrison snack bar on the eastbound side at milepost 72.9. It serves as a police station and has no public facilities. The restaurant interiors were remodeled into short-order cafeterias in the late 70s when the Gladieux chain took over operations and have since been remodeled once again for fast food service. However, the original buildings remain little changed from the outside.
Ownership
The 'Indiana Toll Road Commission' operated the toll road from its inception until 1981.
The Indiana Department of Transportation operated the toll road between 1981 and 2006.
The Cintra-Macquarie joint-venture assumed operation of the Toll Road from INDOT on June 30, 2006, after the Indiana Supreme Court dismissed a legal challenge by opponents attempting to derail the deal.
The same partnership already operates and maintains the adjoining Chicago Skyway in Illinois.
Future Activities
Part of the agreement to privatize operations of the Indiana E-W Toll Road is to implement over $770 million in planned upgrades to the freeway. Included is adding a lane in each direction from the Illinois State Line to the I-80/I-94 interchange (MP 21), the reconstruction of existing pavement and bridge structures, and implementation of electronic toll collection system at all mainline and interchange toll plazas.
Exit list
| County | Location | Number | Mile | Destinations | Notes | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Old | Older | ||||||
| Lake | Hammond | 0.0 |  Becomes the  | ||||
| 0 | 0 | 0.0 |    Indianapolis Boulevard. | Westbound exit and eastbound entrance; other ramps are on the Chicago Skyway. This was the temporary end of the Toll Road until the Skyway opened on April 16, 1958. | |||
| 1 |  | ||||||
| 3 |  Cline Avenue. | Eastbound exit and westbound entrance. | |||||
| 5 | 1 | 1 | 4.7 | Calumet Avenue/Hammond. | Former Westpoint toll barrier and former beginning of closed system. | ||
| Gary | 10 | Cline Avenue/Gary. | |||||
| 14A | 2 | 1A | 13.5 | Grant Street. | Formerly exit 13; Former Gary West exit. | ||
| 14B |  Broadway. | Formerly exit 15. | |||||
| 17 | 3 | 2 | 16.7 |  Indianapolis/Dunes Highway. | Former Gary East exit | ||
| Lake Station | 21 | 4 | 20.8 |    Detroit, Michigan, Des Moines, Iowa. | I-80 joins eastbound, and leaves westbound. Former Burns Harbor exit, opened in 1964. Eastbound POV signed  | ||
| 22 | |||||||
| Porter | Portage | 23 | Portage (Willowcreek Road) | ||||
| 24 | | Begin Closed System. | |||||
| Chesterton | 31 | 5 | 3 | 30.9 |  Chesterton/Valparaiso. | Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore, Indiana Dunes State Park | |
| LaPorte | Otis | 39 | 6 | 4 | 38.9 |  Michigan City/Westville. | |
| North of La Porte | 49 | 7 | 5 | 49.2 |  La Porte. | ||
| 56 | |||||||
| St. Joseph | South Bend | 72 |  Niles, Michigan/South Bend/Plymouth. | Former South Bend West exit, opened in 1980. | |||
| 77 | 8 | 6 | 76.6 |  South Bend, Notre Dame. | Former South Bend exit. | ||
| Mishawaka | 83 | Mishawaka (Capital Ave.) | Opened in 1982. Granger. | ||||
| Elkhart | 90 | ||||||
| Elkhart | 92 | 9 | 7 | 91.8 |  Elkhart. | ||
| 96 | County Road 17. Elkhart East | Opened in 1996 | |||||
| Bristol | 101 |  Bristol/Goshen. | Opened in 1983. | ||||
| LaGrange | 107 | 10 | 8 | 107.1 |   Middlebury, Indiana; Constantine, Michigan. | ||
| Howe | 121 | 11 | 9 | 120.5 |  Howe/ LaGrange, Indiana. Sturgis, Michigan. | ||
| 126 | |||||||
| Steuben | Fremont | 144 | 12 | 10 | 143.9 |  Angola and Fort Wayne, Indiana. Lansing, Michigan. | Originally US 27. Pokagon State Park |
| 146 | |||||||
| 153 | 13 | 11 | 153.0 | | |||
| 156.9 |  Becomes the Ohio Turnpike. | ||||||
References
1. The Highwaymen Daniel Schulman
2. http://terraserver-usa.com/image.aspx?S=12&T=2&X=810&Y=5780&Z=16&W=2
3. http://indianatollroad.org/media_service/ITR%20Logo%20Final1215.html
4. http://www.southbendtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060122/News01/601220415
5. http://www.southbendtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060122/News01/601220415
External links
★ Email evidence from Indiana's privatization deal
★ Indiana Toll Road
★ Indiana Department of Transportation - Motorist Information - Toll Road
★ Indiana Department of Transportation - Toll Road District information
★ Indiana Toll Road Concession Company
★ Indiana Toll Road for Sale - Special collection compiled by The Times of Northwest Indiana (Munster), the South Bend Tribune, and the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette.
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