After passing new law, Indiana asks feds for approval to toll I-70

Indiana Department of Transportation

Indiana has asked the Trump administration for permission to toll Interstate 70 on the heels of the Hoosier State's first-of-its-kind law allowing for tolls on its interstate highways.

The Indiana Department of Transportation applied for the federal waiver last year from the Federal Highway Administration, the department's legislative director Aaron Wainscott told the House Roads and Transportation Committee on Monday.

"We've received good feedback from federal highways, but don't have a timeline for approval," Wainscott told lawmakers, two of whom asked for the application to be made public.

Federal law generally prohibits tolls on federal-aid highways, although there are exceptions, such as for new lanes added to existing highways and under a few pilot programs.

House Bill 1461 authorizes INDOT to seek federal waivers for tolling interstate highways and, if granted, to implement the tolls without further legislative approval. A legislative analysis notes that a previous tolling study estimated Indiana could receive approximately $38.2 billion in revenue between 2029 to 2050.

Gov. Mike Braun, a Republican, supports the bill and has told local news outlets that the I-70 east-west corridor, would make an attractive candidate.

"Indiana is the first state that has passed legislation of that sort, while a number of other states have done tolling studies looking at their interstate system," including Michigan and Wisconsin, said Robert Poole, director of transportation policy at the libertarian Reason Foundation, which generally favors user fees to fund transportation. "Given the federal funding crunch that's coming, states need more flexibility to use tolling."

Although the state's application is not public, Poole said it's likely Indiana applied to the fed's Interstate System Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Pilot Program. In existence since 1998, the program allows a state to collect tolls on an interstate in order to reconstruct or rehabilitate a highway corridor that "could not otherwise be adequately maintained or functionally improved without the collection of tolls," according to the FHWA website.

It's restricted to only three facilities, each one located in a different state, so if Indiana wins the waiver, it would not be allowed to seek another under the same program.

No state has successfully tapped the program despite during its more than 25-year existence, Poole said. Reason is lobbying for the program to become "mainstream" and be offered as an option to all 50 states in the next surface transportation bill, he added.

As Congress tackles reauthorization this year, the concept of user fees has emerged as a tool to shore up the insolvent Highway Trust Fund. "One thing I do believe in is user fees," House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chair Rep. Graves, R-Mo., has said in interviews. "If you're going to use government-owned infrastructure, then you should pay for it."