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Gov. Eric Holcomb said he won’t ask legislators to include a plan to toll Indiana’s interstate highways when they decide the state’s next two-year budget.
Holcomb announced his decision Thursday afternoon after the Indiana Department of Transportation released a strategic plan for interstate tolling that was mandated by a transportation infrastructure law passed in 2017.
“While I do not intend to move forward with the plan, there may be good reasons to revisit this report in the future,” Holcomb wrote in a letter to State Budget Committee members.
Holcomb’s administration was required to study the idea and submit a strategic plan for tolling the interstate highways under the road-funding bill the Indiana General Assembly approved in 2017. That plan was due Dec. 1.
Holcomb called the 36-page strategy developed by the Indiana Department of Transportation a “how-to manual to implement such a plan” if legislators choose to in future years.
The governor said pursuing the strategy was not necessary now because it already has billion of dollars available for road and bridge improvements.
WIBC host Tony Katz praised the Governor’s decision:
“This is the absolute right decision. That doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t look at infrastructure. Eventually things wear down and have to be replaced. The investment is going to have to be made in infrastructure, but we have to go about it the right way and ensure we’re not going to be taking money from pot A and putting into pot B; that’s not a long-term solution.”
Click the link below to hear Tony’s full commentary:
