Indiana Toll Road
| ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | ||||
| Route information | ||||
| Length | 156.9 mi (252.5 km) | |||
| Existed | August 1956–present | |||
| Major junctions | ||||
 near East Chicago.   at Gary.   at Lake Station. near Michigan City. at South Bend. near Middlebury. near Angola. | ||||
The Indiana Toll Road, officially the Indiana East-West Toll Road, is a tolled freeway running east-west across the northernmost part of Indiana. It is a part of the New York-Chicago Toll Road system, and tt 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.
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, 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 highway was on a closed ticket system, with Westpoint at current Exit 5, roughly under the East 141st Street overpass. This changed in the after the INDOT takeover in 1981. (see the History section).
Facts
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 Toledo, Ohio. 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[1].
Control cities on guide signs are Chicago and Toledo. Originally they were "Chicago and West" and "Ohio and East".
History
The Toll Road was privately financed and constructed during the 1950s. It opened in stages, east to west, between August and November, 1956[2].
In addition to the "east-west" tool 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.[3]
Originally the Interstate 94 designation was applied to the highway west of the Burns Harbor interchange, with I-90 following I-80 to the west as I-94 does now. The current arrangement was applied around 1965, and the results of this are that a stretch of I-94 actually runs further south of I-90, and that I-90 in Indiana and the Indiana Toll Road are one and the same (thus having the same mileposts).
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.
In 2005, a plan was introduced by Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels to privatize the Toll Road. [4] On January 23 2006, it was announced that a partnership between Cintra Concesiones de Infraestructuras de Transporte SA and Macquarie Infrastructure Group was the top bidder for a 75-year lease to operate and maintain the toll road, offering $3.85 billion (US) for the concession.[5]
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 expressway. 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
| Number | Mile | Destinations | Notes | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Old | Older | ||||
| 0.0 | state line; becomes the Chicago Skyway | ||||
| 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | U.S. Route 12/U.S. Route 20/U.S. Route 41 - Indianapolis Boulevard
|
westbound exit and eastbound entrance; other ramps are on the Chicago Skyway |
| 1 | Westpoint barrier toll | ||||
| 3 | State Route 912 - Cline Avenue | eastbound exit and westbound entrance | |||
| 5 | 1 | 1 | 4.7 | U.S. Route 41 - Calumet Avenue/Hammond
|
former Westpoint barrier toll |
| 10 | State Route 912 - Cline Avenue/Gary | ||||
| 14A | 2 | 13.5 | Grant Street | was once exit 13; Former Gary West exit | |
| 14B | State Route 53 - Broadway | was once exit 15 | |||
| 17 | 3 | 2 | 16.7 | Interstate 65, U.S. Route 12/U.S. Route 20 - Indianapolis/Dunes Highway
|
Former Gary East exit |
| 21 | 4 | 20.8 | Interstate 80 west to Interstate 94, U.S. Route 6, State Route 51 - Detroit, Michigan/Lake Station/Des Moines, Iowa |
I-80 joins eastbound and leaves westbound | |
| 23 | Portage - Willowcreek Road | ||||
| 24 | Portage barrier toll--Begin Closed System | ||||
| 31 | 5 | 3 | 30.9 | State Route 49 - Chesterton/Valparaiso | |
| 39 | 6 | 4 | 38.9 | U.S. Route 421 - Michigan City/Westville
| |
| 49 | 7 | 5 | 49.2 | State Route 39 - La Porte | |
| 72 |  U.S. Route 31 Bypass - Niles, Michigan/South Bend/Plymouth
| ||||
| 77 | 8 | 6 | 76.6 | State Route 933/U.S. Route 31 Business - South Bend/Notre Dame | |
| 83 | Mishawaka, Granger | ||||
| 92 | 9 | 7 | 91.8 | State Route 19 - Elkhart | |
| 96 | County Road 17 | ||||
| 101 | State Route 15 - Bristol/Goshen | ||||
| 107 | 10 | 8 | 107.1 | State Route 13/U.S. Route 131 - Constantine, Michigan/Middlebury | |
| 121 | 11 | 9 | 120.5 | State Route 9 - Howe/LaGrange Also Sturgis, Michigan | |
| 144 | 12 | 10 | 143.9 | Interstate 69 - Angola/Fort Wayne/Lansing, Michigan
| |
| 153 | 13 | 11 | 153.0 | Eastpoint barrier toll | |
| 156.9 | state line; becomes the Ohio Turnpike | ||||
External links
- 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.