Hi, I'm Jon Schwantes, and on this week's show, we'll explore the state's road and bridge funding conundrum.

Let's just say it's a concrete problem that's become a real pain in the asphalt.

Indiana Lawmakers from the statehouse to your house.

Indiana Lawmakers is produced by WFYI in association with Indiana Public Broadcasting Stations.

Additional support is provided by the Indy Chamber, working to unite business and community to maintain a strong economy and quality of life.

Indiana may be the crossroads of America, but our crumbling infrastructure undermines the pride in our state.

Nickname.

The Hoosier State is home to more than 5700 bridges and 11,200 roads, some of which are riddled with potholes.

More than a mere inconvenience.

Damaged infrastructure curbs economic development.

Despite some of the obvious challenges, the state generally fares well compared to others, according to a U.S. News and World Report study.

Indiana is ranked 13th for transport and 23rd for internet access in 23rd and overall infrastructure broadband access, a priority under Governor Eric Holcomb, likewise serves to strengthen connections throughout the state.

Next Level Connections Broadband grant program, launched by Holcomb in 2018, invested more than $350 million in households, businesses, schools and health clinics that lacked high speed internet.

The university's evaluation of Indiana infrastructure reveals a majority of roads and bridges in the state are in either fair or poor condition.

Many of these are owned by local governments that struggle to secure the funding needed to improve them.

The 2023 Indianapolis built more than 300,000 potholes, and the city's Department of Public Works estimated that it would cost roughly $2.8 billion to repave every road.

Infrastructure appropriations have faced many roadblocks in the Indiana General Assembly.

One major question is whether it's the state or local governments responsibility to fund these repairs.

A bill proposed this session aims to freeze funding and transportation grants to local governments, while suggesting toll road options as alternatives.

Toll roads come with marginal cost, but they serve to supplement rather than substitute for traditional public highways.

As legislators continue to work on the state budget, the projected cuts indicate that fewer resources will be available for building and maintaining infrastructure.

I am pleased to welcome four lawmakers who definitely know their way around infrastructure and Representative Jim Pressel of Rolling Prairie, Chair of the House Roads and Transportation Committee, and three other members of that panel.

Democratic Representative Carey Hamilton of Indianapolis.

Republican Representative Ed Soliday of Valparaiso and Democratic Representative Wendy Dant Chesser of Jeffersonville.

Thank you all for being here and using our roads to get here, I presume this morning, and two pilots.

We'll get to that later.

But if we get to aviation, you're not going to agree.

Probably on much.

So let's just get this out of the way.

Indiana potholes or chuck holes because potholes.

Roads potholes.

Potholes.

There.

Don't say we never have agreement that you bipartisan support.

Now let's move on to the less important matters.

You say we have, in terms of roads and the maintenance of our roads and our bridges.

We have a crisis, and you have described it as a cliff.

We're approaching.

Not a good metaphor when you're talking about transportation of all things.

But by 2030, if nothing is done, what's going on?

How do we get here?

Well, I think we got here with a whole lot of inflation.

number one, the biggest thing that I think I talk about most of the time with the road funding is the inflationary numbers since 2021 being somewhere between 35 and 40%, depending on what we're doing with it.

And people get better gas mileage.

And I love that we're getting better gas mileage.

But when you're funding stream to pay for roads, 98% of it comes from the pump.

And if we're all buying less gas, that means we're generating less revenue.

And it's really having an impact.

And we're seeing it, I think, faster than what was anticipated.

And I started out two years ago saying 2030, that's where all the experts lead me.

But I believe it's it's upon us.

It could happen.

2829 we're progressively seeing the, the revenue stream for road funding dropping, and we're continuing to see everything else go up.

if we look back in 2017, the General Assembly passed what was described at the time as sort of the 20 year fix.

It was going to be the the solution.

And that was an additional $0.10 per gallon on top of the 18 that was there already.

And then it was indexed to inflation.

But to your point, didn't keep pace with inflation because there was a cap annually of one penny.

We seen a huge increase.

I mean, it wasn't like a typical 3% inflation, 3% inflation.

I mean, when you jump, in inflationary numbers, you know, post-Covid, and rebar went up 200%, labor went up.

And that's it's a reality.

So what what, chairman Saudi had in 2017 that was in the road.

I thought you were going to point out that you weren't.

Chairman.

Well, I think that was a great plan.

That was my first year, and I got to vote for that.

and I was all about we need to fix our roads and we need to have a plan going forward.

And I think we set off on the right course.

But nobody could predict what was going to happen in 2020 and 2021. and that's where we find ourselves today, is trying to build upon that 2017 legislation.

And today, and we're going to get to the Democratic perspective.

But since your name was taken, not in vain, but mention what happened to the plan that you helped usher through.

Well, the original plan was a 20 year plan.

But then as it went through conference committee and so forth, and deals were made with to get it done.

what happened was we capped the correction for inflation.

And then we said, in ten years, we're going to revote it thinking it would be easy.

So that sort of left that as a 20 year plan.

The other big piece, which is hugely controversial, was that 20 year plan was based upon tolling 65 and 70. right now the Indiana Toll Road, it'll get you an argument anywhere but the numbers will be close.

83 to 90% of the traffic on that toll road is out of state.

Similarly, 65 and 70 and I-70, they, continue to do reskin.

It needs to be rebuilt clear to the clay and that traffic is increasing and and truck traffic.

the damage they do is incrementally greater than a car.

It goes up algebraically with weight.

So the thought was the user pays.

And the governor at that time and in the legislature was we will toll those roads over time will end folks backed off.

And the problem is, in the populist environment we live in right now, nobody wants to talk about tolls.

They say, well, my taxpayers, gas taxpayers should just pay for the we're the crossroads of America.

We should just pay for the other states because we like them real, real.

Well, it's very hard to have a real numbers discussion when you have an emotional reaction to tolling.

So what to the toll and where to toll, what it's going to cost to do what we need on I-70 and I-65.

Six lanes border the border.

We knew it in 2017.

We knew how to get there.

And now, as time has gone by, those pathways have somewhat closed.

But if you don't do something, Indianapolis is a good example in the sense that, they have not kept up with their roads.

And depending on who you talk to, that could be an incremental 200 to 600 million, Jim, something like that annually.

When you gave locals the opportunity or the authority to do some of these, as was the case with tolling, you gave that to the governor, but you gave locals, additional authority.

Who's to blame?

Are locals to blame for being shy about raising these taxes, what I've heard thus far is if we just had more gas guzzlers on the road, we'd be fine.

Or if the governor had told, 70 and 65.

But.

And that's flippant.

But tell me.

A couple thoughts.

First, I agree with everything that's been shared so far.

I just to put a fine point on the inflation piece with, you know, Covid era supply chain disruptions and increased demand from the Inflation Reduction Act spur.

I mean, the I'm sorry, the Infrastructure Act in particular, spurring, construction projects across the country.

and then the materials cost going up so substantially.

So that inflationary piece hits that sector more so than the rest of the economy.

and then also the another point that hasn't been mentioned as far as, reducing that revenue coming in the door is remote work.

certainly during the pandemic, but also still today, many people are working home more often than they were before.

So that just reduces demand for gas.

People are driving less, when it comes to the locals, just, obviously for Indianapolis, as we've come to understand, the road funding formula has not served us well.

And so we're paying and, when it comes to the gas tax piece, or maybe it's the, excise tax piece in particular with a certain amount of money, and we get back about $0.11 on the dollar as a city, as our capital city.

and with, so many, the majority of our state's major events coming to Indianapolis and, and major employers here, and 160,000 workers coming into the city every day, we have a particularly high demand, on our roads that we locally are not able to fund with the current formula.

What I'm really excited about is the work that Jim Pressel in particular, has done as chair of the Roads Committee this year, to start to figure out how to to Rightsize, for Indianapolis and to serve all of our growing communities better across the state, but in particular, start to change that word funding situation for Indianapolis.

And one thing that apparently disadvantaged our urban areas, Indianapolis and other large cities was the way that the formula calculated road miles versus lane miles.

At the risk of sounding very geeky here, but basically if you have heavier traffic roads.

Yeah, five, six, eight lanes, here's you're only getting credit for one mile versus.

That's right.

So in my district, as a for instance, where I've got a few miles of Keystone Avenue that are six six lanes wide with extra turn lanes, etc., and lots of complex.

Then for Boulevard on the other side.

And that's right.

And then for it as well, right through my district.

compared to a county road with not a lot of traffic, that's two lanes receiving the same amount of money per mile in the formula.

And that's currently, as the language stands in, 1461 A good portion of that formula is right sized to capture those lanes of travel.

So that helps to.

Yeah.

When he didn't.

Cheshire, let me ask you this.

of course, the way we interact with roads, we're cursing when we hit those potholes, I notice I listen to what you, the majority said, and we curse the fact that we've got to go get the the rim fix that's now bent.

But you work in economic development.

Your day job, you have for some time used to be with the department of Commerce.

Is this more about the inconvenience of motorists or about the economy of the state of Indiana?

In a broader sense.

I think it's both.

It's hard to it's hard to distinguish if if the purpose of economic development is to benefit the Hoosiers who live here, then we have to keep them both in the in the forefront.

The amazing thing to me about the conversation is how different road conditions are in different parts of the state where I'm from, because we've had a lot of economic growth, we have better road infrastructure to our major industrial centers.

And with the Ohio River bridges project that is just ten years old, our community has seen tolling for the first time in ten years in the last ten years.

And new tolling is not an acceptable solution to the majority of the folks in my district.

So we have to start thinking broadly about what those what those funding options are and if we are going to go towards user fees.

We have to think creatively and constructively, and I'm glad I'm part of the team that's doing that.

And let's put this in some framework.

I, you know, dollars starts to sound silly when you put enough zeros behind them, but we're looking at, by most estimates, what, $1.5 billion in state funding over the next ten years, just to kind of keep pace and at the locals, and I'll give you a chance to jump in to Purdue University, which knows a lot about these things.

I guess they could blame Lane Miles and road miles better than any of us, I guess.

Said that local government is has a is facing a shortfall of about $500 million a year.

Again not to improve, not to expand, just to to maintain.

Is that why we see this sort of some parts of the state doing better than others.

It's it's who's, who's minding the stores.

And you know, I don't know if that's why you see who's doing better than others.

But let's go back to the numbers.

Right.

So it depends on how you want to look at it.

So at the state level I think you're pretty close 1.5 billion.

and it's important to understand that's not a one time dollar.

I mean we're talking about $1.5 billion that we're going to be short to remain status quo.

And what I mean by that is that's not added capacity on 70 or 65, which we desperately need to be the crossroads of America.

the congestion out there is terrible.

So then you move forward a little bit and you take a look at the local piece.

Now, if you want to just do local roads and streets, you're pretty close with 588.

If you want to include bridges, which are also important.

We have an aging infrastructure, and I think it's like 60% of our bridges throughout the state on the local side are in fair condition when you rate them good, fair, poor.

So that's a little scary in the sense that we need to address that sooner than later.

So if you factor that in, you're about 1.2 billion on the local side every year going forward upwards to 2.5 billion.

Those are big numbers.

So if you kind of split that in the middle, and that's what I keep trying to get folks to do is like, okay, we know who we are.

We know what we have to work with, but where do we want to go?

Let's talk about ways that are on the table to close that gap.

And you've made it very clear, the 37 page bill that you introduced and worked, it came out of this two year task force, which a couple of you served on.

that first, the acronym, it's it's a great acronym.

It's something something about transportation.

I'll quiz you on that later.

but some of the recommendations, you kind of put it all together.

You called it the buffet.

some are still in and some are out.

Is that the way this is resolved?

I'll give you a chance to talk about your own bill, but I.

But we'll share the joy here.

was.

It's hard to say.

Well, we need to look at creative ways because the people don't like tolling, because we're in an age of populism.

We have a group that has an internet site, and they travel the state and they're against, they're against sequestration.

They're against, That's carbon dioxide.

Carbon dioxide.

They're against.

The list grows every day.

And they shout as loud as they can.

So making an empirical decision now, there are only so many options to pay for roads.

one is oh, put it in the general fund.

I flew to Germany on my own dime and talked to them.

They raised 66 billion in gasoline tax.

They put it in the general fund.

You know how much they get for roads?

11 billion in the budget in that pocket gets picked for social services.

It's a terrible way to fund it.

Again.

Your push has been as a as a legislative body has been toward charging the people who use it.

I mean, there are some states, are there not that actually the term are you see, which is they track it basically.

they look at least charge, usage charges based on, license plate readers, which I'm guessing Indiana would see you.

They don't do red light cameras at, in construction zones and put, do another show for that money.

You can put a thing in that measures your mileage.

if you can get that through the legislature.

Not going to happen.

Okay, that's our second bold prediction here, but, I mean, it's tolling alone.

What?

Even if the governor, this governor, the prior governor in 2017 had put all the.

That's not going to solve the problem right now.

It could probably.

Yield.

Close to a billion a year.

And for example, there's a segment of, up by me, that we've been offered somewhere between 6 and $8 billion upfront cash, and they would take over maintenance.

So if you just took that and put it in an average investment, you're probably going to get at least 400 million a year.

And then the non maintenance that you don't do maintenance, you don't have to do anymore.

You're probably going to pick up another couple or hundred million.

Sounds like.

Major moves.

so here's another story on another day Mitch Daniels or leasing of the toll road.

Everyone was against it.

And then it has been it has been a cash cow for us.

So trying to educate people on what the options are.

we ready firearm.

We won't do this.

And you can't have a sane conversation about here are the ways we can fund roads.

And here's what it costs.

Well, at that buffet, as you described it, we had everything from, fees on parcel delivery.

You know, if you get something from Amazon, there might be a fee or, Lyft or Uber.

There might be a fee or new wheel taxes, or maybe the utilization of capacity that's already existing on and on, more access to what's most palatable and realistic to you.

I, I agree that we need all of the options on the table.

I think, if it's currently we don't have that delivery fee in the bill, maybe that.

That came out just.

Yeah.

And maybe it'll be come back in future years if not this year.

as tools that locals can use to generate revenue for local roads.

Right.

So the more options, the better, I believe generally.

And I think that's the strength of this bill.

Even as it stands today, there's still many options for locals.

I do want a mention on tolling.

I don't know that you'll find a legislator.

I don't think there's any at the couch here who would say, I know for sure there's not one here.

boy, I love tolling, but what what we.

I think many of us are starting to, realize that.

Here's a, for instance, you know, capturing, usage fees from folks who are just passing through our state.

So today, there isn't a national compact where international I believe that, heavy trucks, we are getting back some, revenue from if they're cut from our state and don't stop.

But for the family that's road tripping in the summer and cuts through Indiana has never stopped tolling as a way for them to pay their fair share of using our roads.

and so bringing in that usage, that's not just Hoosier usage, but everyone else is using our roads is is also appealing.

And and what you brought up about long haul truckers, they may be doing some of the most significant damage simply because of the weight of their vehicles.

But if they're getting the gas short of the consortium that you talk about, you're getting your gas in Ohio or Illinois, you're not doing this for the state.

Yeah.

Another thing you talked about locals, earlier, is the notion of the program that's been in place, I think, since 2017, the, community, crossings and this was a matching grant program, upwards of $200 million, where if you're a local entity and you want to fix a bridge and you can come up with the money, it's cap was capped, and this might change to at $1 million.

right.

No, it was cap.

We didn't cap it statutorily.

So Indot sets.

Off.

So administrative rule, but that's now a proposal.

I'm not going to point fingers, but maybe the guy sitting next to me has suggested capping it at overall at 1.5 million, then taking anything above that to go to state dollars that could go into, road and bridge repair.

Good idea.

Could be a good idea.

Depends on what happens with some of the other initiatives that, the legislature is, is, considering this year, such as what other challenges are we putting on locals in terms of property tax, reductions and things that may feel beyond their control.

So we have, these things are not isolated conversations.

They really need to be integrated with all of the implications, because you can't balance the scale without having it all on the table at the same time.

Is that a reasonable ask to tell locals, hey, good news, your problems are over.

You're going to get to raise taxes.

The wheel tax are going to get to raise.

I know you're also you know, people are already going to be complaining about property taxes and the shortage of local funding for schools, etc.

is that a reasonable ask for locals?

You know, I think so it is provide those those tools.

Right.

And then they're all options.

So like that delivery fee piece totally an option for locals that it works for.

And I talked about in committee, and was pretty strong on it.

You know, my Stark County that I represent, they're never going to do this, nor should they, because it just doesn't make sense.

But now for Marion County.

Does it work?

Does Allen County work?

Does, does it work in Lafayette?

I think that's an option that we should allow them to do.

But another discussion.

I couldn't get enough support for it.

So we'll take it out.

Lots of things going on in there that the locals need to have an opportunity to be able to help themselves.

And I think a lot of that this bill is about that.

but you need to have a, a larger conversation and maybe we get to it by the end of session.

Maybe it's next year that we come back and we really have some, some tough conversations about what is the future.

We need to get serious about this.

At least until we have to figure it out again, because that's sort of the nature of the beast.

I guess you want to make a point that it's not.

A really important one, and that is increasing revenue.

My county alone has turned down three data centers, one alone for that community would have reduced property tax by 52% for every property owner.

But they turned it down because once a month it made 40dB of noise.

You watched your TV probably close to 60.

So these emotional decisions bringing in economic development brings in tax dollars.

We have this huge movement against solar panels.

I can take them or leave them, but an acre of sake, of solar panels yields five times the revenue of a, a tax revenue of an acre of corn.

But yet they turn it down emotionally instead of saying, here's the big picture, here are revenue generation things and they turn down economic development.

You should you should come up with a bill that that authorizes the state to take over siting decisions rather than local.

Wait, you did it and it did it.

You did it and go on.

It died.

And it died in the house.

Yeah, not in the house.

It didn't.

I mean, in committee.

Yes.

Yeah.

so one thing that's off the table besides you're the readers of your license plate tax.

Nobody's going to raise, there's no appetite for raising the gas tax further.

Right?

Okay.

No, let me ask you then.

Everything we've talked about so far is about our love affair with the automobile.

We also are looking at a fourth port.

We're looking at, you know, expansion, a double track in the South Shore.

We're looking at mass transit, I think still has, enthusiastic supporters.

is that part of the equation or is that a discussion for another day that can't coexist with with?

I think it's a really important discussion.

I think it will be for another day.

But I look at my city of Indianapolis, for example, and young families who want to be able to walk to the grocery store and jump on a bus to get to the doctor's office and not have to have two cars just for their, two parent, two child household to survive in a community.

Right.

so providing more transportation options, including mass transit, and obviously we're making investments in Indianapolis right now.

but continuing to think about that in different communities, I think will be a role that we need to play at the state House.

Is that how we do you, Dan Chesser, how do you balance these?

Because again, right now, all of the brainpower in the room is devoted to this issue.

How are we going to come up with this money?

Billions of dollars.

Can we can we chew gum and walk at the same time?

We can try.

I think, the population centers are going to have the opportunity to really explore that more realistically than those of us that would consider our areas more suburban.

and the main city that we're a suburb of is in a different state.

So it's, there's there's a lot of discussion to be had.

And I think if, if we can watch what Indianapolis does and maybe some of the northwest Indiana larger population areas, we can continue to grow that.

But in terms of, where our communities are coming together and finding solutions, I believe that that the economic drivers are going to keep a lot of us moving, keep a lot of us at the table in those conversations.

And in our area, those economic drivers are roads, but they're also runways, river and rail.

And so when we think of the four hours of transportation, it's a it's a comprehensive conversation for.

Us All right.

Thank you all.

I appreciate your expertise and your passion for this.

complicated topic.

Again, my guests have been Republican Representative Jim Pressel of Rolling Prairie, Democratic Representative Carey Hamilton of Indianapolis, Republican Representative Ed Soliday of Valparaiso, and Democratic Representative Wendy Dant Chesser of Jeffersonville.

Time now for my weekly conversation with Indiana lawmakers analyst Ed Feigenbaum, publisher of the newsletter Indiana Legislative Insight, part of Hanna News Service.

And I want to get your take on this rather interesting approach that Jim Pressel, the buffet, you know, the olive cart, a lot of people.

They basically order the meal that they want.

And if it's not there in 30 minutes or 30 days of the session, they cancel the order and they're mad.

Is it talk about this approach like we're going to throw it all on the table and see what happens.

Well, we've we've talked about legislating in public, legislating out loud, thinking out loud, throughout the course of the session.

And this is one of the key bills that 1461 where they're actually doing that.

And part of the reason is that people don't want to pay for the full meal deal this time around.

You know, Representative Pressel pointed out that that the governor could impose tolls by fiat, but nobody wants to do that.

And with the populist trend that we're seeing today, nobody wants to pay the tolls.

So we're looking at those ala carte options, and there's really nothing that's going to get us to where some people think we want to go.

That's the other thing.

We haven't decided quite yet what the end point should.

Be, because you look at whether it's locals imposing it, whether it's the state imposing it, whether it's a gas tax, sales tax user, they're all revenue enhancing, they're all taxes.

And there's not a capacity or willingness apparently, to do much of that, certainly at the state level.

Sure.

And even if you do say, okay, we're going to allocate this this month from whatever source, you know, we've got to deal with inflation.

And we're not just dealing with inflation today.

We're dealing with the effects of the last five years as well.

And we've got the variable gas use tax that that changes every month.

Well it just hit its lowest point in more than a year.

For the tax that we'll be paying in April.

Good news for consumers if they know it.

But then they'll be paying for new tires and new wheels and all that because of all of the the potholes.

Where this is issue ever get resolved.

It's going to be tough, and it's also going to have to be resolved in conjunction with SB one, the property tax relief bill, as always.

Ed thank you.

Appreciate your insight.

Thank you Jon.

have our state's recent economic development efforts focus too much on the haves, namely corporate heavyweights and already thriving communities at the expense of the have nots?

We'll explore on the next Indiana lawmakers.

Well, that concludes another edition of Indiana Lawmakers.

Until next week.

Take care.

Indiana Lawmakers is produced by WFYI in association with Indiana Public Broadcasting Stations.

Additional support is provided by the Indy Chamber, working to unite business and community to maintain a strong economy and quality of life.