Editorial: Task force should consider changes to road fund to help urban counties

The Funding Indiana’s Roads For a Stronger, Safer Tomorrow Task Force—a group created by the Legislature—is expected to begin meeting this month and gathering information about the way Indiana pays for road construction and improvements. Its mission is to provide recommendations to the Legislature for its 2024 session.

We hope that on the task force’s agenda will be consideration of a proposal by Indianapolis Mayor Joe Hogsett—and supported by suburban mayors—to rework the formula that distributes some $660 million in tax revenue for roads in Indiana.

The plan deserves serious consideration.

Last year, a study showed what public officials have long known: There is a wide disparity in the amount of road funding that communities receive when measured by the traffic traveling on those roads. In fact, the study found that Marion County ranked dead last in state-road funding among Indiana’s 92 counties when vehicle miles traveled are taken into account.

In 2021, Marion County received just $3.22 per vehicle mile traveled per capita, while sparsely populated Ohio County received $19.15, according to the study by Policy Analytics LLC.

Of course, there are many ways to look at the numbers. But in almost all ways that are common sense, rural counties are getting more money to take care of their roads than are urban ones.

That’s long been a concern for Marion County, but it’s increasingly become a problem for fast-growing suburban counties as well. In 2021, every one of Marion’s neighboring counties received less than the median of $10.42. Of those counties, Hendricks was hammered the hardest, ranking 90th at $3.62. Hamilton ranked 86th at $3.97.

The problem is the formula allocates gas-tax funds and other revenue by center-line miles rather than by vehicle miles traveled. Center-line miles simply measure the length of a road, while vehicle miles traveled per capita is calculated as the total annual miles of vehicle travel divided by the total population in a particular region.

Under the current formula, Marion County received just $71 million in 2021, or only about 11% of the $663 million allocated to local governments. It’s slotted to receive $89 million next year.

If the formula changed to take into account vehicle miles, as Hogsett’s administration has proposed, Marion County’s take would increase by $49 million, to $138 million.

As IBJ’s Taylor Wooten reports in a page 3A story, that’s still far short of the county’s needs. Another study, conducted last year by HNTB Corp., found the county needs an additional $635 million a year to maintain its roads.

But the change would be a start—one we think is certainly worth considering.

Of course, we know it would be a tough sell. As Wooten writes, some 40 rural Indiana counties would see a decrease under the proposed change. That’s a problem for the majority Republican caucuses in the House and Senate, whose members largely represent those areas.

But the task force should give a change serious consideration. We know there’s a compromise to be found.•

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