Indiana Toll Road

GRANGER - The Indiana Toll Road “i-Zoom” brand and colors will be retired in 2012 and will be replaced with the more recognizable E-ZPass logo and purple color scheme. Since 2007, “i-Zoom,” “i-Zoom Girl” and an orange/gray color scheme have been used for  electronic tolling on the Toll Road. With this change, Indiana will join 14 other states in the E-ZPass agency in sharing the E-ZPass name. Beginning immediately and expected to last until October 2012, ITR Concession Co. will remove all i-Zoom signs and banners on the Indiana Toll Road and replace with E-ZPass signage, and i-Zoom and i-Zoom Girl will be removed from all public materials.

LAPORTE COUNTY -- Traffic was halted to a standstill early Tuesday morning following a semi fire on the Indiana Toll Road. It happened around 2 a.m. near the 58 mile marker in LaPorte County. Police tell us a truck hauling flammable material caught on fire for an unknown reason in the westbound lane of the highway. Indiana State Police dispatchers told WSBT that fire was responsible for at least two other crashes nearby. Traffic was halted for several hours as crews cleaned up the flammable material.

A road worker was struck by a semi Wednesday while taking measurements on an Indiana Toll Road ramp about a mile west of the Michigan City exit. The worker, Chad Fleager, 34, of Lowell, Ind., was airlifted to Memorial Hospital in South Bend, where he died late Wednesday afternoon.  A preliminary investigation by Indiana State Police revealed James Payton, 60, of Calumet City, Ill., was westbound, driving a semi pulling a box trailer. Payton was driving in the right lane.

LAPORTE COUNTY  -- A LaPorte man has died after his car flew off an overpass onto the Indiana Toll Road. Indiana State Police say 20-year-old Ryan Smith was driving north on Holmsville Road near Michigan City Sunday night when for an unknown reason, his car went off the overpass, flying into a semi that was eastbound on the Toll Road. It happened around 10:00 p.m. (CST) at the 40-mile marker about a mile west of the Michigan City exit. Smith's car flipped several times through the median, and he was thrown from his car. The car then continued into the westbound lanes where it hit another semi.

LAGRANGE COUNTY, Ind. - Effective immediately, the eastbound driving lane is closed at Milepost 129 (just east of the Howe travel plaza) on the Indiana Toll Road after an accident at around 2:30 p.m. EST. One eastbound tractor-trailer (carrying bacon) rear-ended another semi (carrying flour). The semi carrying bacon became fully engulfed in flames, and the fire has since spread to the grass. Eastbound traffic is moving through the accident site in the passing lane. The driving lane is expected to be closed for several hours.

ELKHART COUNTY - A routine traffic stop on the Indiana Toll Road didn't quite end the way the people in the car or State Police expected. Trooper Ted Bohner Wednesday stopped a 1999 Honda Accord near the 90-mile marker in Elkhart. The traffic stop quickly changed direction after Tpr. Bohner talked with the driver and passenger. The car was stopped for a moving violation. However, during the course of the traffic stop, Bohner became suspicious of the occupants' story when they told him they drove from Philadelphia to Merrillville to go shopping at the mall.

GRANGER - If the heat isn't bad enough, Indiana Toll Road crews are working around the clock to keep the highway from buckling. Maintenance Manager Pat Condon says Toll Road crews have been on the job 24 hours a day since Wednesday night grinding down minor bumps and patching until cooler weather gives us some relief. “Basically, they're like mini earthquakes,” said Condon. “Two slabs working against each other” as they expand under the extreme heat.

SOUTH BEND - The cost of driving on the Indiana Toll Road just went up. Sunday morning, private operator ITR Concession, Inc. increased the tolls for all drivers without an I-Zoom transponder by an average of 3%. Motorists in cars and other two-axle vehicles using I-Zoom will continue to pay the same toll they have since ITR leased the roadway from the state in 2006. That discount ends in 2016. The company's lease agreement with the state allows ITR to raise tolls each July 1. The full toll for cars and other two-axle vehicles running the length of the road went up Sunday to $9.40 from the previous $9.

HAMMOND, Ind. (AP) - The cost of vehicles traveling on the Indiana Toll Road for vehicles without an I-Zoom transponder is going up starting Sunday. Private operator ITR Concession Inc. says tolls for all vehicle classes without the devices will go up an average of 3 percent. Motorists in cars and other two-axle vehicles using the I-Zoom will continue to pay the same toll they have since ITR Concession leased the roadway from the state in 2006. That discount ends in 2016. The Times of Munster reports (http://bit.ly/N3ZeYB)

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) - The $3.8 billion Indiana received in 2006 for leasing the Indiana Toll Road to a foreign consortium will be mostly spent or allocated by the time the state's next governor takes office in January. As Republican Gov. Mitch Daniels' tenure winds down, The Journal-Gazette reports ( http://bit.ly/Ma97bX ) it's unclear what exact financial situation he's leaving his successor for highway projects. Indiana's next governor, either Republican Mike Pence or Democrat John Gregg, will face a big drop in highway funding and few options on the table.