Major Moves

The Indiana Toll Road Lease Deal, more popularly known as the "Major Moves" initiative, was legislation passed by the Indiana General Assembly and signed into law by Governor Mitch Daniels in March 2006 that outsourced operations and maintenance of the Indiana East-West Toll Road to a private concessionaire. A Spanish-Australian joint venture between Cintras (Concesiones de Infraestructuras de Transporte), SA and Macquarie Infrastructure Group (MIG) was awarded the operating rights to the Toll Road for a period of 75 years in exchange for a $3.8 billion lump sum payment to the State of Indiana. Opponents of the lease deal filed a lawsuit in an attempt to block the deal, but the district judge in South Bend declared the litigation a public lawsuit and ordered the plaintiffs to post a bond of $1.9 billion. The litigants appealed the ruling to the Indiana Supreme Court, which upheld the lower court's decision, allowing the lease deal to take effect at noon on June 29, 2006.

The proceeds of the lease deal were dedicated to a special trust fund dedicated at building new highways and improving existing roads throughout Indiana. Of the $3.8 billion amount, the state allocated $700 million for the construction of the southern three sections of Segment 3, totalling 68 miles, about half of the overall length of Segment 3. Preliminary design and right-of-way acquisition for these three sections is funded by state and federal fuel taxes using traditional Interstate Highway funding formulas.