Transportation infrastructure: New legislation aims to remove congestion via 10 percent reduction of non-highway or multimodal services
Jeff Berman, Group News Editor -- Logistics Management, 5/14/2009
WASHINGTON—A new piece of legislation introduced today by Senators Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) and Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) aims to establish a footprint for a 21st century transportation system by countering a projected 50 percent increase in U.S. population growth—that the senators say will exacerbate congestion and mobility—with what they consider a policy that would establish “a strategic, integrated plan that will address the challenges to our national infrastructure and federal programs.”
Dubbed “The Federal Surface Transportation Policy and Planning Act of 2009,” it can be argued that one of the main components of this legislation aims to remove truck movements, with the stated objective to increase the proportion of national freight transportation provided by non-highway or multimodal services by 10 percent by 2020.
Other goals of the bill include:
-reducing national per capita motor vehicle miles traveled on an annual basis;
-reduce national motor vehicle-related fatalities by 50 percent by 2030;
-reduce national surface transportation-generated carbon dioxide levels by 40 percent by
2030;
-reducing national surface transportation delays per capita on an annual basis; and
-increasing the percentage of system-critical surface transportation assets that are in a state
of good repair by 20 percent by 2030, among others.
“A national surface transportation policy for our country is long overdue,” Senator Lautenberg said in a statement. “We need a transportation policy that reestablishes our leadership throughout the world when it comes to transportation—and meets our country’s transportation demands for generations to come. This legislation will establish a national policy that improves safety, reduces congestion, creates jobs, and protects our environment.”
A noted transportation analyst told LM that this bill takes measured steps to cast trucks as the major culprit causing highway congestion, bottlenecks, and pollution.
“While reducing trucks may seem admirable, it is always good to keep in mind that almost every mode utilizes a truck in some manner—the obvious exception being rail-siding to rail-siding movements,” said Charles W. Clowdis, Jr, managing director-North America Global Commerce and Transport at IHS Global Insight. “‘Truck Only’ lanes can come into play, as well as other measures that recognize the vital role truck transportation plays in the U.S. economy.”
And American Trucking Associations Senior Vice President Tim Lynch described the bill as a "good news/bad news" scenario, with the good news being that Rockefeller and Lautenberg recognize the need for a freight surface transportation policy, and the bad news being that a simple act of Congress cannot overturn the entire United States distribution and supply chain network that depends on the trucking industry to move 70 percent of the nation’s freight. Lynch added that if Congress really wants to look at minimizing commercial vehicle miles traveled, then the ATA would suggest they seriously consider the only effective means to do that: increasing truck equipment productivity.
This bill follows news from earlier this week that indicated a leaked version of new draft of the highway re-authorization bill by James L. Oberstar, Chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee would cost in excess of $500 billion and calls for a change in transit equity in the way the federal government pays for highway and transit projects, a consolidation of the Department of Transportation’s 108 programs into four major programs—critical asset preservation, highway safety improvement, surface transportation program, and congestion mitigation and air quality improvement, and the creation of a new undersecretary or assistant secretary for intermodalism that would meet monthly with all modal administrators, among others.
A Reuters report indicated that Oberstar’s proposal would retain current funding sources as well as give more spending discretion to states and make room for private investment in infrastructure programs.
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