Editorial: Rebuilding America's Aging Infrastructure

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rucking’s message to the thousands of attendees at last month’s Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals was clear: Help us get the federal government moving to repair the nation’s freight infrastructure so we can keep the goods moving.

A number of fleet officials, acting independently, offered a strikingly similar message: Our roads, bridges and ports are crumbling under the weight of today’s traffic loads, and unless we act quickly, increasing delays and higher costs are inevitable.

We couldn’t agree more.

Pat Quinn, president of U.S. Xpress Enterprises and the new chairman of American Trucking Associations, told the group, “We have not had a comprehensive national policy since President Eisenhower created the national highway system, and that was a 30-year plan. We need another 30-year plan to address our aging infrastructure.”

Doug Duncan, chief executive officer of FedEx Freight, told the San Diego meeting, “Our infrastructure is starting to creak and groan and will give us big problems in the near future.”

Christopher Lofgren, president of Schneider National, said highway congestion is costing trucking a lot of time and money and is getting worse. He said his drivers waste up to 25% of their time in traffic jams.

Other trucking officials, including Wayne Spain, executive vice president of Averitt Express, and Tom Escott, president of Schneider Logistics, added their voices to the call for a coordinated plan to rebuild our infrastructure, with Spain and Escott pointing to growing problems in and around the major ports.

They were joined by Francis Mulvey, a member of the U.S. Surface Transportation Board, who warned that unless something was done soon, “just-in-time” delivery will become “sometime” delivery.

“We cannot maintain our highway system if we are not willing to spend the money necessary” to improve existing roads and to build new ones, Mulvey said.

FedEx’s Duncan urged the various modes of transportation to put aside their historical rivalries to work together to improve the entire freight system.

The freight industry needs to “quit trying to fight the negatives and band together instead to make it work.”

Quinn, meanwhile, said it was time for trucking to stop “always playing defense” and push Congress for help.

“Right now, we don’t have any plan. Do you really want to wait another 12 to 15 years and then try to deal with crumbling infrastructure?” he asked.

Hear, hear.

This editorial appears in the Nov. 7 print edition of Transport Topics. Subscribe today.