Freight Group Lists 36 Sites As Top Projects to Address
This story appears in the April 27 print edition of Transport Topics.
A freight advocacy group last week unveiled a report containing 36 targeted infrastructure projects it said could boost freight mobility if Congress includes money for them in a long-term transportation bill.
“Goods movement is a national priority, and its supporting infrastructure requires a federal commitment, demonstrated through sound policy, planning and funding,” according to a report issued April 21 by the Coalition for America’s Gateways and Trade Corridors. “Without the ability to quickly and cost-effectively move goods into, out of and through the United States, America will not be able to maintain our standard of living and high employment levels.”
Projects mentioned in the report include interstate highway improvements, bridge replacements, port access roads and intermodal hubs. They include at least two of the worst freight bottlenecks, according to the American Transportation Research Institute and the Federal Highway Administration.
One project, known as the 57/60 Confluence, is located in the City of Industry, California, east of Los Angeles and where state Routes 57 and 60 merge in a weaving pattern with each other before splitting off again.
“Daily, over 356,000 drivers [of which 26,000 are trucks carrying goods] attempt to weave across multiple lanes within the 2-mile segment . . . resulting in 17 lanes of traffic to condense into 14, causing long delays in operation for both freeways and high accident rates,” the report stated.
Another freight bottleneck also mentioned in the Gateways report is the interchange at interstates 5 and 84 in Portland, Oregon.
“I-5 in this location carries upwards of 120,000 vehicles per day — including an estimated 15,000 trucks in the heart of the project area,” the Gateways report said.
The group released the report the same day that members joined congressional supporters and local government and port officials on Capitol Hill to call for a dedicated source of funding for freight projects within a transportation reauthorization bill.
Reps. Alan Lowenthal (D-Calif.) and Brenda Lawrence (D-Mich.) were among the speakers at the press conference outside the Capitol.
“To remain competitive as a nation, we must invest in our national freight infrastructure — repair it, and upgrade it,” Lowenthal said.
Lawrence said: “We have to look beyond the short-term fixes of the past decade and commit ourselves to properly addressing our freight infrastructure crisis.”
The two are sponsoring a bill that would impose a freight waybill tax with the revenue dedicated to infrastructure projects that upgrade the nation’s freight system.
The existing transportation funding law, MAP-21, expires May 31, and no new bill or temporary extension has yet been introduced in Congress.
Among the other projects mentioned in the Gateways report is the Brent Spence Bridge, which carries interstates 71 and 75 across the Ohio River between Cincinnati and Covington, Kentucky.
The two states have been trying for more than a decade to find funding to replace the aged bridge that stands in a critical north-south freight corridor through the Midwest but has been labeled as functionally obsolete by the Federal Highway Administration.
Intermodal hubs in Chicago and Detroit are also listed in the report as sites where investment would greatly improve freight mobility.
Likewise, infrastructure projects at ports that would connect port access roads to interstate freight routes are in the report. The port road projects are in Long Beach, California; Hampton Roads, Virginia; Tacoma, Washington; and Portland, Oregon.
