Letters to the Editor: Tolling I-80, HOS, Intermodal Bickering

These Letters to the Editor appear in the Oct. 1 print edition of Transport Topics. Click here to subscribe today.

Tolling I-80

Tolling Interstate 80 under an act passed by both houses of the Pennsylvania General Assembly and signed by Gov. Ed Rendell will have an enormous effect on the economy of Pennsylvania and the trucking industry as a whole. The average truck toll would be an estimated $308 to $400.

That is a significant increase in operating cost. Pennsylvania would be the only state to have both the highest toll costs and the most miles of toll roads; Pennsylvania has approximately 500 miles of toll highway.

Businesses and trucking will not use the corridor. Tolling I-80 will have an awful effect on the economy, leaving no possible avenue for cutting freight cost and moving product safely or expeditiously. Ultimately, the costs will have to be passed on to the consumer.

I believe we need to consider maintaining some distressed highway bridges — not more toll roads. Because I am personally involved in wideload manufactured homes, I also believe that restrictions not allowing travel on toll highways in Pennsylvania would adversely affect an already struggling industry.

With all the regulations regarding hours of service, logbooks and drug testing, our industry does not need more inconvenience or expense. All customers are cost-conscious now, and the trucking industry cannot withstand even more expense, with diesel and gasoline at an all-time high and very unpredictable. It’s tough to have a profit now with road expenses and operating costs, and that margin is shrinking at an alarmingly fast pace.

To place more financial burden on an already struggling industry just does not make sense. Keep in mind that trucks move America. Do we want to make it stop now? Everything you touch came by truck. We citizens do not need to pay more. Stop the waste in Congress and pinch your wallet . . . not the little man.

Linda Slike
Transportation Manager
New Era Building Systems
Strattanville, Pa.

Hours of Service

Since the new hours-of-service rules took effect, I have gotten more rest because of the 14-hour maximum clock and the 10-hours-off rule. I like the 34-hour restart also, and doing the old recap [keeping track of hours available for driving] was a pain.

The main problem with any rule they come up with is, they need to keep the trucking companies from making the drivers run illegally — such as when a carrier calls a driver for a two-hour work call after only eight hours off, saying the driver has taken 10 hours off.

The old rule said you had to have an uninterrupted eight hours off. Doesn’t the new rule say 10 hours uninterrupted?

Kim Ochsenbein
Driver
Soft-Lite Windows LLC
Akron, Ohio

Intermodal Bickering

This is in reference to the letter to the editor on p. 5 of the Sept. 17 issue that read: “Enough already with adding more trucks on our already crowded highways. . . . Try using our railroads . . .”

For years on end, railroaders and the railroad faction have been bickering with the trucking industry, while trucking and the truck faction have been bickering with the railroad industry.

I find this remarkable from my perspective: I was employed by both factions. I worked for the old Rock Island Line for 21½ years before its demise and subsequently went to work for a government entity that enforced regulations on both modes.

For all the years I have been involved with the transportation industry, while the two transportation modes were bickering, the river barge faction was sitting back and quietly laughing their collective heads off.

Back then, the only taxes a barge company paid were sales taxes on the equipment they purchased. There was no fuel tax, no money to maintain their right of way, no International Fuel Tax Agreement, no heavy-use tax, no bingo stamps, no eight or nine license plates on trucks — none.

The only thing I can remember in recent times that comes close to parity for the barge lines is that the Army Corps of Engineers stated about 10 years ago they would begin charging a fee for barges to go through the Mississippi River locks — but I have not seen its enactment.

Would it be more wise to suggest that one barge and tow rig moving down the Ohio, Mississippi, Missouri, Columbia or any other river has the capability to transport more than the other two factions together?

Railroads make money transporting goods. Trucks move these goods where the rails can’t. In that regard, one can’t live without the other, because a great part of each mode’s profit margin comes from the other.

Francis Edward Amiot
Retired
U.S. Department of Transportation
Monroe, Mich.