Editorial: Increased Transport Demand Has Drawbacks

Though specific figures exist only in the realm of estimates, the U.S. government has forecast tremendous growth in future transportation demands. Still, estimates are based on existing transport trends, expected population growth, and the explosion in international trade, which more than doubled from 1990 to 2000. So the estimates may be closer than we think. If they are close, it begs the question “How do we handle it?”

Growth in transportation demand results from the development of varying circumstances. Population growth requires the movement of more goods. Significant change in imports and exports in foreign trade impacts all modes. New business developments result in the increased use of one mode or another and influence the fortunes of the mode utilized. The emergence of the ethanol industry, for example, is impacting how much corn is grown where, how it is used, and how corn and the finished products are transported.

Growth in transportation demand is a two-edged sword. On the one hand it may reflect desirable change and progress. On the other, it places a tremendous but anticipated burden on the existing transportation infrastructure.

Some say there is no way to expand railroads geographically. The only way to handle more rail traffic is to add more cars and run more trains over existing tracks. The only way to handle more over-the-road truck traffic is to add more trucks, which inevitably increases air pollution, use of resources, and danger on the highways.

The river industry has long suggested turning to waterways as a way to handle more traffic and bring about environmental improvements. The Maritime Administration and private companies are trying now to educate state and local governments, shippers and carriers on the economics of shipping by water.

USA Today writer Larry Copeland tells us that federal officials believe lucrative cargo is moving at a snail’s pace on crowded freeways and that this traffic might reach its destination quicker if it used the nation’s original highways—water. He says that federal transportation strategists are studying ways to accommodate the surging growth of truck traffic without overwhelming an already challenged interstate highway system. The potential of water transport is becoming more visible.

Bulk products or those too big, too heavy, or perhaps volatile, usually move by barge anyway. The growing philosophy deals with cargo routinely delivered by truck or rail.

Selling that concept, particularly to environmental oppositionists, has been difficult, despite the fact that MarAd has long touted the environmental and economic advantages of water transportation over other modes. But there is positive movement in that private companies are beginning to buy into the idea. Also, officials in particularly challenged transportation corridors are starting to understand how to bring desired relief to their highways. (The European Union vigorously promotes water transport for the same reasons.)

As one example of change, Maritime Administrator Sean Connaughton said MarAd is working with state and local governments to try to move trucks and higher-end cargo, put them on vessels and get them off the roads and around the bottlenecks. They’re trying, he said, to take containers arriving at the Port of New York and New Jersey and transfer them by barge to Bridgeport, Conn., through New York Harbor and Long Island Sound. Retired Lt. Gen. Kenneth Wykle, president of the National Defense Transportation Association, told USA Today, “Investing $2 billion in coastal shipping and ports could take 700,000 trucks a year off Interstates 95 and 81 [along the Eastern seaboard] by connecting four pairs of ports on the East and Gulf coasts.” It would cost $8.5 billion to widen I-81 through Virginia, add a few hundred miles of lanes and keep the same number of trucks off the highways.

While that activity involves coastal shipping, it still lends impetus to the idea of using more water transport. In recent years, Gulf Coast companies have begun transporting containers toward the heartland, a concept that is catching on as shippers realize the value of barging their goods when deadlines don’t forbid it.

The United States is blessed with a magnificent system of navigable waterways, which should be maintained properly and used to our advantage. And while the effort along the Eastern seaboard is coastal in nature, it demonstrates concepts that can, with modification, be utilized throughout the nation.

Transportation Secretary Mary Peters told USA Today that the maritime initiative is part of a comprehensive effort to reduce congestion and increase freight efficiency. As it is, the nation is losing its competitive edge because congestion makes transportation less dependable and more difficult for businesses to get products delivered where and when they need them.

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