State, local trucking interests support unclogging corridor congestion

The American Trucking Associations is advocating a new Freight Corridors Initiative that has the backing of the Arkansas Trucking Association and Fort Smith-based Arkansas Best Corp.

Randall Clifford, chairman of Ventura Transfer Co. of Long Beach, Calif., recently told a Congressional committee gathered in Los Angeles that improving freight mobility should be a national goal of the next federal highway bill.

“Addressing bottlenecks along major freight corridors is critical to the success of our nation’s supply chain,” Clifford said during the hearing before the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. “Seven of the worst 35 highway bottlenecks are located in Southern California. … The time to act is now. Together these seven bottlenecks caused trucks more than 6.8 million hours of delay in 2006, at a cost of $571 million.”

A study recently prepared for the Federal Highway Administration estimated that the nation’s worst 326 bottlenecks caused the trucking industry 226 million hours of delay in 2006, according to a statement from the American Trucking Associations. The association estimated the cost to the transportation sector and its customers at $19 billion annually.

Using newly available operational cost data, it can be determined that the direct financial cost to the industry and its customers from these delays is approximately $19 billion per year.
 
Clifford, who was speaking on behalf of the American Trucking Associations, said the Freight Corridors Initiative would focus resources on congestion reduction projects on nationally significant highway freight corridors.

Lane Kidd, president of the Arkansas Trucking Association, said the state association is backing the corridors initiative.
 
“One component of our industry’s objectives is to support an increase in the federal fuel tax if those dollars are committed to repairing the highways upon which the industry greatly depends,” Kidd told The City Wire.

David Humphrey, spokesman for Arkansas Best Corp., said the company also is supportive of the effort to relieve corridor congestion.

The major “freight-significant” corridors as defined by the Federal Highway Administration area:
Interstate 5 (from Blaine, Wash., to San Diego, Calif.)
I-10 (runs along the southern tier of the U.S. from Los Angeles to Jacksonville, Fla.)
I-45 (from Dallas to Galveston-Gulf of Mexico ports)
I-65 (from Gary, Ind., south to Mobile, Ala.)
I-70 (from Cove Fort, Utah, almost due east to Baltimore)