Marine Transportation System

Archive for the ‘Surface Transportation Policy’ Category

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Good Things to Hear — Pt. 1

In Intermodal, Leadership, Surface Transportation Policy on April 22, 2010 at 11:20 am

This from Environment & Energy Daily reporter Josh Vorhees, his March 25, 2010 story shortened here:

A widely popular transportation program created by last year’s stimulus package could see new life in the next multiyear highway bill.

Senate Environment and Public Works Chairwoman Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) said yesterday that she wants to include a provision similar to the Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery, or TIGER, program in the bill her panel is drafting.

The $1.5 billion grant program for innovative, long-term work is aimed at funding multimodal projects that have traditionally been difficult to fund through existing federal programs.

Boxer asked DOT officials for help in drafting the TIGER language that would be part of her highway legislation.

DOT Deputy Secretary John Porcari said his agency would be willing to work with the EPW Committee and called the TIGER program key to the administration’s transportation goals, specifically efforts to shift more freight off the nation’s roads to increase mobility, and combat congestion and the fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emissions that accompany it.

“I think the TIGER grants point the way to the future in intermodal transportation,” Porcari said.

I wasn’t at the hearing at which the exchange took place but on the basis of this story I hear what sounds like a change of heart.   Perhaps a change of heart that took place quite some time ago but it’s one that is worth noting nonetheless.

In early 2009 when the economic stimulus package was taking form Barbra Boxer spoke to attendees of a freight stakeholder gathering.  In strong terms Boxer rejected what was the $5.5B proposal of her colleague, Patty Murray, chair of the transportation appropriations subcommittee.  (Murray’s multi-modal discretionary grant proposal eventually was enacted at a $1.5B level and later dubbed TIGER grants by Secretary Ray LaHood.)

Barbara Boxer explanation included this: Murray’s discretionary grant proposal “takes Congress out” of the decision making.  Not to worry, she elaborated, her planned surface transportation bill–MAP 21–would take care of large infrastructure projects through a projects of national and regional significance approach, much as contained in SAFETEA-LU.

Barbara Boxer’s response was disappointing to reform minded freight folk in the audience but not especially surprising.  As chair of the Environment & Public Works Committee she would both write the next surface transportation bill and have great say over what projects to include in it.

So, here’s to Barbara Boxer for seeing the value in the TIGER experience and, apparently, trusting USDOT leadership to responsibly apply legislative and rulemaking parameters in the selection of projects.   Here’s to any other legislators who had misgivings about giving the Administration the “discretion” but now see how it can work.

Perhaps Chairman Boxer also takes comfort in noting that some  of the 51 selected projects in the first round are in districts and states of key transportation players in Congress.   And that’s okay.  We hardly expect grant selections to be done in antiseptic rooms totally devoid of political considerations.   Pbea

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What TIGER Tells Us

In Marine Highway, Surface Transportation Policy on February 23, 2010 at 12:39 pm

No, not that Tiger.

The eagerly awaited TIGER grants were announced last week.  An experiment in government.  Against their better judgment members of the House and Senate gave $1.5 billion to the Administration and left it to the discretion of USDOT program managers, modal administrators, the Secretary (and perhaps the White House, just in case) to decide what projects were worthy.  (Egads! The bureaucrats!)

The multimodal discretionary grants program—later assigned a name and acronym at USDOT—was created a year ago in the cauldron in which Congress cooked up the economic recovery package.  The context was job creation in a failing economy.  But the genius of TIGER’s tenacious sponsors—most visibly Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA)—was that it also was a good time to try something different.  Politics would always be lurking in the background (if not in the foreground) when doling out tax revenue for public works but this was not a time for the earmarking norm.

Also lurking was the thought: if this works it could set the example for a change in transportation policy.

Lisa Caruso of the National Journal asks in her transportation “experts” blog if TIGER should be replicated in the surface transportation authorization bill.  Can it serve as a model for the revised policy and programs that many of us look for in the bill?

So far the respondents (scroll thru the page) generally agree there is benefit in the approach.  What’s not to like? Livable community folks liked the selection of street car and pedestrian path projects.  Goods movement was given a strong boost with around $300 million going to rail projects.  And it was good to see that at least one of the promising marine highway initiatives was granted $30 million.  (The first of many one hopes.)  That award illustrates how TIGER–and Secretary Ray LaHood–was open to more than the usual road, transit and bike path projects.

By and large, very good projects were selected.  But the question posed by Caruso is whether TIGER represents a policy approach worth continuing.

Some of the respondents think TIGER is a good starting point but that it is important to change the underlying policy.   In particular Steve Heminger notes it is not enough to create a grants program that is mode neutral.  An improved Federal policy and program should have a clearer, focused national perspective e.g., goods movement and metropolitan mobility.  It is a view I share.

Bob Poole raises an important policy question worth debating by suggesting an underlying weakness of a multimodal approach if a highway tax is the sole source of support.

One person’s response I would be interested to see is that of Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA).  In January 2009 the chair of EPW, which is to produce highway and other portions of the next authorization bill, flatly opposed the multimodal discretionary grants provision in the draft Senate stimulus bill, even as Heminger and other Californians welcomed the idea of a mode-neutral program and projects judged on their merits.  Boxer and others in the transportation leadership of Capitol Hill will decide whether the TIGER approach is just a brief detour from projects as usual.   Pbea

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Toward Developing MTS Related Policy

In Federal Government, Leadership, MTS Policy, Surface Transportation Policy on February 15, 2010 at 1:07 pm

Sitting the USDOT leadership in front of an audience has become a bit of a tradition each January.   Most of the brass, sans Secretary LaHood, appeared en panel at the recent TRB annual convention.  The policy and modal chiefs offered brief overviews as to what is on their plates.  Here are notes from two that have particular relevance to MTS related policy.

Under Secretary for Policy Roy Kienitz covered the big item — the next surface transportation authorization bill.   This year the Secretary’s office will pull together recommendations for the Obama White House to consider in preparing a package for Congress.

Roy stated the vision:  A renewed sense of strong federal leadership in transportation centered on meeting national needs.

He defined national needs: safety, state of good repair, economic competitiveness, livability, and environ sustainability.

The department’s priorities: organizing programs around those needs and recommending ideas to congress.

The challenges he described:  getting Americans excited about the vision and finding a politically acceptable way to pay for it.

David Matsuda, the Maritime Administration’s acting Administrator, is awaiting Senate confirmation.  He offered his take on what is what is driving the need to develop a vision for the marine transportation system as it applies to nation’s economic competitiveness.

The Panama Canal widening has the potential to significantly alter land and water routes.  Add to that potential changes relating to the use of the Suez, an Artic route, etc.    In short, we’re facing a whole new freight delivery market.

The Federal government must play an active role such as help “coordinate” investments in port access and intermodal connectors.  Few studies and data are available.  MARAD is commissioning a study to fully explore the impacts of a widened canal on our transportation system.

David said the study outcome is expected to shape national policies and help assess the capacity of channels, connections, etc.  He spoke of the need to factor in the capacity of port terminals and landside connections, the ingenuity of port authorities and terminal operators, and the competitive measures Canada and Mexico ports will take.  To understand how fuel prices affect freight economics.   And to identify marine highways to relieve surface congestion and move goods in a more energy efficient manner on the water.

There’s work to be done at the Department of Transportation.  And plenty reason for the freight community to plug into it.   Pbea

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Mile Markers on the Marine Highway

In Intermodal, Marine Highway, Surface Transportation Policy on December 18, 2009 at 12:42 pm

Since the notion of American marine highways helping to mitigate landside congestion took root early this decade–along with the call for Federal policy and program–voices have been heard to ask, “so, where is it?”   “What happened to those promised new short sea services?”  Why isn’t [big box retailer] using coastal shipping?

Cynics who habitually dismiss the competitiveness of U.S. flag shipping eagerly seize opportunity to validate their view.  Observers see their doubts re-enforced or just wonder if there is any there there.

Meanwhile, advocates are impatient for government to concur with the public benefits rationale by enacting major policy directives and funding game changing projects.  (There is also the understandable impatience of entrepreneurial risk takers whose initiatives could use a short term assist to help establish themselves in the market.)

I count among those seeking a decisive boost for new marine highway operations.  But expectations are tempered by the Washington experience.  To keep our sanity folks here learn to tolerate the tortoise pace of policy-craft.   We look for the smallish increments that represent progress, even as we look to accomplish greater things farther down the road.

So what  progress has been made?

Those are the highlights, added to by various research papers and reports.  It is worth noting that the above achievements are not the result of a well-funded, cohesive effort by a powerful maritime industry lobby.  (Indeed, one might argue that none of those modifiers apply, especially when compared to other transportation sectors.)  They largely were achieved by decision-makers coming to recognize the inherent advantages of domestic marine transportation, and with the encouragement of various labor, port, public agency and private sector advocates (as well as the Coastwise Coalition that I chair) who have validated that policy direction.

So what progress will we see in the coming year or two?

  • USDOT will announce the multimodal TIGER grants and we will learn if applicants whose projects would enhance new AMH services–such as Eco Transport (CA) and SeaBridge Freight (TX/FL)–are among the awardees.
  • MARAD will issue a final rule for the SST/AMH  program, designate AMH coastal and inland corridors, and call for projects.
  • USDOT will report to Congress on hindrances to AMH development and make recommendations, some of which may resemble recommendations made to the Secretary in 2009 by the Marine Transportation System National Advisory Council.
  • MARAD will issue a rule for the new grants program and, with the cooperation of the Secretary, will make every effort to award grants by October 2010.
  • President Obama’s FY 2011 budget will include a specific funding request for SST grants.
  • Congress will act on the legislation to exempt from the Harbor Maintenance Tax non-bulk cargo that moves between US ports and among Great Lakes ports.
  • Congress will consider new surface transportation policy that to some extent will recognize how AMH routes can benefit traditional users of congested land routes.

That’s what I see happening.    Pbea

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Rail + Road + Water = Surface Freight System

In Efficiency, Intermodal, Surface Transportation Policy on December 1, 2009 at 1:32 pm

Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) released a study in November comparing truck and rail fuel efficiency.  It’s an update of a 1991 FRA report.

The new study identifies rail as more efficient.  No surprise there.

The report, Comparative Evaluation of Rail and Truck Fuel Efficiency on Competitive Corridors (November 19, 2009), should be useful to Secretary Ray LaHood in developing a new freight policy.  But he should not leave it at road and rail.  Marine transport–the wet surface transportation–should be in the mix.

The Secretary has spoken about the need to understand how marine transportation can be better integrated with the surface transportation system.  He has identified marine highway development–and the capacity it would bring to domestic freight transportation system–as an administration objective.

The MARAD-funded TTI modal comparison report is very helpful in understanding how barge transportation compares to rail and road.  Does that tell us all we need to know?  After all, there’s more to domestic marine freight movement than tugs and barges.  More to the point, there’s more in store for coastwise and inland services than what is on the water today.  How would the planned, new Ro-Ro and container vessels compare to rail and truck?   Policy makers need complete 3-mode data to make complete policy decisions.

The freight logistics industry has pointed to the lack of a national freight policy.  The Freight Stakeholders Coalition announced in May its suggested “platform” for a freight policy.  As the platform suggests the policy should “foster operational and environmental efficiencies in goods movement.”  The platform also calls for the establishment of a “multi-modal freight office” in the Office of the Secretary (OST) in the interest of advancing freight mobility.

A multi-modal view that is not hampered by an old view of how transportation works is what is called for today.  Greater fuel efficiency isn’t an ideological issue.  It’s very much an economic matter to business and a bi-partisan policy matter as we understand the country’s interest in energy security.  Likewise we see environmental issues–emissions, particularly–becoming more of a business and policy concern.

That’s why the developers of the GIFT model are attracting interest.   Dr. James Corbett of the University of Delaware and Dr. James Winebrake of the Rochester Institute of  Technology–with the support of USDOT, MARAD and others–are developing the Geospatial Intermodal Freight Transportation (GIFT) model.  GIFT enables the fuel and emission comparison of modes for specific freight routes.  In other words, logistics planners soon will have a tool that goes beyond the one-sided “carbon calculator” analysis available on some rail and marine transportation company websites.

Corbett and Winebrake add further value with their IF-TOLD Mitigation Framework that they describe as “A Context for Mode Shifting Discussions.”

Some good work is being done to provide more information for making modal decisions and enable the development of smarter freight policy.  With any luck the policy makers will determine what multi-modal information is available as well as what additional information is needed before deciding on a long overdue national freight policy and the successor to SAFETEA-LU.   Pbea

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Vision Ingredients (Part 1)

In Federal Government, Leadership, Surface Transportation Policy on November 28, 2009 at 8:19 pm

Thinking of George H. W. Bush can conger up a few unfortunate (for him), lasting images. For me it’s the former president’s food judgments (pork rinds good/broccoli bad), his unfamiliarity with the price of  milk, and Dana Carvey’s exaggerated but dead-on impersonation.  Then there was, “oh, the vision thing.”  It sounded like he thought it a useless factor in governing–perhaps more so than he may have intended–but it stuck.

As a practical matter civil servants and political appointees often aren’t given the time to engage in “visioning”. Sometimes when it is done it can amount to little more than a facilitated exercise.  But what may seem like a luxury, or a waste, arguably is essential for a new administration and even newly sworn congressional leadership.

At USDOT some part of a vision is in place, though I don’t know how much is the result of planning or predisposition.

The two elements of an Obama transportation vision that I can identify are high speed passenger rail and livable communities.  The first is courtesy of President Obama himself.  In an out-of-the-blue moment earlier this year the White House said the economic stimulus package being written in Congress must include billions to start a high speed rail program.  (It was one of a few Obama “musts” in a measure that was mostly dismissed by Republicans as a “Pelosi” bill.)   The rail piece was the president’s vision, and an inspired one to be sure.

The second quickly became a regularly voiced theme by Secretary Ray LaHood and his policy staff.  It suits an administration that is oriented toward energy conservation, the urban environment and, not to be forgotten, the voting pedestrian/commuter.  Does it qualify as vision?  I think so.  It’s more than a policy view because a livable community objective could transform urban and town landscapes and it entails a broad range of policy solutions.

Meanwhile a more complete administration surface transportation policy is still in the cooker.  Congressional committees are wondering what and when policy recommendations for a successor to SAFETEA-LU will emerge from USDOT headquarters.  Perhaps no sooner than mid 2010.

Vision and policy are not synonymous.  One can have a new vision, and implementing policy, for passenger rail while maintaining a decades-old freight policy.  Somehow that doesn’t sound like this administration.

It’s one thing for the recent Bush administration and Secretary Mary Peters to articulate a scant administration view  about transportation that amounted to little more than less Federal government, more State responsibility, and greater private sector financing and management.  It made for a transportation policy only a Cato could appreciate.

But we might reasonably expect more from Messrs Obama and LaHood given the administration’s expansive environmental and energy view.  Transportation’s role in addressing those issues is significant and goes beyond putting passengers on trains and encouraging transit use and bicycling.

So here’s the question: What is the total vision that will steer administration action and guidance to congress over the next three, maybe seven, years?  Will it be more than passenger rail and livable communities?    Pbea

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California Trailblazing to a Miami Tunnel

In Intermodal, Ports, Surface Transportation Policy on November 17, 2009 at 11:04 pm

When earth was turned in 1997 for the Alameda Corridor project in the San Pedro Bay port region more than one kind of ground breaking was occurring.  The Port of Miami is a beneficiary.

In freight transportation policy circles the Alameda Corridor project one day may be legend.  The ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach were the gaping end of a freight funnel that emptied import boxes onto the exit rails and streets.  In essence the solution was to eliminate grade crossings by building a blow-grade rail way out of town.  A big project with a $2.4B price tag.  A key to the financing was Federal credit assistance.  The project and two others in California were the first to benefit by this innovation.  A paper on the FHWA website tells the story.

Due to Federal budgetary constraints, however, the grant was not deemed to be a fiscally or politically viable option. An alternative form of Federal support for this project was needed, and by 1997 the answer was clear: Federal credit enhancement in the form of a junior-lien loan to ACTA.

The fiscal year 1997 Omnibus Consolidated Appropriations Act (Public Law 104-208) provided $58.7 million for DOT to cover the capital reserve charges associated with making a direct loan of up to $400 million to ACTA for the Alameda Corridor Project. This represents an actual budgetary cost of 14.7 percent of the face value of credit assistance. The legislation also provided that the loan be repaid within 30 years from the date of project completion and that the interest rate on the loan not exceed the 30-year Treasury rate.

Inspired by the success of leveraging non-Federal investment for large infrastructure project, particularly private financing, Congress in 1998 fashioned a fully articulated TIFIA program.  It was adjusted in SAFETEA-LU with a lowered threshold to make more projects eligible.

Nearly $7 billion in projects in 13 states have benefited since TIFIA was created by Congress.  The Port of Miami’s rail freight tunnel had an uncertain future but with the October announcement the financing is in place and a $607 million construction project soon will be underway.  Not bad.   Pbea

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Hours on the Road, Time on the Water

In Marine Highway, Surface Transportation Policy on November 6, 2009 at 5:59 pm

The rules of the road will help define the market for marine highway services.   A prime example is the Hours-of-Service (HOS) regulation that limits the time truck drivers can spend behind the wheel.  These are excerpts from American Shipper of October 29, 2009.  (The links are mine.)

The U.S. Department of Transportation and its Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration on Monday agreed to revisit rules on hours of service for truck drivers to resolve a lawsuit by safety advocacy groups and the Teamsters union.

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The hours-of-service rule allows drivers of commercial vehicles to drive up to 11 hours after 10 consecutive hours off duty. The rule also has a 14-hour maximum workday limit so that drivers have to clock off even if they haven’t driven all 11 of their allowed hours. And drivers must take a 34-hour break after being on the job seven or eight consecutive days.

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The trucking industry objected to the original changes five years ago, which added an extra hour to the maximum time behind the wheel but shortened the overall work day and the restart period, but has since adjusted to and supports the current rule.

Trucking companies comply with Federal requirements and adjust operations accordingly.  One adjustment may be in how they schedule drivers for long hauls.  If the daily allowable driving time is reduced under revised HOS regs then one response could be to substitute vessels for a long leg of the long haul.  Instead of dispatching a driver for the full trip put two drivers to work on the short hauls between the origin/destination points and the ports at either end.

The authors of “Operational Development of Marine Highways to Serve the U.S. Pacific Coast,” which recently appeared in the Transportation Research Record (September 2009), see that potential.

Marine highways are viable for longer routes such as those from California to the Pacific Northwest, where truck rates are higher and both distance and trucking hours-of-service regulations permit vessels to be time competitive at lower speeds. (from the abstract)

One of the authors is Ron Silva of Westar Transport, a California trucking firm that understands the operational benefits of  a transportation system that would make it possible for trucks to spend time on the water.   Pbea

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HMT on the Marine Highway: Once is Too Much

In Marine Highway, Surface Transportation Policy on October 18, 2009 at 11:09 pm

The Harbor Maintenance Tax (HMT) discourages new customers for the marine highway.  It may not be the only number in the logistics calculus but it tops most to-fix lists.  Why?

Vessel operators, maritime labor, ports, and others agree that the HMT is most in need of a policy fix.  But the diversity of perspective sometimes means the prescriptions for a fix will vary…as will the way of explaining the issue.

If you ask someone to explain the HMT issue the response may be:  “It’s a double tax on cargo.”   I have heard  that  lone, simple statement made many times including by an  industry witness at a committee hearing.  It is how others are coming to know the issue.  A key Member of Congress recently explained the issue that same way.  Double taxation,  period.

The double hit of the ad valorem tax is a valid reason.  Imported cargo pays on entering a U.S. port, and then, when transshipped by coastal service to another American port, pays again.  But that explanation leaves out an equally important reason for Congress to approve legislation such as the Cummings bill in the House (H.R. 638) or the Lautenberg bill in the Senate (S. 551).

The single hit of the HMT on domestic cargo–much of which moves in trailers–is the other principal reason.   Domestic freight represents the greater percentage of goods moving on the roads today…far more than international boxes.   When the Port Authority of  New York & New Jersey studied trucking in that congested metro region less than 5 percent of the trucks on the road were carrying containers to or from the port.  This is hardly surprising.

So whether the cargo is riding in a 53′ trailer, or is a vehicle itself, that is the freight we need to attract to the marine highway.  Unlike the imports the domestic freight would pay only once.  That also is too much.

If the marine highway is to fulfill our expectation to enhance the surface transportation system and mitigate the interstate burden the J.B. Hunts, the FedExs and other companies should participate in blue and brown water services.

Exempting both international and domestic non-bulk cargo moving in the American domestic trade, and among Great Lakes ports, is the objective. It is a low-cost way to remove a disincentive for the use of efficient marine transportation and signal  a policy change to the logistics industry where the business decisions are made.

That says it all.    Pbea

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The Marine Highway Route to Climate Action

In Green Transportation, Marine Highway, Surface Transportation Policy on October 15, 2009 at 7:26 pm

BlogActionDayCall me silly, but I give benefit of the doubt to John McCain, Barack Obama, Al Gore (yes, him, too) and the slew of scientists who have convinced leaders around the globe that the time for action to address global warming is…yesterday.   (With such heavy stakes I’m betting on the smart guys–people of science.)

Closer to home, I trust people like marine biologist Marisa Guarinello, who on Sunday told me of her recent stint in Antarctica.  She witnessed the consequences of diminishing ice habitat and the effects on native species.

I also trust my gut, paunchy thing that it is.  I never expected in my lifetime to see terra-evolution.  From my early years in grammar school I learned, as we all did, about  the  Ice Age and other such periods that lasted over the course of  tens of thousands  of years.  When I see ongoing evidence of change (the Melting Age?) occurring in my lifetime it’s a bit unnerving.

Want an example?  How about the shrinking of the Arctic?  So much so that studies and early planning are underway for Arctic shipping routes as ice is reduced to being less of an obstacle.  I understand that there is opportunity in them thar high latitude shortcuts, but that opportunity has the look of silver lining an awfully dark cloud.

The Marine Transportation System can do more than take advantage of a disturbing, ecological change to Planet Earth.   It also can contribute to the reversal of GHG factors.

In fact the future of the MTS–the prospect for growth in maritime-centered mobility–is dependent on marine transportation being relevant in the Climate Change Era (CCE).

Our friends in USDOT might agree with that assertion.  They are preparing the administration’s view as to the next surface transportation policy.  Even as the policy is in development clear themes are being voiced by Secretary Ray LaHood and his team.  Sustainability.  Livability.  Mobility.

The Secretary sees the MTS as fitting neatly in that framework of principles.  He said marine transportation, specifically the development of the American Marine Highway (AMH), as transformational for the national transportation system.

Marine transportation is highly efficient.  It moves large volumes of  things using less fuel than  the other surface modes.  It has advantages from a GHG perspective.   However it isn’t a slam dunk for “Green Mode of the Year.”  But with the right investments it can do even better in contributing to our environmental and energy security.  Fuel switching.  Operational adjustments.  New technologies.

Government and the private sector have roles to play here.  Federal policy should aggressively foster both the use and greater advances in marine transportation.  Investments in technology, new equipment and AMH services by the private sector, or its public sponsors, should be rewarded.  Research should be supported.  Transportation policies in this CCE should be unified through the integration of modal policies and some programs.

Like it or not, change is happening.  There are implications for the Marine Transportation System.  Let’s make it work both for future generations and for the industry that supports millions of jobs.   Pbea