U.S. Department for Transport released the draft National Freight Strategic Plan, which offers specific policy proposals and solutions to address the growing challenges of moving freight in U.S..
The draft Plan, wich is open for public comment, is an essential step for continuing to support the economy through the efficient movement of goods, while recognizing and responding to future infrastructure challenges.
The draft Plan emphasizes the importance of a dedicated freight program that would improve the movement of freight and meet regional economic demand. Within Grow America Act, it would be provided USD 18 billion over six years through two dedicated, multimodal freight grant programs for targeted investments. In addition, the strategy identifies major trade gateways and multimodal national freight networks/corridors, facilitates multijurisdictional, multimodal collaboration and solutions, ensures the availability of better data and models and improves safety and support the adoption of new transportation technologies.
“With an increasingly competitive and complex global marketplace and a deteriorating transportation infrastructure that is unfortunately showing the effects of age and underinvestment, the need for us to have a national freight plan could not be more urgent,” said U.S. Secretary of Transportation Anthony Foxx.
According to the most recent data released from the Bureau of Transportation Statistics, freight shipments last month reached an all-time high and were 30.4 percent higher than the recent low in April 2009 during the recession.
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