Happy New Year, CAGTC Members!
Over the holidays, the U.S. Department of Transportation published a “Request for Information” (RFI) to guide development of the National Freight Strategic Plan (NFSP). The RFI can be found here. Comments are due by February 10, 2020. CAGTC will be responding to the RFI and will be holding a membership call on Thursday, January 16 at 10 am Pacific/ 1 pm Eastern to discuss. To register for the call and receive dial in information, please respond to this email. If you have any suggestions for inclusion in CAGTC’s comments, please send them to me as soon as possible.
A brief history on the NFSP: 2012’s MAP-21 required USDOT to develop the first-ever NFSP. USDOT released a draft NFSP on Oct. 18, 2015 (CAGTC worked with Membership and submitted comments to this draft plan). The FAST Act, which was signed into law Dec. 4, 2015, built upon MAP-21’s language for the development of a NFSP and required USDOT to publish a plan within two years of FAST Act enactment (meaning, it should have been published in 2017). The December 27, 2019 RFI is the first public solicitation published since the FAST Act was passed.
The FAST Act required USDOT to include 11 elements in the plan: a conditions & performance report, a freight forecast, identification of major gateways and trade corridors, inventory of freight bottlenecks, barrier assessment, process for addressing multistate projects, strategies to improve intermodal connectivity, identification of corridors important for energy exploration as well as manufacturing/ag, best practices to improve performance and mitigate community impacts. (These 11 elements are discussed in the RFI linked above.)
In addition to these 11 elements, in its December 27 notice, USDOT is specifically seeking responses to the following questions.
- What are the three most important challenges facing the U.S. freight transportation system?
- What should be long- and short- term national freight system goals? How can States, local agencies, and private stakeholders most effectively advance these national goals?
- How should DOT measure freight transportation system performance? In your response, consider both safety and efficiency, as well as performance thresholds across multimodal metrics (i.e., hours of delay, infrastructure conditions, planning time index) that represent untenable performance for the public or private sector. Consider how performance metrics could be employed to inform DOT’s discretionary grant programs.
- What industry freight-specific knowledge is critical to understanding supply chains and how economic trends impact freight logistics and cargo movements? How can such data and/or knowledge be procured or shared amongst public and private sector partners? Are there technological innovations, such as Blockchain and the Internet of Things (IoT), that DOT should know about?
- What should be considered regarding vital operational or equipment innovations, emerging technology advances from research communities, as well as infrastructure or facility concepts in freight transportation?
- What approach should the federal government use to invest in the multimodal freight system? How would this approach apply to each transportation mode, for freight in general, for specific industries, or for freight assets owned by the private sector (i.e., rail, pipelines, maritime)? What are best practices for identifying projects that involve both public and private sector assets and for encouraging communication between the public and private sector to complete those projects?
- What barriers (such as regulatory, technological, institutional, statutory) are critical to freight efficiency that DOT should better understand? Please consider which of these affect freight origination and/or destination areas, as well as intermodal transfers, and describe the root causes of the inefficiencies.
- What information is critical to understanding the unique infrastructure and operational freight impacts faced by local communities? Please detail any best practices in economic development and planning processes that support freight intensive activity or innovative financing. Describe current and prospective infrastructure safety enhancements that should be considered.
- How would you define a bottleneck in your industry? (Consider both surface and maritime transportation).
- What else should DOT consider (including the eleven statutory criteria listed above) or do to improve freight transportation in the U.S.?
I look forward to connecting with you in the New Year!
Elaine Nessle
Executive Director
Coalition for America’s Gateways & Trade Corridors
1625 K St NW, Suite 1100
Washington, DC 20005
T: 202-828-9100
C: 607-368-5028
www.tradecorridors.org