America’s New Barrier to Trade—The Tariff of Congestion

As trade barriers fall around the world, a new trade barrier is rising around the American continent. Congestion at the nation’s ports, on its highways, and along its railroads is becoming the new tariff of the 21st Century. This congestion increases travel times, it disrupts tightly planned supply chains, and it raises the costs of doing business with America and in America.

The effect of rising congestion is like a tax—only it escalates every year without a vote of the people. This congestion tax can be repealed only if the United States adopts a new vision and new strategy for a global, 21st Century American transportation system.

The foundations of this congestion crisis are built upon the aging transportation network that serves the United States today:

The Interstate Highway System was planned in the 1950s for the traffic volumes of the 1980s. Today, truck and traffic congestion is a daily occurrence which will grow to staggering rates in the next 20 years.

The Interstate Highway System was the envy of the world—in 1967.

Today it is overwhelmed with traffic and truck volumes that far surpass anything anticipated when it was constructed. The Interstate Highway System was planned in the 1950s for the traffic volumes of the 1980s. Today, truck and traffic congestion is a daily occurrence which will grow to staggering rates in the next 20 years.

America’s rail network is struggling to satisfy current demand. It was planned in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries to meet the needs of a newly emerging industrial nation. Today, despite record levels of investment by the railroad industry, more will be needed to meet the needs of the system, the Sun Belt regions, the nation’s booming ports, and the agricultural and manufacturing industries.

America’s water ports face a tsunami of foreign trade which is overwhelming their capacity. Estimates are that foreign trade will double nationally and triple at key ports over the next two decades. These ports and their landside connections struggle to handle today’s volumes—much less those of the coming decades.

Perhaps more serious than the problems in any one mode is the increasing need to improve connections between modes. Foreign trade by its nature involves two or more modes. The connections between America’s ports and its highways, between its ports and its railroads and between its highways and its railroads are inadequate for today’s trade volumes—much less those of the next two decades.

This congested and antiquated network hinders the United States at a time of soaring international competition. The value of foreign trade to the U.S. economy will nearly triple from the equivalent of 13 percent of GDP in 1990 to 35 percent by 2020. Instead of reducing barriers to this trading boom, America is increasing them by trying to squeeze a greater amount of product through its increasingly congested logistical pipeline.

“Transportation—as an integrated system—is an essential component of America’s global competitiveness, and, as such, it can no longer be relegated to the backbench of U.S. public policy.”

—Thomas Donohue, President and CEO of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce

This prescient observation from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce reflects what is becoming a crisis of confidence in America’s transportation system. To face this crisis and to compete effectively, America needs a new vision and a new strategy. It must build a 21st Century American transportation system that allows every corner of the country to have a modern logistics platform to compete in a new global economy. America’s vaunted status as the most efficient and productive nation in the world is about to slip—unless the public and private sector can respond in time.

AASHTO produced this report for the National Surface Transportation Policy and Revenue Study Commission to warn national policy makers of this impending crisis. AASHTO also proposes a series of far-reaching policies that must be adopted if America is to retain its competitive advantage.



Article posted on: http://www.transportation1.org/