Full steam ahead for America's Marine Highway program; Maritime Administration chooses corridors, projects

Last week I announced the 18 corridors, 8 projects, and 6 initiatives designated as part of our new America's Marine Highway program. This program seeks to move some of our nation's cargo and passenger traffic--particularly in areas where there are known bottlenecks--from roadways to waterways.

Making better use of our rivers and coastal routes offers an intelligent way to relieve some of the biggest challenges we face in transportation--roadway congestion, climate change, fossil fuel energy use, and soaring road maintenance costs. There is no better time for us to improve the use of our rivers and coasts for transportation.

Since we made the announcement, shippers and ports have responded very positively. Port Canaveral CEO J. Stanley Payne called it, "The welcome next step in short sea shipping here at the port."

Port of Green Bay manager Dean Haen sees last week's announcement as a terrific moment for Green Bay:

"It raises awareness that we are a mode of transportation. The more awareness we create, the more opportunity that will exist for us, and the more we grow and create jobs. The simplicity, and low cost, of marine will come back."

Years from now this program will be recognized as one of the Obama Administration's transportation game-changers. Because, if you read the Maritime Administration's descriptions of each corridor, you'll notice that every single Marine Highway parallels a roadway that punishes freight drivers with brutal truck bottlenecks.

As Maritime Administrator David Matsuda said, "These projects will help make better use of America’s marine resources by reducing costly gridlock, improving the environment, and putting skilled mariners and shipbuilders to work.”

Port of Brownsville Director of Trade Development Steve Tyndal agrees that the job-creation potential is significant. He sees Brownsville's cross-Gulf link to Florida's Port Manatee as an opportunity to save both communities:

“I know that both Brownsville and Manatee are suffering greatly from the effects of the recession in terms of unemployment and economic stress. This to me seems to be a reasonable and a long-term way of providing the two communities ways to enhance the assets that they have to create better and more higher paying jobs.”

Lower maintenance costs, lower congestion, lower environmental footprint, and new jobs. That sounds like a winning combination to me, and I look forward to seeing these corridors develop.

Comments

[HP Bryce]

This seems like a great initiative that could save and create many jobs. I am just wondering what will be done to prevent the migration of invasive species like the Asian Carp?

[Amy McKendry]

Creating more long term jobs and helping reduce greenhouse gases at the same time is great for everyone. good job folks

[Michael E. Bailey]

The Marine Highway was an inspired idea and it will result in goods moving faster and for less--in the future passengers too. It will integrate at the ports two of the most efficient modes of transportation ocean and river shipping and rail. And I imagine the center piece will be the intermodal freight container. I have been seeing where intermodal cargo containers moving by rail have almost come back to pre-recession levels and this new Marine Highway Initiative will be a huge shot in the arm for merchant marine services and rail services. This is great. Best wishes, Michael E. Bailey.

[Michael Dyer]

I wish, respectfully, to differ with the rosy sentiments offered above. The marine highway, also known elsewhere and at other times as "short sea shipping", has been a programmatic focus for quite some time, but really has not grown much beyond its traditional bounds: lots of brown water tug-tow traffic, mostly dry bulk, and some coastal trade in old bottoms, largely liquid bulk. The biggest development in recent years has been the evolution of the ITB/ATB, a progression of larger and more sophisticated liquid bulk carriers.

Congestion relief is seen as moving containers off the roads and onto the water, in particular along the eastern seaboard. This has occurred only in small fits and starts and Columbia Coastal's recent termination of the NJ-Boston service is an indication of the difficulties. Industry observers say that direct international service to more ports (e.g., Boston) and lowered trucking rates were the causes. Many shippers feel that the time and money of extra handling and port transfers do not make sense. It has also been reported that heavy short sea shipping subsidies in the EU have not always had the desired mode transfer effect.

A serious approach to short sea shipping would include a nationally scaled ratioanlization of port and rail operations, identifying high volume deep water ports for the big blue-water ships, and regional rail and short sea feeders into other ports and surface terminals. This would be a hard sell because of the independent and competitive nature of the ports themselves and the political aversion to "command and control" economic planning. Personally, I think that this discussion at least is worth a try.

Mike Dyer, Volpe Center/RITA

[port canaveral transportation]

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