Statement by CAGTC President Leslie Blakey on the U.S. Department of Transportation’s National Freight Strategic Plan

Pursuant to requirements under the Fixing America’s Surface Transportation Act of 2015 (FAST Act), today the U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) published its National Freight Strategic Plan (NFSP). The FAST Act established a national, multimodal freight policy and tasked USDOT with developing by the end of 2017 (and every five years thereafter) a NFSP that executes this policy and informs freight planning and investment decisions.  

The FAST Act requires that USDOT include several elements its NFSP, including:  

• An identification of major trade gateways and national freight corridors that connect major population centers, trade gateways, and other major freight generators
  
• An assessment of statutory, regulatory, technological, institutional, financial, and other barriers to improved freight transportation performance, and a description of opportunities for overcoming the barriers
  
• A process for addressing multistate projects and encouraging jurisdictions to collaborate
  
• An assessment of the National Multimodal Freight Network (not yet published)
  
• Forecasts of freight volumes for the succeeding 5-, 10-, and 20-year periods

“Our national freight network is complex and dynamic, a system of systems, constantly adapting to the demands of industry, technology, and safety. We applaud the USDOT in releasing this National Freight Strategic Plan, which has been a longstanding policy goal for our organization, and identifying a number of challenges our nation faces in keeping the system robust: safety, network efficiency, infrastructure condition, and barriers to freight system performance. Among these, the Coalition for America’s Gateways & Trade Corridors (CAGTC) believes infrastructure condition looms heaviest over all.  When infrastructure fails – whether a failure of condition or capacity – safety, efficiency, performance and security all fail. Therefore, we look forward to the future release of the National Multimodal Freight Network, which will help provide a systematic structure for infrastructure investment, as called for in the FAST Act.  

Today’s world looks very different from our world six months ago. The COVID pandemic heightened awareness of the supply chain, exposing its weaknesses while relying upon its strengths. The multimodal freight network delivers essential goods and comfort items alike to all Americans. Now more than ever, our national supply chain infrastructure must be up to the challenges the coming months and years require. A recovery plan must include strategic investment in our freight network to support our immediate needs as well as the needs of a rebounding economy. 

As the NFSP notes, freight projects are often large, complex, multimodal, and multijurisdictional, making them difficult to fund through traditional highway-focused formula programs. 

Robust federal investment is necessary to move nationally and regionally significant projects forward. CAGTC has long called for a competitive grant program that selects projects through merit-based criteria that identify and prioritize investments with a demonstrable contribution to national freight efficiency. Based on an analysis of funding requests through the Infrastructure for Rebuilding America (INFRA grants), CAGTC calls for a minimum annual federal investment of $12 billion, distributed through a competitive freight grant program. The information provided in the NFSP helps inform such an approach and supports the Federal role in meeting this need. We look forward to working with USDOT as it continues developing tools that guide federal investment to our nation’s critical freight assets.”