FHWA Chief Greg Nadeau: Cities Need to Invest Freight Dollars Wisely
The takeaway for the country’s top highway official after recent conversations with commercial transportation managers in Texas, Oklahoma and Virginia is that freight dollars must be invested efficiently.
“Prioritization of projects is necessary when available funding is less than what’s required to deliver transportation projects,” said Greg Nadeau, administrator of the Federal Highway Administration.
“Our conversations on the freight economy confirm that communities across America must decide very carefully how to invest their limited resources to deliver much-needed projects that can make freight movement more efficient and safer,” he added.
Nadeau said after reviewing the flow of freight via rail and highways, the scale of demand for infrastructure improvement projects along trucking corridors in Houston, Oklahoma City and Virginia’s Hampton Roads was significant.
The FHWA chief shared his view about the “need for ongoing and expanded federal investment in the freight system infrastructure nationwide” on the U.S. Department of Transportation’s website after his agency held freight economy roundtables in those three regions.
Congress responded last year with the FAST Act highway law, authorizing $4.5 billion through 2020 in grants for cities seeking funding for freight programs.
