If recent upward trends in freight flow continue, they could exacerbate the traffic congestion in communities that lie along heavily traveled freight routes, a report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office said.
“As of 2012, the latest year for which data were available, national freight rail and truck traffic had approached levels of 2007 prior to the economic recession,” the Sept. 19 report said.
Developing national strategies would help address congestion on the roads and on the tracks, especially from crude oil train shipments, GAO said.
However, neither the U.S. Department of Transportation’s efforts so far on freight or the freight-related mandates in the 2012 MAP-21 transportation reauthorization bill adequately address congestion issues, the GAO said.
MAP-21 required DOT to identify strategies to mitigate the impacts of freight movement on communities and to include the strategies in a National Freight Strategic Plan due in October 2015.
MAP-21 also required DOT to designate a primary freight network, but the preliminary draft lacks “a defined purpose” and Congress put a limit of 27,000 miles on the network. That prevented DOT from including some types of roads, such as those connecting ports to freeways, where congestion occurs, GAO said.
With Congress about to reauthorize the federal highway program when the MAP-21 extension runs out in May, lawmakers should “consider establishing a clear purpose” for the freight network that “incorporates inclusion of the types of roads where communities are likely to experience significant freight-related traffic congestion,” the report said.
In its preliminary response to the GAO report, DOT said that President Obama’s multibillion-dollar transportation plan, Grow America, includes a comprehensive freight proposal that addresses the issues raised by GAO.
