Graves Lashes Out at DOT

This story appears in the May 10 print edition of Transport Topics.

Frustrated with recent public comments by Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood and other Department of Transportation officials, American Trucking Associations President Bill Graves lashed out at policies and statements that he said tilt the playing field away from trucks and toward rail transport.

In a letter to LaHood April 30, Graves cited statements by LaHood and others in the Obama administration that he said were “factually incorrect” and could “breed irresponsible policy.” He highlighted statements that were “misleading to the public” because they implied that using more rail transport could solve road congestion issues and take trucks off the highways.

In reality, Graves wrote, railroads currently haul very little freight and cannot deliver goods at all in some parts of the country. He also said DOT has emphasized its desire to increase spending for other modes of transportation such as foot, bicycle and mass transit, while putting highway and bridge spending on a back burner.

In a May 5 interview with Transport Topics, Graves said DOT was demonstrating “contradictory thinking” in its policies by investing too little in highway infrastructure.

“At a moment when we are being told to be more fuel efficient, our government won’t make the investment in our infrastructure to unclog our roads,” he said. “At a time when we need to create jobs in this country, our government won’t invest in one of the most guaranteed job producers that we know of: the construction of roads and bridges.”

Graves said the federation felt it needed to bring its concerns to LaHood because of the persistent messages coming out of DOT on shifting freight from trucks to rail and other modes of transportation.

“It is the culmination of a number of things, most of which are either comments that have been made that appear to disparage the efficacy of our industry, of moving freight by truck . . . suggesting that DOT has positioned itself to favor one mode over another.

“We expect DOT to be an advocate for transportation, for all modes. What is surprising here is how the rhetoric seems to suggest there are favorites at a time when I believe we don’t have room for favorites,” Graves told TT. “We’ve got to figure out how to support all modes, both for personal mobility and for commercial mobility.”

In his letter to LaHood, Graves stated, “With railroads reaching only one-fifth of U.S. communities, it’s a gross misconception that the ability exists to significantly ease congestion by shifting freight from the roads to the rails.

“Even if intermodal rail tonnage doubled by 2020, intermodal rail would account for just 1.8% of freight movement, compared with the 1.5% that is currently projected for 2020. By comparison, trucks will move 71% percent in the same time frame.”

Specifically, Graves objected to comments LaHood made to TT in March, in which he said “the lion’s share [of federal stimulus grants] went into our freight rail system because it takes trucks off the road — it takes gas-guzzling trucks off the road” (3-29, p. 5; click here for previous story).

In addition, LaHood said those grants went to freight rail improvements and should help “get trucks off the road and unclog some of our highways.”

In DOT’s $1.5 billion stimulus grant program, the three largest individual grants — totaling $303 million — all went to freight rail projects (2-22, p. 2; click here for previous story).

A DOT spokeswoman told TT the agency had received the letter, and that LaHood would respond directly to ATA.

Graves told TT he was “not sure I’m expecting an acceptable response because I believe there is a misguided school of thought” regarding DOT’s plans to promote so-called livable transportation.

“The whole notion that the American public is going to park their cars and embark on a massive transition to public transit, to biking and walking, perhaps it’s my bias coming from a state like Kansas, it is just simply not going to happen,” he said.

Citing additional examples of DOT’s favoring rails, Graves said that in a draft strategic plan issued May 4, DOT made repeated references to continuing to move freight from trucks to other modes of transportation.

“DOT will seek to strike an optimal balance between maximizing the diversion of freight traffic from less environmentally beneficial and energy-saving modes to rail,” the report stated.

The report also said DOT intended to “promote reduced highway congestion along key freight corridors through strategies that shift travel demand to other modes.”

Graves wrote that it was “a further misconception that such a shift would also result in less congestion near urban areas,” because greater use of intermodal freight would add to urban congestion, as “the truck trips needed as part of an intermodal move would still be concentrated on urban highways.”

“The simple fact is, very little freight moves solely by rail. Even if subsidies of both sectors grow, trucks will continue to carry the bulk of our nation’s freight,” Graves wrote.

“Taking ‘trucks off the road,’ as you suggest,” he said, “would bring our nation’s supply chain to a screeching halt.”