Infrastructure Lacking, Massachusetts Freight Plan Panel Says
With members including representatives of regional business and government agencies, a railroad and ports, a new advisory committee held its first meeting Jan. 26 to devise a state freight plan.
"We need to ensure that we on the government side are doing all that we can to support you and the freight industry as the whole," said committee Chairman Thomas Tinlin, Massachusetts Department of Transportation highway administrator. "We're here to listen, and we need you to help us understand what we can do to support you."
The MassDOT Freight Plan is a planning document that will define a short- and long-term vision for the freight system in Massachusetts. The plan will be multimodal and intermodal, involving transportation by air, rail, truck and sea. The plan is a prerequisite for access to $20 million in annual funds available through the 2015 Fixing America's Surface Transportation Act, Tinlin said.
Compiling data for the plan began in August with interviews with freight industry representatives, reviews of past freight plans (the latest state plan was completed in 2010, according to the MassDOT website) and analyzing freight data, according to presenters. But the public phase of the plan started Jan. 26, with the first meeting of a freight advisory committee and an open house, where plan authors solicited comment for the document.
Much of the meeting focused on presenting general trends facing freight transportation in the state, specifically in the growing urban areas of Worcester and Boston, where the so-called knowledge economy is displacing a manufacturing history.
As the economy shifts, so do the freight needs, according to presenters.
Rather than factories in rural or suburban areas that receive large shipments of raw materials and distribute large quantities of product, the urban knowledge economy depends on constant low-volume deliveries and distribution of high-quality, time-sensitive products, presenters said.
Urban consumers also increasingly demand constant, low-volume deliveries as Amazon.com becomes preferable to a trip to a suburban department store. In return, these consumers ship out waste and increasingly, recycled products.
But committee members said the transportation infrastructure in Massachusetts — several people at the meeting described New England as a "cul-de-sac" at the end of a lot of freight lanes — doesn't necessarily support these evolving freight demands, particularly when the vast majority of trips are made by truck.
Truckers have few places to park at rest stops, for instance. Highways are congested and local roads — particularly in urban areas — often narrow and/or one-way. And there are few quality schools in Massachusetts that train truckers, leading to a shortage in truck drivers.
"A lot of guys don't like coming here; they get in and get out,” said Christopher Atwood, transportation manager at Unistress in Pittsfield, which builds precast garages and bridges requiring truckers for oversize loads.
But Atwood said he hopes that a new transportation plan would help alleviate tensions between truckers and commuters on the roads.
"If we can find a way to move commerce without upsetting everybody else, the commuters, it's a win-win for everybody," Atwood said. "If one change comes out of this, it's for a good reason, and it will really be impactful."
