LaHood Boosts Funds for Freight Rail; Says Aid Will Also Help Passenger Service

This story appears in the June 21 print edition of Transport Topics.

ARLINGTON, Va. — Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said the Obama administration is spending money on freight rail projects to bolster its push for high-speed intercity passenger rail.

“We need a strong freight rail system to help jump-start our opportunity for high-speed rail,” LaHood told reporters June 10 at a National Industrial Transportation League forum. “That’s why freight rail is important.” In many parts of the country, Amtrak passenger trains run on tracks owned and operated by freight railroads.

Speaking at the forum, LaHood said the department has “made some pretty significant investments in the Class One [railroads], and we’re proud of it.”

LaHood specifically said the “lion’s share” of Department of Transportation’s $1.5 billion in competitive stimulus grants went to the “freight rail system to help them improve their infrastructure,” in part to boost the Obama administration’s efforts to create a high-speed passenger rail network.

Those funds, went to the “freight rail system so that tracks and infrastructure could be fixed, so we can get to higher speeds with our passenger rail,” he said. “This is what people want.”

Despite the rail push, LaHood also went out of his way to say DOT’s investments in rail and ports and other projects “do not favor one mode of transportation over another. They strike a new balance that maximizes the efficiency of freight transportation through whatever means are best for a given area, whether it’s trucking, rail, ships or barges.”

Last month, American Trucking Associations President Bill Graves criticized LaHood for giving trucking short shrift when talking about transportation investments and planning.

Responding indirectly to that criticism, LaHood said in his June 10 remarks that “we’re not going to [move freight] with streetcars or bikes, or we’re not going to walk these goods to the stores.”

“I know people think that because, maybe sometimes, I get a little effusive about other modes of transportation I’ve given up on the more traditional modes; I haven’t,” LaHood said.

The Obama administration knows “that people in the trucking industry provide a very valuable transportation service” LaHood said, adding, “There’s no other way to get goods to grocery stores and drug stores and department stores than using trucks.”

LaHood vowed that DOT was “not going to overlook the kind of commitment that those of you in the trucking business have made.”

“The trucking association sent me a letter, and I talked to Governor Graves about their concerns,” LaHood said. “Trucking is a very important part of the whole transportation network in America, has been and always will be, and we will continue to work with the trucking industry.”

Despite his praise, some trucking executives said they remained suspicious about DOT’s policy bent.

“What I continue to be concerned about is that he is basically leaving out the trucking industry and not talking about it,” Richard Reiser, executive vice president and general counsel of Werner Enterprises Inc., told Transport Topics following LaHood’s remarks.

“He talks about multimodal and intermodal, and we’re all in favor of that . . . but by far, the majority of the freight still moves by truck and will continue to, and we need help on the roads — and just saying we’ve got to find [$500 billion or $600 billion] doesn’t really cut it,” Reiser added.

LaHood told NITL he thought Congress and the administration would come together on a highway bill that spent about $500 billion or $600 billion.

In addition to the overdue highway bill, LaHood promised a second round of Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery, or TIGER, discretionary grants — a total of about $600 million for this year — that will allow the government to “green-light even more high-priority road, rail, transit, aviation and maritime projects that will both create quality jobs and rebuild the infrastructure that your companies demand.”

The original $1.5 billion TIGER program, LaHood said, laid out about $760 million for freight projects ranging from ports to highway interchanges to major rail construction.

“Projects like these,” he said, “represent a significant change from old freight funding patterns, which historically have not focused on rail or ports at all.”