Editorial

Over the course of this week, 426 of the nation’s top truckers will converge on Pittsburgh for the National Truck Driving Championships.

It’s understandable that many in the trucking industry have mixed feelings about the departure of Anne Ferro, head of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, who has announced her resignation.

Congress is poised to kick the can down the road, and a bumpy road it is. The can we’re talking about is long-term funding for transportation infrastructure, and the bumpy road, of course, is the state of the nation’s bridges and highways.

So it has come to pass that the House of Representatives has approved by a wide margin a 10-month, $11 billion stopgap fix for the Highway Trust Fund just weeks before it would become insolvent.    

Certainly, summer and publication of the Transport Topics Top 100 list in this issue always leave us a bit giddy, but more substantively, we’re happy about a recent streak of positive economic developments that strongly suggests the first quarter’s 2.9% contraction was more of a fluke than an omen.

Normally, our Johnny One-Note shrillness on public finance focuses on the pressing need for nationwide transportation infrastructure that would allow the U.S. economy to grow strongly.

Marching happily toward the Fourth of July, one can see some of the spirit of Independence Hall 238 steamy summers ago in — of all places — trucking.

We in the news business have long appreciated the value of deadlines, and now the nation may be on the cusp of reaping a substantial benefit because even members of Congress have not been able to bulletproof themselves against time — not that they haven’t tried.

"Hard cases make bad law,” attorneys have been saying since the 19th century, and the corollary becoming apparent after recent events in New Jersey is that dramatic events can lead to poor regulation.

Legislating on Capitol Hill has often appeared impervious to reality in recent years. Grandstanding, posturing, score-settling and fleeing unpleasant choices have frequently trumped problem-solving for Main Street.