Regional Solutions for a Regional Issue
The Winter 2011 edition of the MAFC Freight Notes is now available. This issue contains: The Far Reaching Effects of Panama Canal Expansion No Free Lunches MARAD Listening Sessions DOC Listening Sessions Michigan State Rail Plan This edition of Freight Notes is also available as a print-friendly PDF.
Since it opened in 1914, the Panama Canal has been a vital part of international trade. However, the growth of worldwide shipping over the course of the last century has increasingly strained the Canal’s capacity, causing the Panama Canal Authority (ACP) to estimate in 2006 that the Canal would reach its current operating capacity before […]
We all learned at a young age that there is no free lunch, but most Americans seem to have forgotten that simple truism when it comes to public spending on transportation infrastructure. A recent Rockefeller Foundation survey, which was republished in the AASHTO Journal, found that two-thirds of respondents felt that a greater investment is […]
The US Departments of Commerce (DOC) and Transportation have recently broken new ground. They are cooperating on a series of public meetings in which members of the private sector have been asked to come and discuss their concerns and ideas about transportation. This is new ground because the agencies are dealing with a fundamental issue […]
What is the future of freight movements on the Great Lakes? What are some of the challenges facing Great Lakes carriers? These are just two of the questions that representatives of the Federal Maritime Administration (MARAD), including the administrator and deputy administrator, and the consultant working on a review of Great Lakes freight movements asked […]
This article was contributed by Larry Karnes, Michigan DOT With hundreds of public comments and notes from dozens of stakeholder outreach meetings in hand, the Michigan Rail Plan team is rounding the bend toward completing MDOT’s first major rail plan in decades. The lead consultant, HNTB Michigan, Inc. is on-track to deliver the draft document […]