Regional Solutions for a Regional Issue
Wisconsin’s marine freight system is a tremendous asset for both a strong economy as well as a healthy environment in the state. And research conducted through the National Center for Freight and Infrastructure Research and Education (CFIRE) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison is helping multiple organizations and agencies target priority projects as they create and implement plans for the state’s freight infrastructure and economic development.
MAFC Program Administrator, Ernest Perry, PhD, testified last week to members of the Assembly Transportation Committee for the State of Wisconsin in support of continued funding for the Harbor Assistance Program (HAP). In his statement, Perry emphasized a multiagency effort that has been taking place for over three years to to increase the freight and […]
Marine freight, ports, modal diversion, marine highways, OSOW, Great Lakes, Mississippi River
As directed by the FAST act, states and, in certain cases, Metropolitan Planning Organizations, are responsible for designating public roads as Critical Rural Freight Corridors (CRFCs) and Critical Urban Freight Corridors (CUFCs). The MAFC has completed a survey of member states for this purpose and is working on a report based on the findings.
MAFC researchers recently completed a short whitepaper entitled Benefits and Limitations of J-Turn Intersections. This report provides a review of the safety and operational dimensions, including benefits and limitations, of J-turn intersection designs. Special accommodations and limitations of J-turn intersections for trucks, buses, and oversize/overweight (OSOW) vehicles. Read the whitepaper.
Iowa DOT Secretary Paul Trombino recently talked to the Des Moines Business Record about freight data, supply chains, economic development, and how the state is using an innovative approach to advance Iowa’s economy. [HTML1]
U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx recently announced $4.38 million in grants from the Federal Highway Administration’s Accelerated Innovation Deployment (AID) demonstration program. Two MAFC states–Kansas and Minnesota–where among the grantees. Agency Amount Project Description Kansas Department of Transportation (KDOT) $1,000,000 KDOT will use its AID grant to offset the cost of a technology project known as […]
The Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS) recently released a new technical report, Transportation Services Index and the Economy—Revisited, that confirms that the Transportation Services Indexes (TSIs) both lead the economy, though in different ways. BTS extended the TSI back to 1979, examining five recessions and numerous growth cycles. “When the accelerations and decelerations of the freight […]
The US Census Bureau has released the results of the 2012 Commodity Flow Survey. The Commodity Flow Survey is conducted every five years as part of the Census Bureau’s economic census. The survey, a partnership with the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Bureau of Transportation Statistics, is the primary source of national, state and selected metropolitan areas statistics […]
An award-winning paper authored by CFIRE researchers was recently published in Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board, No. 2410. Critical Rural Freight Corridors Designation: Implications of Truck Percentage Calculation by Alex J. Marach, Teresa M. Adams, and Ernest J. Perry… …proposes mileage-based, segment-based, and weighted average approaches to determine whether a corridor meets one […]