The 2011 Mid-America Freight Coalition Conference and Annual Meeting, to be held April 26-28 in St. Louis, Missouri, starts in just a few days. We’ve put together a diverse line-up of presentations, panel discussions, and workshops on freight transportation in the MAFC region and beyond. A special note for state and MPO representatives. On April […]
16
Mar
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 […]
15
Mar
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 […]
10
Mar
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 […]
10
Mar
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 […]
8
Mar
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 […]
On Thursday, February 17 MAFC Facilitator Ernie Wittwer conducted an informational conference call to discuss and elucidate the process for the MAFC Regional Freight Plan that’s currently underway. Members of the MAFC technical committee and senior policy staff from the ten MAFC departments of transportation attended the call. Here’s the presentation that Wittwer used as […]
Kansas Department of Transportation Secretary Deb Miller testified (on behalf of AASHTO) before the House Transportation and Infrastructure subcomittee on Highways and Transit and made recommendations for cutting costs and expediting project delivery on major infrastructure projects. Miller concluded her remarks by saying, “it is essential to find ways to deliver a better product, faster, […]
15
Dec
The Fall 2010 edition of Freight Notes is now available for download. This issue contains articles about the MAFC regional freight plan project, MAFC outreach materials, a student-created freight plan for the Milwaukee, Wisconsin area, and MAFC Facilitiator Ernie Wittwer’s take on transportation funding.