TrendMaritime industry looks to ease traffic burden on highways
Concerns about climate change and highway gridlock lead to growing interest in greater use of waterways for cargo transport; questions of water quality, effects on ecosystem need to be addressed
There used to be a time when cargo ships and barges plied the waters of the Hudson River, the Great Lakes, intenal waterways, and the U.S. coastal areas. Growing concerns with global warming and increasing highway gridlocks have led to growing interest in returing waterway cargo transport to its former glory. Just look at upsate New York. Nearly three million trucks traveled across the Tappan Zee Bridge and nearly five million passed through the New Rochelle toll barrier on Interstate 95 last year, and this traffic is only expected to swell in the future. Transportation experts predict all-day gridlock is not far off. Meanwhile, just a single East Coast barge operation from Baltimore to Norfolk, Virginia, is taking 2,000 trucks a week off the I-95-I-64 corridor, with only one-eighth of the fuel costs. Roger Bohnert, deputy associate administrator for the U.S. Department of Transportation’s (DOT) Maritime Administration, said that amounts to clearing out an eight-mile section of highway, three lanes wide. “America is blessed with an abundance of navigable waterways,” he said in a recent webcast on MaritimeTV.com. “Properly developed, the ‘marine highway’ is a way to remove the increased stress on the entire transportation system.”
The Lower Hudson News reports that the maritime industry wants lawmakers to reduce its tax burden and help develop interstate marine highways. Specifically, the industry wants Congress to do away with the harbor maintenance tax, charged when international cargo enters a U.S. port, and again when the same cargo is shipped elsewhere in the states. Maritime industry advocates also want tax credits for shippers who use marine highways and tax-exempt financing for facilities built to handle waterborne cargo. The maritime industry noticed the generous subsidies given to ferry operators to develop new commuter routes. Right now, for example, a couple of dozen Westchester and Rockland commuters are the beneficiaries of the $4.2 million in operating subsidies and $3.2 million for dock and infrastructure development that the federal government contributed to help New York Water Taxi develop ferry service from Haverstraw to Yonkers to lower Manhattan. The subsidies give the company two years to make a go of it by building ridership. “The experts are telling us that trade is going to double and triple,” said Vice Adm. Al Herberger, the former maritime administrator. “The backlog of maintenance for bridges and highways is huge. … We’re not going to get out of that problem in
