AASHTO Issues Waterborne Freight
Transportation Report
AASHTO Release Calls For More Funding Certainty For Inland
River Locks In WRDA
21 June 2013
The American Association of State Highway and Transportation
Officials (AASHTO) has just released a report, “Waterborne
Freight Transportation Bottom Line Report,” that urges
Congress to enact a WRDA that increases harbor dredging, and
improves inland navigation locks and dams. The report
doesn’t mention specifics on how to increase investment in the
Inland Waterways Trust Fund, but AASHTO calls for states and
stakeholders to have more “funding certainty,” and is urging a
goal of achieving a "state of good repair" for the marine
transportation system by 2020. Here is the report.
(http://water.transportation.org/Pages/water_reports.aspx)
“We are calling for action … by Congress to improve silt-choked
seaports and aging river locks,” said Sean Connaughton, Secretary
of Transportation for the Commonwealth of Virginia.
Connaughton heads AASHTO's water transportation committee and is
the former head of the U.S. Maritime Administration under
President George W. Bush.
AASHTO is also advocating for Congress to create an Office of
Multimodal Freight at the Department of Transportation (DOT) to
give that agency a larger role in seaport and inland waterways
issues. According to press reports, Connaughton said, “This
proposed DOT office would not take over waterway development and
oversight from the Corps,” but would “map and classify marine
facilities much like the DOT now does for the national highway
system and try to coordinate policies among federal agencies.”