CINCINNATI, Ohio -- Commercial truck traffic is expected to soar over the next 10 years, leading to further highway congestion unless the U.S. greatly improves its infrastructure, experts say.
Ohio is trying to take freight traffic off the roads by expanding the use of rail and barge shipping. The state is using $3.6 million in federal stimulus funds to raise five bridges along a rail line between Cincinnati and Columbus that would allow clearance for double-stacked containers.
In Cincinnati, a group of investors wants to build a $26 million public port on the Ohio River that would take containers off barges and put them directly onto trains.
Mark Policinski, an official with the Cincinnati area's main transportation planning agency, said trucks are never going to go away. But the state needs to find other alternatives to ship goods.
Fully loaded semitrailers haul everything from groceries to gasoline. Even with a recession, truck traffic in some spots is now double what it was just 15 years ago.
New proposed or planned highway expansions may be too little for an industry that's grown into a $661 billion-a-year enterprise. "The global economy can't take delays. We have got to start addressing infrastructure needs," said Policinski, executive director of the Ohio Kentucky Indiana Regional Council of Governments.
Alternative shipping methods are growing.
Parsec Inc., based in Cincinnati, controls nearly half the nation's intermodal transportation business. Founded 29 years ago, the company generates $209 million a year in revenue and employs 3,160 workers at 30 facilities in the U.S., Canada and Mexico. "We can put 300 boxes that are bound for Target or Wal-Mart or wherever onto one train from L.A. to Chicago for a fraction of the cost of what it would take to drive them by truck," said vice president David Budig.
Ohio's geography makes it a major distribution hub for the rest of the country.
Cincinnati-based Kroger Co., the nation's largest grocery store operator, owns more than 1,000 trucks of its own and contracts with outside firms for hundreds more. A truck leaves Kroger's major distribution center north of Columbus every minute of every day, just to keep fresh lettuce and pork chops on the shelves. "The consumer today is demanding very high quality product, and the consumer wants it whenever she is in the store, any time of the day, night or week," said Ken Dougherty, Kroger's group vice president for logistics.
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