Cleaning Up the Mess: Its the Clogged Arteries, Stupid

A seven month-old article on infrastructure hits the mark on the problem but (slightly) misses the point on the solution.

This past weekend, and under direct orders from my wife, I set about cleaning out a very large stack of aging periodicals from my office at home. Of course, my first response was to ask whether she would be doing the same with her back issues of Fine Cooking or Gourmet. This inquiry was not well received and although it is not necessary to rehash that particular exchange, suffice it to say that our recycling bin is considerably heavier at this very moment (my stuff; not hers). But, the exercise was not entirely without value. Within the pages of the March 2008 edition of The Atlantic magazine, I found a terrific article which sums up the very best reasons to continue the quest for reviving Shortsea Shipping along the U.S. domestic coastlines.

The Atlantic is one of my favorite periodicals; second only of course to THE MARITIME EXECUTIVE. I often don’t have time to read it cover-to-cover, but I rarely throw them away until I do. In the March Atlantic, in a section that they call, “The Nation in Numbers,” there is an article entitled, “Clogged Arteries: America’s aging and congested road, rail, and air networks are threatening its economic health.” This, in and of itself, is not news to anyone.

Written by Bruce Katz and Robert Puentes, the excellent piece details the billions of dollars lost and added freight costs incurred at various big cities and U.S. ports because of increasing congestion – and despite almost $50 billion spent last year for surface transportation improvements. Their narrative goes on to say that the more than 6,300 “earmarked” projects that suck up the most federal dollars are poorly allocated for where they could do the most good, and consequently, provide little in the way of return on equity for the nation’s commerce. The article, however, talks little about the nation’s port infrastructure. And, more than federal highway dollars, the answers to inland congestion (and a large part of the problem) can be found in the poor planning of our ocean commerce strategy. Moreover, our surface roads are not the only place where funding is being poorly targeted.

Indeed, it is not hard to understand that the Los Angeles area would be losing $9.3 billion in productivity annually when as much as 43 percent of our inbound container traffic funnels through the ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles. Much further east, in the heartland near Chicago, where more than one-third of the nation’s rail and truck cargo is routed, freight trains average – and this is their research, not mine – perhaps 9 miles per hour, traveling over ancient rails not built to support high speeds. Efforts to alleviate this congestion and improve transportation efficiencies usually take the form of pet projects by politicians looking to prop up their local economies. Rarely coordinated with one another, the patchwork of federal projects literally hemorrhage tax dollars with what The Atlantic characterizes as a 1 percent return on investment in the 1990’s. There has to be a better way.

The concept of Shortsea Shipping, as one of our readers politely reminded me about a week ago, is hardly a new idea. Today, however, the efforts to spur growth in this important area of transport are vigorously being renewed, at the federal level in the Department of Transportation and its U.S. Maritime Administration, but also in the private sectors, as well. For the U.S. model, execution of this concept is simple: ocean-borne cargo needs to be routed through several “super” or hub ports on each of our three main coasts, where it can be sent to niche ports via smaller, feeder vessels. Super ports might need to be dredged to as much as 60 foot depths to accommodate today’s superliners and their 11,000 TEU cargoes. The niche ports would need only maintenance dredging to maintain sufficient depths to accommodate the feeder traffic.

The U.S. Shortsea model does a number of things for our infrastructure. First and foremost – looking back at the Atlantic article – it pulls needless truck and rail traffic from the roads and rails and sends this cargo by the most efficient, cost-effective means known to man: over the water. Secondly, the reduced pressure on the road systems eventually lowers maintenance costs and the other traffic remaining on the roads moves at a higher speed. The implications for the health of the maritime industry in this country are obvious.

Shortsea Shipping starts only if we repeal the shortsea portion of the Harbor Maintenance Tax (HMT). It should be an easy call, but since nothing worthwhile in Washington is ever accomplished easily, we can only hope and pray that the legislators come to their senses, and soon. Nothing from nothing leaves nothing – and since very little cargo is rerouted via water because it would get taxed a second time – eliminating the HMT shortsea portion wouldn’t impact the tax coffers. Coordinating federal dredging dollars to the places that they can do the most good is another key component for executing this plan. We don’t need twenty-five ports dredged to 50 feet.

As we sweat out a souring economy and try to find new ways to stimulate economic growth, the maritime industry is the perfect place to start. A healthy shortsea program encourages shipbuilding, increases employment on the waterfront and beyond and ensures a healthy domestic merchant fleet. I dare say that this, combined with an honest effort to produce more domestic energy, would be an excellent panacea for what ails us. All of that involves maritime participation. But, the boys at the Atlantic summed it up better than I could ever hope to do it.

Katz and Puentes conclude their analysis by saying, “To power our metropolitan engines, we need to make big, well-targeted investments that improve transportation, in and around them. Above all that means taking a less egalitarian approach to our infrastructure: there is little justification for making small improvements all over the place.” That’s pretty complicated stuff, but it sounds a lot like shortsea shipping to me. MARAD Chief Sean Connaughton calls it America’s Marine Highway. The sooner our politicians in Washington pay a little closer attention to the last of those three words, the faster we’ll be on our way to solving the nightmare of clogged arteries.

Joseph Keefe is the Managing Editor of THE MARITIME EXECUTIVE. He also reminds MarEx readers that back issues of THE MARITIME EXECUTIVE should never be discarded. He can be reached with comments on this or any other article in this e-newsletter at [email protected] .