2013 DOT Year on Review
US Department of Transport has issued a news release highlighting Maritime Administration’s (MARAD) work on improving marine transportation system with innovative projects across the country.
It has long been a vision in the industry to move more freight on rivers, Great Lakes, and waterways, as well as through American river, lake, and sea ports. This year it became reality when one of the first major marine highway services began on the West Sacramento-Stockton-Oakland “Green Trade Corridor.” This flagship project takes freight off the congested Interstate 580 and moves it on the San Joaquin River. It is expected to remove 180,000 trucks from the highways and save more than 7 million gallons of fuel annually. What’s more, it’s helping to move more U.S. exports to Asia, a key market essential in the expansion of our nation’s trade and commerce.
Continued growth in America’s exports coupled with the widening of the Panama Canal requires the maritime industry and shippers to prepare for the most significant change in global trading patterns in the last century.
The wider and deeper locks that open in 2015 on the Panama Canal will create new opportunities and jobs across the country as transportation officials and port authorities prepare for larger vessels to call at Gulf and East Coast ports. Phase I of MARAD’scomprehensive, multi-phase Panama Canal study was released earlier this year and will help inform stakeholders on current and future infrastructure investments.
The Obama Administration has alreadyinvested more in port infrastructure. Additionally, more than $150 million has been invested inAmerica’s shipyards, which support over 402,000 jobs and produce $36 billion in annual GDP.
