Life on the road

Too little parking, too much congestion

More trucks than ever are transporting goods on the nation’s highways, but the number of places that truckers can park to sleep is woefully inadequate. The lack of parking forces drivers to either trek miles out of their way to stop, pay for a private lot or pull to the side of the highway.
     Building more parking spaces isn’t easy. Land close to highways is expensive. Furthermore, it’s difficult to find 40 acres near a highway interchange that can be zoned for a truck stop, and some towns have passed legislation that prohibits the opening of new truck stops in their communities. Congress is finally paying attention.
     For the first time, Congress has authorized $24 million through 2009 for state and local governments to address the issue. States will use the money to find “parking solutions,” which involves creating new spaces or creating a system that alerts truckers to available parking spots. In the meantime, some big retailers let truckers park in their lots overnight, and private parking spaces are sometimes available, but they usually cost money, are located off the interstate and lack facilities.
     Illegally parked trucks are generally hit with fines. One Maryland state trooper says he could spend his entire shift ticketing truckers for illegal parking, but he often just issues warnings and suggests a place to park. “The key thing is that you don’t want an accident,” he says.
     Meanwhile, back on the road, traffic remains an even  greater problem. During the last 20 years, vehicle miles traveled on U.S. highways have nearly doubled, while lane capacity has increased a mere 4 percent. Traffic congestion has never been worse, and about 40 percent of all congestion is caused by bottlenecks, areas where traffic backs up be-cause volume exceeds capacity.
     According to the Federal Highway Ad-ministration (FHWA) freight bottlenecks cause about 243 million truck hours of delay each year, costing about $7.8 billion. The U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) recently held discussions with shippers, carriers, academics and policymakers to devise a “Framework for a National Freight Policy” to guide freight policy efforts in the coming years. The framework consists of seven major objectives, including improving the operations of the existing freight transportation system and adding physical capacity to the places that make economic sense.
     One example is in Ohio. The Ohio DOT analyzed major highway bottlenecks across the state, identified specific choke points, and found and implemented ways to ease congestion, such as repositioning merge lanes.
     The director of the FHWA’s Office of Freight Management and Operations said that carriers and other stakeholders should study the Framework for a National Freight Policy and “act on [it]. This is the only way that we will be able to overcome the issues we are faced with.”
     Source: Roemer Report (used with permission), FHWA