2009.08.25
Hutchinson: Save money and the environment on I-81
Time to change I-81 approach
John D. Hutchinson
Hutchinson is a certified land-use planner in Staunton and a planning consultant for the Shenandoah Valley Network.
After a string of recent accidents in the Shenandoah Valley, truck traffic on Interstate 81 has been headline news throughout the corridor. The Roanoke Times ran an Aug. 1 Washington Post article ("On accident-plagued Interstate 81 in Va., fear becomes a traveling companion") that described the dangers posed by tractor-trailers. I-81 serves as a link in the NAFTA highway, a freight corridor that reaches from New York to Texas, and long-haul trucks make up an increasing share of the traffic.
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I cannot really argue with anything Mr. Hutchinson has said and it seems perfectly smart to ignorant me. But I do have a question. I happened to be in the vicinity the other night when FedEx tractor trailers started to roll out of the Roanoke terminal. I was at first just mildly impressed, thought about the massive amounts of product being moved, and then slowly realized that the procession was impressive for a very different reason. Is that what an intermodal rail yard will look like when those trains carrying all those trucks "comes in"? I could not help but think that the synchronized arrivals, caravan departures and local concentrations will not be a welcome sight in any place I could imagine.
Comment by Sandi Saunders — August 25, 2009 @ 12:10 pm
Sandi, I have no idea what effects the synchronization of truck traffic would have on an area, but I do know that an intermodal railyard will decrease the amount of truck traffic on the Interstate highways in the area. Although the increased use of the rail system will improve the truck traffic situation, that is not the answer to our problem. The traffic problem is not just a Virginia problem. We need a nationwide solution to a nationwide problem. We need an integrated transportation system that coordinates everything from automobiles to airplanes, but that will never come to pass in our country. The obstructionists are so scared of change that they would see that as socialized transportation.
Comment by allen bunch — August 26, 2009 @ 3:55 am
Allen is definitely right. This is a nationwide problem that needs wide-ranging solutions. I heard at one point that freight must move more than 600 miles before trucks are not the most cost-effective way to move it. If that is the case, the only places that hauling by rail really makes sense is from the Great Lakes, Midwest, and Rocky Mountain areas to the coastal shipping ports and vice versa (hence the Heartland Corridor and Crescent Corridor projects by NS). If there are ways to move freight by rail to and from major ports to major distribution centers, it can help, but won't cure the truck problem. Trucks are still going to be needed to take freignt to end destinations or truck distribution centers for retailers, so yes, Sandi you would be right that truck traffic would generally be higher around such a facility, while Allen is right that overall truck traffic could be reduced. Honestly, the best way to reduce truck traffic is for people to quit buying so much cheap plastic crap, but that would kill our economy and we're addicted to cheap plastic crap anyway, so I doubt it happens.
Comment by Other John — August 26, 2009 @ 8:21 am
OJ, the 600 mile figure is probably theoretically correct. In reality, under the free market parameters we are used to, that figure would probably increase to 12-18 hundred miles. It is virtually impossible to schedule a 600 mile delivery by rail and have it delivered tomorrow. That takes place thousands of times every day in the trucking business. The free market parameters I referred to have allowed railroads to continue operating today in exactly the same way they did in the 1800s. The real answer to the traffic problem is not just in reducing the number of trucks. That answer will include a lot of things that are designed to solve transportation problems for people who operate 4 wheelers. When we start seeing Greyhound stations in the median of Interstate highways and in Airports as opposed to center city locations only, we will be moving in the right direction. There are a lot of other simple things that need to be done to solve our traffic problems but there is no need to get into them as the obstructionists will never allow as much government influence as would be necessary to institute a system integrating all forms of transportation.
Comment by allen bunch — August 26, 2009 @ 12:25 pm