In fact, according to lawyers Holland & Knight, many of the efforts be undertaken by the US Army Corps of Engineers, which has been allocated $4.6bn, may beongoing maintenance or channel improvement projects.<\/p>\n
But there is considerable room for new initiatives on the land side rather than at depths of 50 feet. Port planners can spend time reading the fine print in the stimulus plan, and then step back and think imaginatively about port interfaces with the bigger transport picture. Happily, the industry’s advocates in Washington, the American Association of Port Authorities (AAPA) have been reading the new legislation quite closely on behalf of their member ports.<\/p>\n
A recent presentation by the AAPA offers considerable food for thought, providing several examples of port-related projects interfacing with road and railroads – New York\/New Jersey’s $600m “Express-Rail” System, a $137m rail access link to West Vancouver (in Washington State), and the $1bn tunnel in Miami. In his presentation, AAPA’s Kurt Nagle offers a very sensible reminder to port planners and policy makers alike that the US is lacking a national landside freight policy.<\/p>\n
In an explicit statement, AAPA says: “We also need to increase funding for projects and corridors of national and regional significance, intermodal freight connectors and marine highways.” They are also suggesting that various surface programs be consolidated, agencies be streamlined, and port planners sit at the table when transportation throughout entire regions is being discussed.<\/p>\n
The port industry has a chance to gain sorely needed funding this year. Major legislation on surface transportation, which increasingly is about reducing automotive and truck traffic in congested areas, must be agreed during 2009. Simultaneously, a myriad of details must still be worked through as the long-awaited Stimulus Bill is infused into the Code of Federal Regulations.<\/p>\n
But, port-friendly provisions, such as a tax incentive on railway investments that provide access to ports, must not get bargained away in the political process. Now, more than ever, infrastructure is “sexy”; suddenly the port industry’s stock has soared. This newfound goodwill must not be squandered as politicians make their deals.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
As details on the newly passed US Stimulus package emerge, itsclear that shovel-ready and job-creating projects will have a leg up ingaining Federal funding.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[79],"tags":[],"sponsor":[],"class_list":["post-7053","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-new-yorker"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7053","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7053"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7053\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7053"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7053"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7053"},{"taxonomy":"sponsor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sponsor?post=7053"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}