![\"\"](\"http:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/transportation\/files\/2010\/03\/Terminal.jpg\" "\\"Terminal\\"")
<\/a><\/p>\nModernizing freight is a smart challenge that releases innovation and creativity. Photo: Port of Los Angeles. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n
In our last post, we highlighted some innovative and promising port and corridor plans<\/a> that improve freight transportation and cut pollution. As we said then, plans to improve freight and clean it up ought to be the norm, not the exception. So how can that be done?<\/p>\n By breaking with tradition.<\/strong><\/p>\n Historically, the federal transportation bill has not directly addressed improving the surface freight sector. Past bills included funding for highway improvements that affect freight, but it takes more than good highways to make a good freight system. It takes better rail lines<\/a>, smarter use of technology,<\/a> cleaner ports<\/a>, and more modern and efficient equipment<\/a>\u2014and that\u2019s just part of the list. In a world economy that increasingly depends on moving products to meet a growing population\u2019s demands, freight transportation as a whole needs more focused attention. In the federal transportation bill, it needs attention that will help it modernize while also reducing freight\u2019s extreme pollution.<\/p>\n This time around, it looks like freight might get more focus in the federal bill. The House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee bill introduced in August includes a section addressing freight improvement. And the Senate Energy and Public Works Committee is preparing to draft its own bill, and its leadership has said it will use the Houses\u2019s framework as a starting point.<\/p>\n This new attention will be most productive if<\/strong> environmental performance is an overt goal. <\/strong>The new federal transportation bill should <\/strong>ensure that precious public funds are spent to generate the greatest modernization and<\/em> the best environmental performance for each dollar spent. One way to spur this is to ensure, as the House bill does, that freight corridors and hubs of national importance are identified and that improvement plans are developed. <\/p>\n However, the House bill could still go farther. <\/strong>It does not ensure that improvement plans will result in better environmental performance and <\/em>better freight transportation reliability. We believe it is possible\u2014and necessary\u2014to have both.<\/p>\n The good news is that <\/strong>there\u2019s still time to refine the House bill and to incorporate environmental performance into a freight improvement section in the Senate bill. We\u2019ve been talking to a lot of folks in the freight sector lately and it seems clear that there\u2019s an appetite to improve freight transportation\u2019s environmental performance. Nobody wants to be a polluter, rather, the sector wants to be part of innovative and creative solutions to these challenging problems.<\/p>\n The federal transportation bill offers a chance to create the world\u2019s most advanced and least-polluting freight system<\/strong>\u2014one that provides jobs, keeps the economy going, and doesn\u2019t burden communities with life-threatening pollution. It ought to begin with corridor and port improvement plans that reduce pollution. Then the best plans that meet the dual performance goals of reliability and pollution reduction ought to be first in line when freight system funds are distributed.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n We are a nation of inventors and entrepreneurs. Telling a freight transportation expert to come up with the best plan for modernizing a corridor\u2019s performance and reducing freight transportation\u2019s environmental impacts is a smart challenge that releases innovation and creativity.<\/strong><\/p>\n \u00a0 Modernizing freight is a smart challenge that releases innovation and creativity. Photo: Port of Los Angeles. In our last post, we highlighted some innovative and promising port and corridor plans that improve freight transportation and cut pollution. As we said then, plans to improve freight and clean it up ought to be the norm, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4273,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-485887","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/485887","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4273"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=485887"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/485887\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=485887"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=485887"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=485887"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}