Many parts of he United States are running out of highway capacity. The amount of time commuters spend in traffic has tripled over the last twenty-five years – and it is getting worse. According to the US Census Bureau, the average motorist spends more time commuting to work than on vacation.
It is not just motorists who are affected by highway congestion. Small and large businesses are slowed down by congestion when their trucks can’t deliver their products on time. Most businesses today rely on Just in Time delivery to control inventory costs, but highway congestion threatens to turn Just in Time savings into Jammed in Traffic costs.
Indeed, congestion costs the nation more than $115 billion every year in wasted fuel (3.9 billion gallons) and excessive travel time (4.8 billion hours), according to the Texas Transportation Institute.
The US Department of Transportation estimated that freight traffic would increase 92 percent between 2002 and 2035. Even though the growth in freight traffic has been slowed by the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, freight transportation demand is surging again.
Our clogged highways cannot handle the increase, but freight rail provides a solution. A train can carry the freight of 280 or more trucks. If just 10 percent of the long-distance freight that moves by truck moved by rail instead, fuel savings would exceed one billion gallons per year. The resulting lower greenhouse gas emissions would be equivalent to taking 2 million cars off the road or planting 280 million trees.
As we continue to climb out of the recession, increasing the capacity of our freight rail system to carry more of the load will be a key to keeping traffic moving on our highways.