In the American Association of Port Authorities’ third annual State of Freight survey, U.S. port authorities identified more than $20 billion in projected multimodal port and rail access needs during the next decade. One-third of port authorities also cited pressing rail project needs costing at least $50 million for each of their ports.
Sixty-seven percent said that funding and financing options are the biggest obstacles in getting essential rail projects started to access their facilities. Another 37 percent said that problematic at-grade rail crossings or height-restricted overpasses and tunnels near their ports are constraining cargo-handling capacity, while 36 percent reported that land acquisition is a big problem in developing and planning port rail access projects.
According to AAPA, the findings show that “while the Fixing America’s Surface Transportation Act has been essential in providing the building blocks for a national freight program, more must be done to ensure that multimodal goods movement projects have adequate resources to produce efficient and timely results.”
