NATIONAL ROUND TABLE:
INSTITUTIONS FOR IMPROVING FREIGHT MOVEMENT IN MULTI-STATE CORRIDORS
OPEN DISCUSSION
To kick-off the discussion, the paper's author, Dr. Bruce McDowell, summarized the paper using the PowerPoint presentation attached hereto, and answered clarifying questions. In his presentation, Dr. McDowell outlined the key question for the group to address—"Which institutional options do you believe offer the greatest potential for improving the performance of multi-state transportation corridors?"; He emphasized that no single institution might provide all the capabilities needed in any given situation. Thus, a combination of institutions might be needed to achieve desired results.
The group raised two additional questions:
- Is there a set of problems that must be addressed between the state and federal levels? If multistate institutions are necessary to fill a void, one needs to know the specific problems and current barriers to addressing them. And the transportation community must be able to answer the question of why we are not already undertaking these efforts more fully.
- How are decisions going to be made regarding multi-state institutions and who is going to make the decisions?
In addition to clarifying questions, the group offered the following general observations:
- Freight corridors and networks may need different organizations than passenger corridors and networks. Although both modes may have some needs and infrastructure elements in common, they also may have significant differences. To ensure the success of both modes, freight and passenger needs should be considered together.
- Four distinct levels of geographic activity are essential to effective performance—metropolitan (regional), state, multi-state, and federal. However, they need to be better coordinated. New national policies may be needed to enable this coordination to be effective.
