This week, the U.S. Department of Transportation in coordination with U.S. Maritime Administration announced the America’s Marine Highway Program. The program is working to designate marine highway corridors as well as partner with shipping businesses to demonstrate the promise of short sea shipping routes to ease congestion on our nation’s clogged interstate highways. A few articles about the newly announced program:
- DOT sets Marine Highway, Journal of Commerce
- Barges key to easing traffic, Hampton Roads Daily Press (Virginia)
- Shortsea Shipping Concept Gathers Steam, Maritime Executive Magazine
The Port of Providence, if properly protected and promoted, would be an ideal location for a short sea shipping operation. And now, if our city and state officials can work cooperatively to develop a plan to attract a short sea route, the Port of Providence could be eligible for federal port infrastructure improvement funds under the America’s Marine Highway Program.
As Joseph Keefe nicely summarizes in his Maritime Executive article about the program:
In then end, through the use of a few “super” ports on each coast, there is real potential for millions of tons of cargo in all forms to be moved on small feeder ships to other, smaller, shallow draft “niche” ports . . . We don’t need thirty ports each dredged to 60 feet. Those resources are probably better spent on maintenance of existing berths, intermodal port infrastructure and waterways. Eventually, and through a coordinated effort to remove trucks from the roads, we’ll have to spend less on maintenance of the highways and thereby make the tax dollars that we do have, go farther.
