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REMARKS FOR
THE HONORABLE NORMAN Y. MINETA
SECRETARY OF TRANSPORTATION
NATIONAL RETAIL FEDERATION
NATIONAL STRATEGY TO REDUCE CONGESTION ON AMERICA’S TRANSPORTATION NETWORK
WASHINGTON, DC
MAY 16, 2006
11 AM
Thank you for inviting me to speak this morning at this important conference,
at the start of National Transportation Week. Few sectors of our economy are as
dependent on transportation as the retail sector. Without shipping, trucking,
and air freight, America’s retailers would have nothing to offer consumers but
blank catalogs, empty websites, and bare show rooms.
And while the retail sector plays a vital role in maintaining the strength of
the world’s largest economy, it is slowly being strangled by transportation
congestion. Whether it takes the form of trucks stalled in traffic, cargo
sitting on the dock at overwhelmed seaports, or airplanes circling over crowded
airports, congestion is costing America an estimated $200 billion a year.
If power blackouts drained billions of dollars from the economy each year, it
would be considered a crisis of unacceptable proportion. Yet many accept the
fact that Americans squander 3.7 billion hours and 2.3 billion gallons of fuel
each year sitting in traffic jams and waste $9.4 billion as a result of airline
delays. Even worse, congestion takes a major bite out of our day – time that
could be spent with families, friends, and neighbors.
Congestion is not a scientific mystery, nor is it an uncontrollable force.
Congestion results from poor policy choices and a failure to separate solutions
that are effective from those that are not. We need a new approach, and we need
it now.
So, today, I am announcing the National Strategy to Reduce Congestion on
America’s Transportation Network – a national congestion relief initiative.
Congestion is not a fact of life. We will use our people, our resources, and our
expertise to help our partners at the state and local levels use their existing
transportation networks better and add capacity where it makes the most sense.
With me today is Joe Boardman, who does an outstanding job overseeing the safety
and operation of the nation’s trains as Federal Railroad Administrator. I am
directing Joe and the entire leadership of the Department of Transportation to
make congestion relief a top priority, and to take the following actions.
First, we will focus heavily on our largest metropolitan areas and seek “Urban
Partnership Agreements” with as many cities as are willing to participate. These
agreements will call for new variable pricing programs designed to spread
traffic flows throughout the day and to get more out of existing highways.
The agreements also will provide for more efficient and responsive bus systems
that tailor services specifically for rush-hour commuters; speed up the review
process for highway projects under way; and seek commitments from major
employers in the region to allow more of their employees to flex their schedules
and/or telecommute.
Second, we will encourage more states to find ways to open up their
transportation infrastructure to private investment opportunities. State budgets
are stretched thin, while gasoline taxes are becoming increasingly untenable as
long-term sources of funding.
At the same time, major financial institutions and their clients are expressing
increasing willingness to invest billions of dollars in roads and airports.
So, we will begin a discussion with local officials and consumers of
transportation about the growing role that the private sector can and should
play in transportation decision-making and investment. Our goal will be to
greatly expand the list of states that have flexible laws to permit greater
private-sector involvement in transportation projects.
Almost half of all traffic congestion is caused by construction and incidents
like car crashes. So we will focus the Department’s Intelligent Transportation
Systems program to encourage more communities to adopt technologies and
practices designed to help drivers avoid these backups and cut the traffic
tie-ups caused by construction and fender benders.
We also will engage the country’s technology leaders by inviting them to join a
new Transportation Technology Forum. This forum will bring new innovation and
energy to designing transportation solutions – to begin building the world’s
most technologically sophisticated transportation system.
These steps will do much to improve the performance of our existing systems. But
we must also acknowledge the need for large-scale investments in physical
infrastructure. These investments must be targeted to areas where they are
needed most – including major, multi-state, multi-use trade and travel
corridors.
We will embark upon a competitive process to select three to five “corridors of
the future” that have the greatest potential to relieve traffic based on current
and projected growth patterns.
These projects face enormous organizational and funding challenges. So we intend
to create a major federal support structure through which sponsors can work. We
will set ambitious permitting schedules for these projects, identify new
financing options to fund them, and fast-track these projects for federal
dollars to get them moving from the drawing board to completion faster than ever
before, without sacrificing appropriate environmental protections.
And I am announcing that next Wednesday, May 24th, I will convene the first
meeting of the new Surface Transportation Policy and Revenue Commission. As we
set a schedule of meetings that include four public hearings around the country,
I will task the commission with finding solutions that not only raise revenue
for highway and transit projects, but also reduce the costs of congestion.
With respect to freight transportation, we will deploy even more Departmental
resources into Southern California to bring together state, local, and
private-sector officials to relieve bottlenecks affecting freight coming from
and heading to every corner of the country.
We will convene a joint border transportation task force with the Department of
Homeland Security to accelerate some of the most significant transportation
investments at our borders.
And we will engage America’s major companies – including many represented in
this room today – in a sustained dialogue about the future of our transportation
system.
And finally, we will take steps to improve aviation capacity by modernizing the
aviation system and accelerating airport expansion programs. This will be
expensive work. So we will propose new ways to support the Airport and Airway
Trust Fund to better match funding for aviation services to demand.
Some of what we are about to do will be labeled controversial by those who are
wedded to the status quo. But we must embrace new solutions if we are going to
make any meaningful progress in reducing congestion.
President Bush and I recognize the challenge that congestion poses, and the
opportunity that we have to do something about it. And today we are launching an
initiative to do just that. I am setting an ambitious schedule. I expect every
part of this new initiative to be under way before the end of the year.
Because the bottom line is that every person and every business in America has a
vested interest in reducing congestion. Congestion kills time, wastes fuel, and
costs money.
But we don’t have to let traffic delays put our lives on hold any longer. We
have the tools, the technology, and the plan to make today’s congestion a thing
of the past.
Thank you for your time and attention.
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