The Honourable Donna Cansfield, Ontario’s Transportation Minister and Sault Ste. Marie’s Mayor John Rowswell officially opened the transportation corridor. A total of $11.2 million was shared between the Government of Canada and the Province of Ontario. The City of Sault Ste. Marie also contributed $1.4 million for construction, as well as $6.3 million for the purchase of required property.

“Sault Ste. Marie is the 9th busiest Canada-United States crossing and Canada’s new government is proud that this route could finally be completed,” said Minister Cannon. ‘”This transportation corridor is designed to ease local congestion, which will reduce emissions into the air and improve access between Ontario and Michigan.”

“Sault Ste. Marie is an important northern gateway. More than 130,000 commercial trucks carry about $3.5 billion of goods across the International Bridge every year,” said Cansfield. “The new truck route will reduce delays and save commercial carriers about $1 million a year.”

The new truck route, which will also be shared by cars, was designed to ease local congestion and improve access to the International Bridge connecting Ontario and Michigan. The new transportation corridor connects Highway 17 with the International Bridge via the Second Line Road and Hudson Street, and provides a more direct connection to Interstate 75 in Michigan. Trucks will bypass Sault Ste. Marie’s downtown area. The new route will reduce travel time for trucks and eliminate several 90-degree turns, making roads safer for residents of Sault Ste. Marie.

“This long awaited transportation corridor moves trucks out of the downtown area, allows traffic on the west side of the city to move quickly to the city’s centre, and lets us immediately advance Sault Ste. Marie as a multimodal transportation hub,” said Mayor Rowswell.

In the 2006 Federal Budget, Canada’s new government has committed an unprecedented $16.5 billion over the next four years for provincial, territorial and municipal infrastructure, including $2.4 billion over the next five years from the Highways and Border Infrastructure Fund.

This year, the Government of Ontario is investing more than $1.4 billion in highway improvements through its five-year ReNew Ontario infrastructure investment plan. The Ontario government has also invested an additional $400 million under Move Ontario, which municipalities may use for improvements to municipal roads and bridges.

Transport companies from Canada, the USA but also as far as Asia and Europe will love the significant time gains these new infrastructures make possible.

Manufactures and consumers, on both sides of the border, can now expect faster border crossings and much more efficient transit alternatives.

Everybody agreed there was a congestion problem and in no small measure, it’s been properly addressed. Another job well done!

Tags: transportation corridor, sault ste. marie, ontario, canada, usa, transit

“According to the Federal Highway Administration‘s (FHWA) recently released report Freight Facts and Figures 2005 (FHWA-HOP-05-071), international trade is growing faster than the overall U.S. economy. Between 1980 and 2003, the U.S. economy, measured by gross domestic product (GDP), doubled, while foreign trade quadrupled in real value, reflecting unprecedented global connectivity. Ocean, rail, and air carriers use trucks and highways for some component of almost every shipment. Already tight infrastructure capacity will be stressed further by limited new construction and the growing demand from freight transportation. In fact, the FHWA Freight Analysis Framework indicates that by 2020 freight volumes will increase by 70 percent from 1998 totals, and freight volumes through the Nation’s primary gateway ports could more than double. Finding ways to improve the operational efficiency of moving this freight is critical to the Nation’s economic vitality and global connectivity.

Officials at the U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) recognize that moving freight involves moving information as well as the goods themselves. Although excellent information management can increase freight efficiency, poor information management can add costs, slow handoffs, open security gaps, create delays at gates, and even lead to erroneous freight movements.

Given the important and growing role that goods movement plays in the U.S. economy and the impact that it has on the transportation network, USDOT’s ITS Joint Program Office and FHWA recently launched the Electronic Freight Management (EFM) project. EFM aims to improve the “information highway” that moves critical business information and facilitates the multimodal movement of airfreight, generating benefits for both private and public stakeholders. In particular, the project addresses weaknesses in freight data exchange processes that add costs, create security gaps, and, over time, contribute to congestion.

“It is well accepted that technology systems and electronic data represent one of the few remaining tools for improving both productivity and security,” says Margaret Irwin, director of customs and cross-border operations for the American Trucking Associations. “In addition, regulatory costs can be successfully managed in the long term only by replacing labor-intensive paperwork with electronic systems. Given that international trade now represents 25 percent of our country’s GDP, it is particularly important for ports and borders to operate more efficiently.”

EFM advances several concepts, but the single key concept is to promote electronic data exchanges along a supply chain in an end-to-end manner more robustly than is currently being done.

Typically, freight movements are supported by point-to-point communications, either paper-based or electronic, between parties who agree to such communications. Using the Internet to make data available broadly to any authorized and authenticated user in near real time is key to enabling freight transportation networks to operate more efficiently and securely. This type of data exchange provides buyers and other authorized parties with open visibility into supply chains. Program officials expect that these improvements will help to reduce unnecessary traffic on the transportation network and mitigate congestion.”

For more insight on EFM, please read the original article which goes about covering important themes like the best approach to have, the international data standards to observe, the public and private sector benefits as well as the added security.

This initiative is already bearing fruit and the transports and logistics industry should continue supporting such bold attempts to help our freight flow from the sending point to its destination, as fast and as efficiently as possible.

Tags: freight efficiency, freight flow, transit, highways, transport, logistics, destination

Salt Lake City area commuters got a big boost as U.S. Secretary of Transportation Norman Y. Mineta sealed an agreement with the Utah Transit Authority for $489 million in federal funding for the “FrontRunner” Weber County-to-Salt Lake City Commuter Rail line.

The money will be used to build the new 44 mile commuter rail line that is expected to carry almost 12,000 weekday passengers taking nearly 6,000 cars off the roads everyday Mineta said during a visit to the Farmington Station construction site this afternoon.

“Because it runs parallel to I-15, this rail line offers a common-sense solution to highway congestion to and from Salt Lake City,” Mineta said. “And taking more cars off the road during rush hours will help keep people and products moving through Salt Lake City safely and on time, no matter which path they choose.”

The Full Funding Grant Agreement represents the federal government’s commitment to provide funding for the project, Mineta said. The funds will be allocated over a seven year period from 2006 through 2012.

It allows construction to continue on the new commuter rail line, which will provide service from Pleasant View to the existing Salt Lake City Intermodal Terminal in downtown Salt Lake City, with stops in Salt Lake, Weber and Davis counties.

The line’s downtown terminal will provide commuter rail passengers a direct connection for commuter rail, light rail, and passenger rail with UTA buses and Greyhound intercity bus service. Feeder buses will provide transportation from the terminal to local business and residential areas.

The grant, the largest award given to the state for a single project, will allow more workers to get to Salt Lake City’s booming businesses, Mineta said.

UTA plans to begin operating the line in November 2008, with service at 20-minute intervals during peak periods and every 40 minutes during off-peak periods. At startup, it will serve 6,100 people a day, and up to 12,500 people daily by 2025.

Tags: commuter rail, trains, transit, commuters, passengers, uta, utah