Michael Grunwald’s self-professed love for railroads [in “Back on Tracks”] results in a fawning advertisement that portrays an incomplete view of the multimodal freight transportation system needed for both domestic and international cargo movements.
The nation’s ports and waterways provide numerous economic and environmental benefits: one 15-barge tow can move the equivalent of 216 railcars or 1,050 trucks; barges produce fewer exhaust emissions and use less fuel compared to either truck or rail; and the cost to transport goods on the inland waterways is two to three times lower than other modes, resulting in a savings of $7 billion dollars.
So, as we struggle to find ways to invest in the nation’s crumbling infrastructure and ensure our continued global economic competitiveness, Grunwald ought to do better research. The inland waterways industry pays a significant fuel tax to fund waterways projects and has offered to pay more. Grunwald neglects to mention these facts, and instead promotes his dubious claim that U.S. railroads don’t receive federal funds, glossing over the “unprecedented support” they enjoyed in President Obama’s 2009 stimulus plan and the significant land grants they received a century ago.
Amy W. Larson, Arlington
President, National Waterways Conference, Inc.