In December 2017, Congress passed a historical tax reform package in an effort to give the American economy a boost. So it makes sense that the time is NOW to address upgrades to our nation’s infrastructure system so that it can support the growing economy. We can almost all agree that our country’s roads, highways, bridges, ports, and airports continue to deteriorate.
Today’s freight companies, along with the manufacturers and shippers that utilize them, are making critical investments in their workforce, new technologies, and existing equipment to ensure efficiency, sustainability and safety for all. We need the same forward-looking effort from our partners in federal and state governments so all Americans have access to the full promise enabled by a modern transportation system.
We need infrastructure policy that not only maximizes the societal benefit, but encourages sector participating in the modernization of our transportation networks. One such policy is extending 28-foot trailers by five feet. This modest increase in length would result in 3.1 billion fewer vehicle miles traveled, 4,500 fewer annual truck crashes, and 53.2 million hours saved due to less congestion. Businesses will be able to move more freight per truck, which reduces the number of trucks on our nation’s roadways thus putting less burden on America’s highways and bridges.
We encourage congressional leadership to make infrastructure a priority in 2018.