The American Trucking Association Gets It Wrong Again: Biking is Not Going to Hurt the Economy
Posted March 29, 2010 in Curbing Pollution, Health and the Environment, Moving Beyond Oil, Solving Global Warming, U.S. Law and Policy
In a feat of hyperbole unmatched in my recent memory, Bill Graves, President of the American Trucking Associations noted--“I’m in full agreement with the National Association of Manufacturers, who said on their Shopfloor blog last week that ‘treating bicycles and other non-motorized transportation as equal to motorized transportation would cause an economic catastrophe.’” Well, there are a lot of things our economy has to worry about, but I doubt there are droves of economists shaking in their boots over creating a more equitable approach to funding transportation infrastructure.
Let’s use Los Angeles as an example because the American Trucking Associations generally has a disregard for the health and welfare of residents in Los Angeles. One project in Los Angeles, the Gerald Desmond Bridge Replacement in the harbor area, will cost taxpayers more than $1 billion dollars. The damage and need to replace this bridge was basically caused by one thing—the constant number of trucks that have rumbled over this bridge and made it deteriorate over the years. You see, the environmental report for the Desmond project notes that trucks cause three times more damage to roads than passenger vehicles, yet it is those passengers that will foot the bill for trucking companies to have nicely paved roads and bridge. Now, I wonder how much more of an impact a truck has on a road compared to a bike.
At a recent meeting in Los Angeles, it came out that it would cost about $280 million to put in place all of the “shovel-ready” bike projects in the Los Angeles region. Currently, transportation planners in the region want to spend more than $1 billion on the Desmond Bridge, $6.3 billion on the I-710 South project, which is designed to allow more and more trucks to go into the harbor in Los Angeles and Long Beach, and many more billions of dollars on infrastructure in the Los Angeles region geared towards subsidizing the trucking industry. Despite the predictions from lobbyists at the National Association of Manufacturers and the American Trucking Associations, I seriously doubt we will see some biking-induced economic apocalypse if our planners spend more dollars fixing and developing the desperately underfunded biking infrastructure in places like Los Angeles.
Bill Graves has no facts to support his hyperbolic position, but instead the Virginia-based trucking lobbyist is simply evoking fear that bicycling may become a more effective means to travel in cities across the country. As a multimodal commuter, I want effective bicycling infrastructure in my community, and trucking companies should want that too. In fact, the Alaska Trucking Association had positive things to say about the Anchorage Bike Plan. Also, we are talking peanuts when compared to the billions of dollars proposed to be spent on earmark projects to fix the problems on our roads caused by trucks. I know it is hard for road builders and truck lobbyists to share the taxpayers’ transportation funds that they have spent so many billions of dollars lobbying for over the years in Washington, D.C. and states throughout the nation. However, the day has come for a more responsible way to fund transportation where Ray LaHood, our Secretary of Transportation, and others will ask that not all the money be blindly spent on roads to fix damage caused by big trucks. Will it help if Mr. LaHood says “please”?
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Comments
Nat Kane — Mar 29 2010 11:21 PM
Well said, Adrian.
Jim Welke — Mar 30 2010 02:17 PM
Another reason why more rails for moving people and goods makes better sense than more roads?
Thanks, Mr. Martinez.
Ride On!
Martin — Mar 30 2010 02:30 PM
that's my kind of catastrophe!
Ron Milam — Mar 30 2010 03:24 PM
Thanks for posting and defending bicycling as a cost-effective form of transportation.
Clayton Boyce — Mar 30 2010 03:50 PM
Adrian,
ATA is not anti-bicycle. Our concern is with the diversion of scarce highway dollars from the Highway Trust Fund toward bicycle path projects that carry a tiny number of passengers and no freight. Our interstate highway systems are the life lines for commerce and economic growth.
Interstate highways were created by the federal government and remain a federal government responsibility. Bicycle paths, however useful, are state and local concerns, not interstate or federal concerns. In fact all interstates and most non-interstate portions of the National Highway System ban bicycles and other nonmotorized vehicles.
The trucking industry delivers nearly 100 percent of consumer products. Communities could not be livable without an efficient interstate highway system and trucks to deliver the food, medicine, clothing and other necessities that make walking and bicycling in your community possible.
Commercial trucks make up only 12.5 percent of all registered vehicles, but pay about 37 percent of total highway user taxes that go into the Highway Trust Fund. Given the state of the Highway Trust Fund, ATA has volunteered to pay even more in highway taxes. ATA estimates the cost to simply maintain current highway and bridge programs is $105.6 billion per year, and right now only about 78.7 billion is being spent.
ATA believes this investment should focus on mitigating congestion at our nation’s worst bottlenecks to reduce congestion and pollution, and improve the logistics system for our economy. Perhaps the bicycling community should work with Congress or state legislatures to create its own fund dedicated to bicycle infrastructure with specific taxes on the sale of bicycles and accessories. That is a fair and equitable solution analogous to the trucking industry’s huge contributions to the Highway Trust Fund.
One last thing, your last post repeated a year-old NRDC slander against the ATA concerning our opposition to Teamster attempts to ban independent truck owner-operators from ports. ATA supports Clean Truck Programs in Los Angeles and other ports and opposes only the ban and other measures that had nothing to do with cleaning the air. The Los Angeles Clean Trucks Program reduces truck pollution by 80 percent in the Ports and is nearly two years ahead of schedule without the needless ban on owner-operators.
The Los Angeles Daily News criticized the NRDC last year for doing the Teamsters’ dirty work: “It would be wise for all sides of this fight to shift from rhetoric to solutions. That would include the National Resources Defense Council, which still is saying that the court case could threaten the Clean Trucks program, when in fact the Appeals Court ruling suggests the opposite,” The Daily News said.
Here’s the Los Angeles Times on the same subject: “Unfortunately, backers of this ill-conceived effort say that if they can't win in court, they’ll lobby Congress to change the law, an interminable process that promises only to heighten confusion in the trucking industry and potentially delay compliance with the ports' clean-engine rules. We have a better idea: Let it go. The ports should do what this page repeatedly urged them to do when crafting the clean-truck program -- work with the trucking industry, which has no objection to the initiative's environmental requirements, to come up with a plan that cuts pollution without interfering with interstate commerce. That wouldn't be hard to do, if politicians, labor leaders and environmental activists would stop putting up roadblocks.
Elliott Spencer — Mar 30 2010 04:41 PM
Anyone else get a giggle outta the fact that most bicycles purchased from shops are trucked in...? Irony rules!
This whole thing is comparing apples to eggrolls. One is personal transpo, the other: commerce.
Rickshaws suck at getting those China-cheep goods into the hands of WallMart shoppers.
Adrian Martinez — Mar 30 2010 08:34 PM
Mr. Boyce:
I appreciate your comment on my blog post. However, I must disagree that it is not the purview of the federal government to ensure taxpayers have adequate mobility choices, which includes infrastructure for biking and walking. Simply stated, we must reform how we fund transportation projects in the upcoming federal transportation reauthorization bill. I am not suggesting that all money should be diverted from maintaining our current highway infrastructure, but relatively small shifts to bicycling and pedestrian-oriented transportation facilities could have great impacts—especially since the infrastructure is quite cost-effective. Biking and pedestrian infrastructure is grossly underfunded throughout the nation and has been for decades. Approximately 1.2% of federal transportation dollars go towards biking and pedestrian facilities. This is a small percentage of overall expenditures and does not even match the percentage of people that commute to work through these means. As we attempt to make our cities more livable, reduce our air pollution and greenhouse gases, biking creates good opportunities as a low emissions means of travel that should not be overlooked, especially in temperate climates like Los Angeles. Also, it is unclear to me why there should be natural subsidization of the freight movement industry. The equipment is destructive on our public infrastructure, and a better option would be user fees to ensure that the true costs of moving freight is encapsulated in building and maintaining current infrastructure. Moreover, since general taxpayer funds have been increasingly relied upon to fund transportation projects, it is due time our policy makers do not continue to blindly throw dollars at road projects, but instead seek new means to meet the growing demand for public transportation options.
Thanks again for commenting,
Adrian