Where Have All the Statesmen Gone?
If we're ever to have a national transportation policy, we need "statesmen" to step forward and make it happen.
BERNARD J. LA LONDE -- Supply Chain Management Review, 1/1/2005
In our last column, we promised to "offer some solutions" to the transportation crisis in the United States. Granted, this may be a somewhat quixotic undertaking. Since the early part of the 20th century, we have had a parade of commissions, commissioners, transportation secretaries, councils, and advisory groups all trying to fix our transportation system. We’ve consumed a forest of trees to produce the proposals, reports, and related documents generated on the subject. So with all this smoke (and sometimes mirrors), one would think that our transportation system would be in pretty good shape by now.
Yet even after all these years and all this effort, the United States still does not have a comprehensive, long-term transportation policy or plan. To be sure, there are programs on safety, security, alternative fuels, and a host of other special (interest?) projects. These programs seem to drift in and out of favor about every four years, hampered by a lack of continuity in budget or leadership from administration to administration.
The goal of a comprehensive national transportation policy should be to: (1) identify the long-term strategic objectives of the U.S. transportation system; (2) identify barriers to achieving these objectives; (3) define targeted programs to overcome the barriers and achieve the objectives; and (4) allocate the resources necessary to execute against the program objectives.
We’ve had some success from time to time with the first three actions. But we always seem to falter on step 4—the most critical of them all. Why do half of the bridges in the country need work? Why is the interstate highway system falling apart in places? Why does our commute keep getting longer and longer?
Victim of Politics
A cynic might argue that the country's long-term transportation needs have been hijacked by the political process. Next year's transportation appropriation bill will likely be a case in point. After some horse trading, pleas from special-interest lobbyists, and markers called and promised, a transportation bill will emerge from committee. That bill will be heavily larded with pork and compromises, spread out over a five-year time span. This will be on top of a recently passed budget bill that had 12,000 separate provisions (read pork) that Congressmen could take to their constituents back home. This, in a year with a deficit that is forecasted at $341 billion! With such misallocation of long-term resources (as the economists would say), it's no surprise that bridges go unpainted and potholes go unfilled in some Congressional districts.
We desperately need a comprehensive transportation policy at the national level that incorporates the four key actions enumerated above. But developing such a program and fixing the transportation infrastructure is not the job of government alone. In fact, one could argue that to create a value-driven solution to transportation change, shippers, carriers, and users must be closely aligned with government initiatives. Yet a major obstacle to such alignment is the widespread tendency to behave as if all public and private sector bargaining situations are "zero-sum" games.
The various constituencies in the transportation arena compete with each other on this basis. In my last column, I noted the increasingly divisive "competition for concrete" between the automobile and the truck. As the rails become clogged and service deteriorates, freight shifts from the rails to the highway—making the problem only worse.
Although particularly acute during the holiday season, the congestion problem is fast becoming a year-long reality in many parts of the country. Meanwhile the automobile driver is becoming increasingly irritated by the number of trucks on "his" or "her" road.
Rationing is one possible solution to the capacity crunch. One approach would require the trucker and automobile driver to pay a premium to use the road at the busiest hours. Fees would be collected automatically through some combination of smart card and smart road. The objective here would be to balance capacity and road usage. A second approach to rationing might include restricting deliveries in congested areas to early morning hours. Commercial operators of trucks and cars aren't likely to embrace this option. But when you factor in energy cost and utilization, increased roadway utilization, safety, and global warming, the benefits of this option might carry the day.
Statesmen Needed
There are no easy solutions to fixing the congestion problem or any of the other ailments of our transportation system. We've offered our modest proposal here. But if this—or any other approach to creating a long-term transportation policy—is going to work, one other essential ingredient is needed: statesmen who put parochial interests aside for the good of the greater transportation community. I realize that I'm dating myself, but during the debate over transportation deregulation (1976-1982), a number of industry statesmen stepped forward. These included people like Bill Smith, the chief transportation official at General Mills; Bob Delaney, who developed the annual "State of Logistics Report"; and Sen. Bob Packwood, who championed regulatory reform. These individuals took a very personal, hands-on interest in the debate. They understood that comprehensive and fair reforms would only come through open interaction among the affected parties—the shippers, the carriers, regulators, and the public.
We need the help of such statesmen again to shape a response to the current transportation crisis. We need men and women to have a dialogue at the state and federal level about the conditions of our transportation infrastructure. We need leaders from the private sector who will work with government to identify problems, set priorities, and develop long-term solutions for the nation's transportation system.
True, the traditional training fields for these leaders are fading away. Many transportation organizations are struggling for membership. Corporate traffic departments have been stripped of headcount—replaced by computers, the Internet, and third-party logistics providers. But while the statesmen may no longer come from the traditional sources, we pray that they will emerge from somewhere. The fate of our transportation system depends upon it.
Bernard J. "Bud" La Londe is professor emeritus of logistics at The Ohio State University.
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