Operator:
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome to the freight projects from planning to implementation conference call. During the presentation, all participants will be in a listen-only mode. Afterwards, we will conduct a question-and-answer session. If you have a question, please press the 1, followed by the 4 on your telephone, at any time during the presentation. At that time, your line will briefly be accessed from the conference to obtain information. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded May 19th, 2004. I would like to turn the conference over to Jennifer Seplow. Please go ahead.
J. Seplow
Thank you. Good afternoon or good morning to those of you to the west. Welcome to the talking freight seminar series. My name is Jennifer Seplow, and I will moderate today's seminar. Today's topic is freight projects: from planning to implementation. Please be advised that today's seminar is being recorded. Today we will have perspectives from a state DOT and a metropolitan planning organization. We have three speakers, Becky Knudson of the Oregon DOT, Tara Weidner of the PB Consult, and John Hummer of the North Jersey Transportation Planning Authority, Inc.
Becky Knudson is a senior transportation analyst in the Oregon DOT's Transportation Planning Analysis Unit, TPAU. She oversees the ODOT integrated analysis and freight analysis programs. Prior to joining TPAU, Becky was a senior transportation economist for the ODOT policy and economic analysis unit. Becky has a background rich in identifying and using transportation data, conducting cost/benefit analysis, estimation of the value of travel time/delay costs, vehicle taxation, characteristics and patterns of vehicle travel on Oregon highways and roads. Becky's education includes a bachelor's degree in economics from the University of Minnesota Moorhead and a master's degree in economics from Oregon state university.
Tara Weidner is a senior planner in PB Consult's Portland, Oregon Systems Analysis Group tackling both research and planning topics. Tara's education includes civil engineering transportation degrees from Purdue University and UC Berkeley. She has 10 years' experience in strategic planning and analysis of the multi-modal transportation systems, including problem formulation, data collection, and modeling of system performance. Tara has managed projects developing and applying advanced computer models of large databases, including statewide integrated transport models in Washington and Oregon and simulation models evaluating future air traffic control automation tools. Tara managed the planning and modeling elements of Oregon DOT's Economic and Bridge Options Study.
John Hummer is manager, freight services and special projects for the North Jersey Transportation Planning Authority, which is the metropolitan planning organization for the 13 northern counties of New Jersey. In this position, Mr. Hummer is responsible for developing transportation strategies and proposals that address freight and economic development initiatives within the regional planning process of northern New Jersey and managing special research planning and research projects such as the Conrail merger analysis, the brownfield economic redevelopment study, and the freight planning support system. Mr. Hummer holds a master's degree in public administration from Columbia University and a bachelor of arts in philosophy-psychology from San Jose state University.
I'd like to go over a few logistical details prior to starting the seminar. Today's seminar will last 90 minutes, with 60 minutes allocated for the speakers, and the final 30 minutes for audience question and answer. The operator will give you instructions on how to ask a question over the phone during the Q&A period. However, if during the presentations you think of a question, you can type it into the smaller text box underneath the chat area on the lower right side of your screen. Please make sure you are typing in the thin text box and not the large white area. Presenters will be unable to answer your questions during their presentations, but I will use some of the questions typed into the chat box to start off the question-and-answer session in the last half hour of the seminar. Those questions that are not answered will be posted to the freight planning listserv. The listserv is an e-mail list and is a great forum for the distribution of information and a place where you can post questions to find out what other subscribers have learned in the area of freight planning. If you have not already joined the listserv, the web address at which you can register is provided on the slide on your screen. If at any time you would like to zoom in on the slide that is showing on your screen, you can click on the zoom icon at the top of your screen. It looks like a magnifying glass with a plus sign in it. And it's located next to an icon that looks like a computer screen. Finally, I would like to remind you that this session is being recorded. A file containing the audio and the visual portion of this seminar will be posted to the talking freight website in the next day or so. To access the recorded seminar, please visit talkingfreight.webex.com and click on the "recorded events" link on the left side of the page and then choose the session you'd like to view. Due to the size of the file, recorded files are available for viewing/listening purposes only and cannot be saved to your own computer. We encourage you to direct others in your office who may have not been able to attend this seminar to access the recorded seminar. The power point presentations used during this seminar will be available within the next few days. I will notify all attendees of the availability of the power points, the recording, and a transcript of this seminar.
We're going to wait a few minutes, until about 1:00, to let some other people join us. And then at 1:00, we'll start with the presentation of Becky Knudson. So the operator is going to put you on hold for a few minutes. And then at 1:00, we'll start with the presentation. So please hang tight.
Operator:
Ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for standing by. Your conference is about to begin.
J. Seplow:
It's now about 1:00. And it seems like we've had some other join us. For those of you who have just joined us, today's topic is Freight Projects from Planning to Implementation. Our first presentation of the day will be that of Becky Knudson of the Oregon Department of Transportation, who will be speaking about the Oregon modeling improvement program. Becky? Let me just -- okay, Becky. You can go ahead.
B. Knudson:
Okay. Thank you, Jennifer. The presentation today will introduce you to the Oregon integrated analysis program, which is a powerful set of modeling tools and analysis. It was produced for fact-based unbiased information in order to make informed decisions and increase awareness of tradeoffs between alternative policies. I will provide an overview of the Oregon integrated analysis program, particularly as it relates to assessing movement in the state. Tara will talk about a specific application of the integrated analysis program that provided information used in a decision to invest $2.5 billion in Oregon's transportation infrastructure. Oregon started its modeling program over nine years ago. And this slide illustrates how the program is organized. The program is broad and covers five key areas, including resources that must be available to do the work, which includes consistent funding, quality staff, and computer hardware and software. Outreach is needed to inform people of the integrated analysis process and when and how to use it effectively. The first box, OMSC stands for the Oregon modeling steering committee, which was formed in 1996 to provide direction and oversight of the statewide modeling program. Development is the research component for continuous improvement. Tools and processes are continually refined. Faster computing power is at affordable prices, is allowing us to expand the detail include in the models. Implementation represents using the tools and processes to provide decision makers with good information on which to base complex policy decisions. Quality data is key to quality analysis. And we strive to obtain more complete and accurate data. Why are decision making tools important? They allow policy makers to make fact-based information, along with anecdotal information, minimize bias, help identify unintended results of policy decisions and account for the dynamic interaction of transportation, land use, and economic policies. Now, at times, the integration process provides information that may appear counterintuitive initially. We have observed greater magnitudes than originally expected in our analyses. Freight in terms of network flows. Until recently, passenger car movement was the main area of interest in transportation. The relationship between land use and transportation was of particular interest to policy makers. But the economy is a fundamental interest to everyone. Legislators and the public alike. Clearly, transportation and land use are important, but the effects of policy on the economy is what people want to know. Not whether some specific transportation performance measure, like vehicle miles traveled is affected. The historical approach to truck traffic was to treat trucks as if they were cars. Trucks were transformed in the passenger car equivalency values. For example, the typical 800,000-pound tractor-trailer combination is assigned a passenger car equivalency value of about 3.5. This measures the effective space taken up on the road, given the size, acceleration, and stopping distance, capabilities of a truck. Truck freight is a recent area of interest, now that reserve area capacity is being used up. But the effects of limited capacity are different for cars and trucks. Cars have more alternative choices. For example, commuters can leave early and allow for more travel times. They can use alternative routes, travel during off-peak hours, or use alternative modes, such as transit or biking, or even telecommute. Trucks, on the other hand, have fewer choices. And there is a more pronounced economic effect. Drivers may have to work longer hours. More trucks may be added to the fleet to meet delivery times. So it is often a part of a chained effect for just-in-time inventory practices. Or shippers depending on trucks to deliver freight to meet air or rail freight schedules. The trucking industry cares about system reliability and connectivity. Using a reserve capacity, has resulted in travel delay. Generally, there are two types of delay, expected and unexpected. A driver can plan around delays that are expected, such as peak-hour congestion or construction work zones. But it is nearly impossible to predict delay caused by unexpected traffic incidents. When markets were predominantly local, congestion was not as much a concern to the trucking industry because competitors were experiencing similar congestion costs. It did not matter so much that my truck was slowed down by congestion because I knew my competitors' trucks were slowed down just the same. But now that markets have expanded to national and international levels, low transport costs can provide a region with a competitive edge. And having a competitive edge means the regional economy has potential to grow. So in order for Oregon to be competitive, we need to look closer at freight. Define the issues, and identify impacts in a more robust manner. The integrated analysis process was developed to allow information on the economy, land use, and the transport networks to interact dynamically and feed back into the system to capture effects to a greater extent. Alternative policy choices can be analyzed within the three components and added to the analysis at any point. For example -- I should maybe take a break because a train has gone by. Freight in motion. The alternative policy choices we can analyze include land use policy, such as compact growth. In Oregon's instance, the effects of urban growth boundaries or expanding industrial land. Economic policies, such as introducing a mileage-based tax on vehicles or subsidizing businesses in order to attract them to Oregon. Transportation policy can be evaluated. For example, creation of truck-only lanes or new light rail lines or placing limits on truck weights, an area Tara will discuss next in detail. Historically, we asked questions like, what happens if we build a major interstate highway in such and such a location? But with the available tools of integrated analysis, we ask questions like what do we need to do to improve network reliability without compromising equity and sustainability? We also asked questions related to who was affected by this policy? What income groups? What industries? What regions of the state? Historically, we made decisions in a more linear fashion. For example, if we do a, then b will happen. But often, decision makers go directly from the policy questions to the decision with minimal announcements in between. Finding acceptable solutions is becoming more complex. So questions being asked relate to the difficult tradeoff that must be made. This requires policy makers to collaborate with multiple steak holders. Together, policy and technical people must refine the questions and use an interactive and more integrated decision-making process. Results from analyses may even be used to redefine the original questions and the process is followed again. We now have tools that better assist us in analyzing more complex issues and force us to think in a different way. Integrated analyses have been applied to several projects in Oregon. And in general, we have learned that the types of transportation improvements and where they're made affects where people in jobs locate. We know the tax structures affect where firms locate and where workers live. And we notice the supply of land affects price of land in terms of affecting how firms and where houses locate. Clearly, this is not new information. But what is new is the geographic detail illustrating how policy-affected behavior. For example, a policy designed to support growth in region a ends up generating significantly more growth than expected in region b. Now, throughout these projects other we realized how important it is to remind policy makers that the results of the analysis are intended to provide information on how different policies will play out over the long term, relative to some base-cased scenarios. They do not provide definitive answers on how to proceed, but reveal tradeoff, relative magnitudes and direction. In the past few years, the decline in the condition of Oregon's bridges has accelerated. In 2001, ODOT had 68 bridges with low restrictions, and we conducted 18 emergency repairs, with another 555 bridges under evaluation for cracking. By the year 2010, if no action is taken, ODOT expects 30% of state bridges will have weight restrictions and corresponding truck detours. Many of these are major interstate bridges on international freight corridors. So the question became when? Not if Oregon will invest in its aging bridges. A recent effort using integrated analysis supported a legislative decision to make significant investment in Oregon's transportation infrastructure. Integrated analysis played a key role in identifying the magnitude of the problem. Now, and in the future. And the economic and transport effects of different improvement strategies. With that said, I'll let Tara tell you about the analysis done to evaluate Oregon's bridge strategy choices.
J. Seplow:
Thank you, Becky. Again, I do want to remind everybody, if you think of a question during the presentation, please feel free to type it into the chat area. I'll now turn over to Tara Weidner of PB Consult who will continue to speak about the Oregon Bridge Study. Tara, begin when you're ready.
T. Weidner:
Okay. Great. I'm going to begin where Becky left off and talk about the analysis process that was used to look at the bridge issue in the state. We tried to expand the problem to not just be about the bridges or even about the freight system, but really how does it affect Oregon's economy and quality of life? Oregon's bridge issue is looking at about 500 cracked bridges across the state. Roughly 200 of those on interstates. And the total bill, if we fix them all, of almost $5 billion. So quite significant. As with most states, there was a big push to build bridges in the 40s and 50s, and there has been a lot less investment since then. So there is an age issue as well as other things leading to the cracking. In 2001, in a routine bridge inspection, the cracking issue was identified. Quickly in the next few months, a bridge task force was convened of bridge experts that verified the problem. And that led to the effort I'm going to be talking about here to look at various investment strategies and take that to the legislature. The investment strategy built on the bridge costs, of course. But they also wanted to look at economic costs and community and regional impacts. And the way they got to the latter impacts was to use Oregon's statewide land use model, the one that Becky talked about. To look at tradeoff for states and among state regions, various community impacts and livability, and the environment.
This slide shows you where the bridges are located. Some are weight-limited today, in blue. And the cracked ones in red. Ones circled are recent emergency bridge restrictions on some of the interstates and other areas. I'll talk about Ford's Bridge down to the south. It's on I-5, a major north-south interstate. And when that was restricted to 64,000 pounds, about 1800 trucks a day went through the adjacent towns off the freeway, which have populations of around 1200. More trucks a day than they have population. So quite an impact in those towns. Additionally, Cole's Bridge was restricted to 23,000 pounds ultimately. And affected trucks addressing wildfires and so forth in the area, with 100-mile detour. So there's some significant impacts going on. This is a slide that shows you major freight flows in the state. A little old, but I think it gives you a good indication. There is a very strong north-south route that extends from California and Mexico up through Washington and Canada. There's also an east-west route that's very dominant, I-84. And then you can see the connections out to the coastal ports as well as some of the other modes that support the system. Overall, trucking accounts for about 60 to 70% of all freight transport in the state by weight. And if you look at 80,000 pound trucks, the legal limit for trucks in the state, that's roughly half of the freight being transported. A little bit of background on the Oregon economy. Like a lot of other states, we're becoming more service-based. About one-third of the economy is service-based. But historically, resource industries, agriculture, wooden lumber, are now only about 15% of the economy and have lower growth. In contrast, high tech is more recent and high growth. But it's concentrated in selected urban areas. Regionally, about half of the state's total production occurs in the Portland metro area. And if you extend that to the south through the Willamette Valley, you add another 25% of the production value. Portland serves as an end market for the rest of the state, as well as access to external markets. An interesting thing, when we started to look into what is being carried in trucks over 80,000 pounds that would be affected by the weight restrictions on these deteriorating bridges. Where they were produced, you can see from the chart on the left, is predominantly in the Portland area. And a bit in the northeast and southwest corners, where there's some agriculture and logging operations going on. But what's interesting, is if you look at the second chart, in Portland, this production of goods only accounts for a small pie piece of their total economy, whereas other parts of the state, although they may not be significant statewide, locally, goods shipped in these trucks can account for almost half of their local production. So even though they may not affect the state, if they can't ship heavy goods to market, it can affect them quite significantly locally. In terms of using the model to evaluate some of the alternatives, this slide shows how we did that. In the box, you can see a schematic of the model itself. It shows three time periods and how the feedback mechanisms happen. In any one time period, you start out with an economic model that has the relationships between businesses, in terms of goods that they transfer to each other for raw materials, as well as end markets. That leads into a location model where businesses or persons decide where to locate, depending on, in the case of a business, obtaining raw materials efficiently and getting goods to market. Once they decide those locations, there's dollar flows that are happening. Those are transferred into goods or people movement and put into vehicles and assigned to the transport network in the transport model. There's a couple of feedback mechanisms. The cost of transporting goods or people, impacts where to locate your business. And the overall production cost of that location feeds back to the economic model, where businesses might choose to locate out of state if the cost became prohibitive, say. So how do we set this up for the bridge application? First we need to go into the economic model and define for various industries how much of their production was of heavy goods. Then we need to go into the transport model and decide which network links represented bridges that were load-restricted now or in the future. Response was first that businesses could continue to operate using heavy trucks, but they would then be detoured around the weight restrictions. Alternative, they could lighten the load in their truck to avoid those restrictions, but it would require more trucks to move the same amount of goods. In both cases, this increases their costs for shipping and ultimately their cost for production. That, in turn, could affect their location decisions, to reduce costs. They can either relocate within the state or outside of the state. And because we have the connections to other industries, supporting services often followed. So one of the first things we had to do was identify different categories of truck weights, a simplification of the typical axle-based system that Oregon as well as other states use. We started out by restricting bridges to 80,000 pounds, which is the legal limit where no permit is required to transport goods by truck around the state. If bridges continue to deteriorate, we modeled a restriction of 64,000 pounds which was a significant break in the truck weights. The chart shows the various commodities and which weight of trucks they typically moved those goods in, you can see that the -- the really heavy trucks are typically construction types of equipment. Even bridge beams and so forth. Those have special permits. When you get to over 80,000 pounds, there's several more commodities, although it's somewhat dominated by farm and food and lumber. And ores and gravel and so forth. When you get to 64,000 pounds, all types of commodities are being shipped, so much more impact to the economy as a whole. We also needed to look at the operating costs for various trucks. You have the lighter trucks over on the right. And their operating costs. And the left-most column has the costs for the heaviest trucks, up to 80,000 pounds. And if a truck lightened its load, it would have similar operating costs although its pay load and fuel consumption would reduce a little bit. Some of the results we found, there's really two main measures we used to compare results. First shown here was how to represent the economy. And that was in the growth of the production of goods and services over our 25-year modeling period. The bars show results for the various scenarios. The blue bars represent cases where there was no funding increase. The most severe is the top dark blue bar, where we restricted all the way to 64,000 pounds. The red bars indicate where investment was made. Either to fix all the bridges or the bottom bar, which is the recommendation by the DOT, which is significantly less expensive. What you can see is that for the state economy, there is some impact. But what's more pronounced is the impact regionally. The southwest area, which also includes Rogue Valley had quite a bit of impact. There's a lot of bridges there over there. Also impacted was the central part of the state, which is somewhat land-locked from getting into the interstates. Central and lower John Day and south central have some impact. Portland metro shows very little impact. We also wanted to know which industries are being affected. You can see over on the right that the wood industry and the agriculture-industry are really the most severely impacted by the restrictions. And with the most severe restriction, the top bar, just about every industry is impacted. The other key measure that we looked at was impacts locally. And we looked here at the growth in truck daily vehicle miles of travel over our 25-year horizon. We looked at measures of livability, such as how much truck VMT was incurring in urban streets, congested areas, and how much traffic was on unsuitable road segments such as limited passing areas. And then we looked at the State's motor carrier restrictions for oversize vehicles that we didn't want to put too many trucks on. And we looked at growth and vehicle miles traveled on those segments, as well as environmental impacts on sensitive habitat for threatened and endangered species in the state. And overall energy consumption. Just a couple of notes here. You can see that the blue bars where there was no investment certainly had more impact, putting trucks in unsuitable areas. And in terms of the red bars, it was interesting that oftentimes the recommendation, the bottom bar is equal or sometimes even better than the fix-all case, the one above. What this results from is that when all the bridges are fixed, transport costs are lower and businesses tend to have an incentive to buy from further away. So it tends to have more truck travel overall on all roads. Other findings were, without the bridge investment we found that the bridge industry tends to lighten their trucks as opposed to detouring around restrictions. So we ends up with more truck trips overall on the network. Initially, we started with an 80,000-pound restriction, which impacted 30% of the truck tons. We assumed further deterioration impacting 90% pounds of the truck tons. The impact was estimated at $122 billion over the 25-year period. The employment loss that came out of the model was similar to what we've seen in the last couple of years in the recession, moving from 4% unemployment to 8% unemployment. Additionally, we noted safety costs from trucks on local roads that are not built for these sorts of loads and traffic. And additionally, a lot of increased truck miles on unsuitable roads, as I mentioned before. Regionally, most of the impacts were for those already paying high shipping costs, we noted the different industries. Ag and lumber in particular. Additionally, those businesses located centrally in the state were impacted because they have farther to ship in general. So they're already paying higher costs. As I noted before, lower shipping costs tended to decentralize activity due to having longer trips which produce more truck VMT overall. Any investment to improve the state economy, was beneficial. Portland continued to be the marketer link to external state markets. And the regional consequences I mentioned were large urban areas and borders, tend to have an advantage when the transportation system is restricted. Urban areas because they have a way to access a lot of different goods within a short distance. And the border areas, because they had less need to go across Oregon roads to reach markets. Particular locations in the southwest and Rogue Valley had a lot of bridges. What we did find and was significant here, was that fixing interstates alone although it does benefit the state economy, ignores the connections that are required to keep local economies working in central and coastal Oregon. Overall, we found that today, there wasn't really a crisis. But if immediate action is not taken, a future crisis could result with further bridge deterioration. We found it was important to improve routes that were parallel to the interstates, to provide detours for the heavy freight. And the order in which roads were opened or investment was made had an impact on both the regional economy and livability of various locations. A key result out of the study was that ODOT shifted from a worst-first to a corridor approach in fixing the bridges. One deficient bridge impedes the entire corridor. And with this many bridges, you need to really focus on keeping corridors open. ODOT recommended a $2.5 billion initial 10-year strategy to the overall problem. It addresses detour routes before interstate construction. If you look at the chart shown there, which shows the alternatives. The two interstates have significantly more bridges that are cracked than the alternative routes. Overall, the recommendation avoided about 90% of the statewide economic impact. So quite a bit of the benefits was restored. Often, we found that the recommendation had better livability impacts than repairing all the bridges. Here's the stages of the ODOT recommendation. First, Stage1 -- proposed with existing funds of $92 million. And you can see it's not tackling either of the interstates. It's using a north-south and east-west detour using existing funds. Then we jump into Stage 2 that is about six times the dollar value. And we get the whole east-west interstate on I-84 and the first part of I-5. In Stage 3, the second part of I-5 is completed, costing about as much as Stage 2. And that connects us to California. There's a lot of bridges down in that area. The next stage gives access to some of the coastal ports. And inland areas and the final stage does a little bit more of that. So overall, out of this process, some lessons learned. Certainly the model that we used here with its basis of input and output economic connections between businesses was a great tool to evaluate long-distance truck load. The economic-driven model allowed for the transport costs increases to have impacts on the economy and land use and location choice implications. Overall, the model quantified, economic tradeoff and provided valuable perspective to the decision process and was a good way to inform high-profile decisions. We also found that non-technical discussions for many audiences, was important and good visualization was critical.
A little more about the program and where it's at. This recommendation went to the legislature and was approved for a $2.5 billion program in 2003. What we're calling OTIA III. The bulk of the money went for state bridges, with more for local bridges as well as other maintenance and modernization and so forth. I think it sums it up when our governor identified this as the greatest investment in our transportation infrastructure since World War II. On the program status, currently, they've gone back to each bridge individually to give them an environmental and engineering baseline. A key thing was bringing in environmental agencies to participate up front and work with streamlining the environmental process to sort of batch groups, not lighten the regulations, but just batching them so we could get through them more quickly. We've started with Stage 1. There was a ribbon-cutting last week on the first bridge. And that is using existing funds. Stage 2 will begin in 2005 and use the stage 1 as a detour.
Additionally, a program management firm, a consultant, was hired by the DOT to manage the overall program. They're going to manage about 91% of the cost with the additional 9% managed by specific ODOT regions. It's important for this program to coordinate with other projects, such as the STIP, which is ongoing, As well as previous OTIA I and OTIA 2 programs. The idea is not to detour around detours, but instead programs to keep the corridors open. And finally, there's an ongoing evaluation that needs to occur as we get to new stages and updated replace/repair decisions and repackage the programs and reprioritize. So that's what I have today. If you want more information, there is a report on this particular bridge program on the web, as well as what Becky talked about, the Oregon Modeling Improvement Program. Thank you.
J. Seplow:
Thank you, Tara. I'm going to return to this slide after John Hummer's presentation. I know some of you probably wanted to get that web address down. But in the interest of time, I will turn it over to John Hummer right now and then bring it back up to that slide. So our final presentation of the day will be that of John Hummer of the North Jersey Transportation Planning Authority. John, you may begin when you're ready.
J. Hummer:
Okay. Thank you, Jennifer. Good day to all. As Jennifer noted earlier, I work for the North Jersey Transportation Planning Authority, which represents the -- which is the MPO for the northern 13 counties in New Jersey. It is a very dense population region. We have 6 million people in this very tight 13 counties. The entire state of New Jersey would probably fit into one of the southeast Oregon counties you saw on the earlier presentation. Congestion is rampant in our area. We have the largest port and rail intermodal facilities on the east coast of the U.S. and a huge distribution infrastructure, which I'll show you as we progress. The state has confronted and is confronting with the governor an aggressive approach to adopting smart growth policies and strategies. And these, of course, are linking a closer relationship between transportation planning and land use policies and issues. This presentation is about how we have tried to tackle freight transportation issues from the perspective of smart growth while harnessing freight traffic as an engine of economic development. We received a federal grant to study a new approach to handling the land site demand for freight distribution facilities. And linked to traffic moving through the port and rail terminals. And the objective of our study was to link transportation efficiency with local economic development, derived from the movement of foreign and domestic cargo flows through the region's major intermodal facilities while reducing truck VMT through the region. And by being able to both make the system more efficient, handle additional capacity and reduce VMT, we believe that we're enhancing the port and the general region's ability to sustain itself as a major entry point into the global market. We view freight movement as a major economic tool. Major economic element. The tri-state New York and New Jersey and Connecticut metropolitan region is the largest consumption market on earth. And the movement of freight through this market generates a demand for advanced distribution facilities capable of performing value-added services. This is a market linked through expansion of trade through the port. What it raises is a conundrum, especially in our municipality, that it has an old industrial base that has long since fled the state. Many of the municipalities have a strategy to adopt essentially a retail development as part of their economic strategy. But what's true is that New Jersey is the most mall state in the country. It has -- we have each new mall that is developed actually browns out economically the one that was built last year, down the road. So we have built two possibilities. Here's your scenario, hitch your wagon to the projecting growth of the port and international feeding the tri-state, mid-Atlantic, New England markets and national markets. Traffic moving through the port. On the left is the mastodon representing the old mall approach, retail environmental approach strategy and on the right is an example of the modern planned unit development distribution facility. Some are calling that global trade villages, there are a lot of names for it, whether you're in Europe or in other locations. But the idea is to have a distribution center that is complementary, where many activities take place. Including not only distribution but banking, finances, food services, et cetera. A planned unit development is almost a mini distribution city all into itself. This is a slide that was produced by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. And it shows a robust level of trade growth through the port. The blue and red bands on this graph are actually projected growth rates, depending on channel depth and the harbor. Currently, the port is dredging down to a 50-foot channel depth, which will allow it to handle mega shifts, very, very large shifts that are currently active in the Asian trade. Therefore that blue line represents a blue range growth scenario. But already in the year 2003, we are at 4 million TEUs, 20-foot equivalent container units. And as you can see, even under the most robust circumstances, the port projected that we wouldn't be hitting those kinds of numbers until the latter part of this decade. What will be driving the port grove is -- and what is eventually forecasted to take place, once we dredge our harbor channels down to 50 feet, as I said, to accommodate the larger shifts is that there will be somewhat of a trade lane shift. As everyone knows, most of the world's goods are produced in Asia, increasingly in China. China has now perhaps 60% of all of the Asian production market. It is growing by leaps and bounds. And what we are -- what our consultants are forecasting. And these are the same consultants working for the port of New York and New Jersey, is that there will be a trade lane shift, whereby shippers, shipping goods to first world markets Europe and the United States and North America, will take a route through the Suez Canal. That offers a lot of the advantages if you're making widgets and you're shipping by volume. You've hit two first world markets on your move, your shipping move. And so therefore, we are forecast -- we have a great deal of confidence in the forecast that the traffic will grow over time. This is a slide that shows that the port is growing as a gateway to the national market. It is again capturing more and more traffic from all over the world. Not just historic European trade base. The distribution markets indicated by all those DOTs on the map are actually where concentrations of the port traffic move to the inland area. One thing that one should note is that once you get to distances beyond, say, 300 miles, 300 to 400 miles, those are railable distances. And as we say, the port is going to become more and more of a gateway port to the whole North American market. Therefore, shipping its cargo over longer distances. And that offers an intermodal opportunity to move these goods by rail to the interland rail markets. I should also add that the port serves southern Canada, Ontario, and Quebec. Also serves a lot of the mid-Atlantic. And it is reaching really destinations all over the North American continent. This is a slide that finally takes us to the region itself. The yellow area is the area of the metropolitan planning organization, the NJTPA. But it shows you the context in which our region is placed. That is, the tri-state New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, and even Philadelphia market. That line there, that circular line is a 75-mile radius. And that -- from the port of New York and New Jersey. And as you can see, it takes us right through downtown Philadelphia. Out to the outer reaches of Long Island. And to the southern Connecticut counties and the lower Hudson Valley counties of New York and the upper counties of New Jersey. It's a very dense region. The red is the -- is basically the rail infrastructure, the green are the major highways, numerous roads, far too dense to even appear on this graphic here.
This is an important slide. This slide shows really essentially what the problem is. And that is, it's -- we asked our consultant, who did this market analysis for us, to show us the cost distribution rings from the Port of New York to move a truck over that distance. The various colorations there are essentially cost rings to move the traffic to that location. Increasingly, the warehousing that is taking place, is that is growing to serve the metropolitan region is taking place in the Pennsylvania area over the New Jersey border, around Bethlehem and Pennsylvania. What that entails, therefore, is huge truck VMT. We have trucks moving from the port out towards Pennsylvania and down into southern New Jersey. And then the warehousing event takes place. And then the goods are redistributed from that peripheral area back to the huge population base of the region. Two-thirds of which lie east of the Hudson River. That is, two thirds of the major metropolitan market lies in New York City, Long Island, Connecticut, and the Hudson counties of New York. And that -- by the way, that previous slide also demonstrates that another issue that has occurred as of January of this year, and that is the new national rules for trucking hours of service. As you know, truckers are now continuously on the clock from the moment they turn on the ignition to the last time they turn off the ignition. They cannot log off their books when they are making a delivery to a warehouse. Therefore, they're actually in a very dense region like this, with multiple deliveries. It's going to entail probably more trucking to make the same amount of deliveries because truckers simply can't tie themselves up, unloading pallets of cargo in the back of a warehouse. They are continually on the clock. And they must return to the terminal by the end of the shift. This is a slide that shows -- this and the next slide shows essentially the evolution of the warehousing industry. It used to be goods came in through the port. It went through a container terminal. They then went to a public warehouse. Maybe they stayed in storage there. Eventually they went to market. But the new paradigm of logistics is that the goods you are handling are like hot potatoes. You continually move them to markets. When you free yourself with the cargo you're handling, you can take payment for the services you provided. And then it goes on to the next person. So everybody wants to take payment. Everybody wants to move goods in a timely fashion. That, of course, has led to just in time delivery and other kinds of technological innovations, which -- and ultimately, a new paradigm for warehousing, which you see in this slide. And essentially, cutting out middlemen. Cutting out middle warehousing operations. The goods go directly to a warehouse, where distribution and value-added activities take place. And then to a mall, directly to a store, or even by ups truck to your home. If you've ordered something through amazon.com. I want to take a moment to explain what value-added services are. Value-added services are the kinds of things where goods come in through a port. It allows to take advantage of tariff regulations. It allows tax on a lower rate if complete. But it includes minor assembly, labor, packaging, something called kiting. And those kinds of jobs are done in the value-added warehouse. And essentially, the goods are manipulated and moved out on their journey to the consumer.
This slide here shows an example of some warehouses that have sprung up around the Port of LA and Long Beach. These warehousing operations are very, very efficient. And are job-rich environments. As I said, they have a number of different kinds of jobs in sight there. Everything from computer fulfillment to value-added assembling and packaging. But one other thing, they are aesthetically designed and planned so they are more acceptable to the local communities. That is a very important thing. Modern warehousing is not just four walls and a roof. It is something that is a very advanced logistics operation. And it is designed such that it can be acceptable -- an acceptable partner to the local community environment. This slide here shows in a graphic way, the job-rich environment that takes place in modern warehousing, as you move from the old static warehouse that goods sat on a shelf for six months or longer to the very rapid turnover of goods in the modern, value-added and distribution-type warehouses. And the kinds of jobs you see right here are the kinds of jobs you'll find in there. And therefore, they are actually labor intensive. I could point to a warehouse on the New Jersey turnpike that is operated by Barnes and Noble. That warehouse serves the New York-New Jersey metropolitan market. When you order something from the Barnes and Noble website, you're ordering a CD or whatever, it's packaged there immediately, sent off in shrink wrap by UPS delivery. Inside that facility are 800 jobs, working 24/7. The Asians call the modern distribution scenario "the string of pearls." A lot of Asian ports refer to this. And this is just their graphic and a schematic that shows what the string of pearls is, the modern logistics network. And by way of example, the top of the slide shows the port of New York and New Jersey. And then the pearls on the slide are the various marshaling and distribution and value-added facilities as well as the major transportation facilities such as a rail yard or a trucking firm that is moving the goods to market. The string is the infrastructure. It is the infrastructure that we as MPOs and states and Federal and FHWA provide. It is the roadways. It is the rail infrastructure. But more than that, it is also information systems, intelligent transportation systems and other kinds of information architecture that are absolutely vital to the distribution of goods and rapid flow of goods, efficiently through our markets. So what we're trying to do here in northern New Jersey is to follow this paradigm and begin to see that our infrastructure investments are essentially the string that will support pearls of economic and distribution activity in the movement of freight traffic to market. This is a general strategy to lower truck VMT and to aid the port by providing the kinds of distributions facilities that it needs near the port. And you'll see that a typical planned unit development can take place on as few as 50 acres and perhaps might max out at around 150 acres. It would be a phased development, kind of warehousing development. Do you recall the slide I showed earlier that shows numerous kinds of operations or numerous kinds of subset activity in the planned unit development? It can employ anywhere from 500 workers to 3,000 workers. Again, its job-rich environment could involve food service, banking, white collar activities, not to mention the other kinds of distribution activities that we've talked about. The really fortunate and large PUD will move 100,000 to 250,000 TEUs per year and its activity will be involved with weight distribution. Drop-by shipping and business to business and business to consumer types of distribution activities. This is a slide that attempts to again, get a handle on, as our port traffic grows, you'll recall the previous slide I showed that shows that upward trend of traffic in the coming years. What will be the demand for new acreage to handle these new kinds of distribution activities. What you see here are essentially acreage demands over time to approximately the year 2040. And again, the acreage demands are really not huge when you're talking about doubling and tripling and even quadrupling the numbers of containers presently moving through the port. And of course, arriving to our region, transcontinentally through west ports. Taking all of that into consideration, with centers such as planned unit developments, overall acreage demands over, say, 40 years, might be a total of 1400 acres. So you say, gee, 1400 acres in northern New Jersey? It's not as if northern New Jersey has wild forests and everything around it. We are the -- the state of New Jersey is actually more densely populated than the country of India. So where do you find this acreage? This slide tells you where you find the acreage. It's brownfields. Old industrial sites that have become fallow over time. They are underutilized or abandoned industrial sites. Sometimes they have certain levels of contamination on them. Others are actually relatively and surprisingly not so contaminated. But what this slide -- this is a complex slide and I want to take a moment to just go through it. And I think we're still pretty much on target here in terms of our time. This is the good news slide. The yellow parcels here are essentially brownfield sites, just north of the port. You'll see down in the lower left of the port, the port Newark area. The red line is a series of new infrastructure projects that the state of New Jersey has undertaken. It's called portway. And what it is actually a number of projects, rehabilitation of bridges, upgrading of roadway infrastructure. Essentially from one lane to two lanes each direction. Capable of handling overweight containers. And what it does -- and I'm going to use the pointer here for the first time. Is it connects the port down here, along a dedicated or semi dedicated truck roadway that will move from the port up to the major intermodal rail yards. This is the Kearny, which is the major CSX region in ours. It is also the terminal traffic yard for traffic coming from LA Long Beach. American President Lines has a whole facility that's part of this. The infrastructure continues along, crosses the Hackensack River and goes on up to another rail facility, operated by Norfolk Southern and the other big class 1 railroad in our area. And that is called Crosston Yard. And it is right in here. What we are saying is that along this route, you're moving goods from the port to possible inland distribution. There are sites in between where warehousing and distribution activities can take place. The blue line you see around this whole area is essentially what we're kind of identifying as an economic development zone. We're saying to the local communities, hitch your wagon to the upward growth of the port. The continuing upward demand for products and services to be put out in the port, to be moved through the port and to market. And therefore, here are the places that are going to give you jobs for the local urban work force. And we have the very dense cities of Newark and Jersey City and Elizabeth and other nearby urban areas. All the meeting jobs. We're saying that you cannot only provide jobs but you're going to get new tax rebates off of properties that are currently fallow. So I'm moving towards the end of my presentation now. Essentially, what we're talking about is -- what we've identified some criteria for the kinds of sites and locations we're looking for. We want these sites to be capable of being linked to the port's maritime and container terminals by weight-unrestricted and preferable dedicated or semi dedicated roadways, that would be the portway infrastructure that you saw. Remember I referred to a string of pearls. The portway is essentially a string. It's going to have new intelligence transportation system architecture and information systems put in as well. Direct access to a network of interstate highways. Right adjacent to that whole area are major interstate highways, I-95, I-78. I-80. Those are all some of the major highways nearby. This whole area, any site can be -- can become part of a foreign trade zone. The foreign trade zone offers the opportunity for people who want to do value-added services an opportunity to do those services without having to pay taxes on the upgraded products that take place therein. Essentially, the products that are in the FTZ warehouse do not enter the economy until they leave the loading dock. So this entire area is actually part of a foreign trade zone. It's called the disjointed foreign trade zone. It doesn't have to be all continuous. The FTZ is operated by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey is managed by them. So a warehouse located on any of those sites that I showed you on the previous slide can apply for FTZ status. Location makes possible rapid unloading of containers in the immediate return of the containers to the container yard. Why is that important? Well, right now, we have a lot of container cemeteries in our area. They're the residue of traffic coming from the west coast. But also in our own port, the goods are delivered. Then, since the U.S. is not exporting very much, essentially, it costs a lot of money to move that container back to China. By rail then port in LA then by ship. So shippers are not wanting to pay that cost. Good news is that recently, China is such a hot economy, they've run into shortages of steel. They can't produce enough steel. And that means that they can't produce marine containers at the rate they used to. So what's happening is suddenly these containers are being shipped back to China because it costs too much now to actually build them. It used to be cheaper to build a container than it was to return it back to source.
Next slide. Some more of the criteria. We, again, by location and by design, the new warehousing and logistics infrastructure has to be convenient for use by business to business and business to consumer package freight distribution. Newark airport is a huge FedEx terminal. We also have the largest UPS terminal in the United States, right near the port. Also the largest postal handling facility in the United States is also in the New Jersey Meadowlands. So these are the kinds of operations that can move goods rapidly from business to business, business to consumer. Again, time is important. Moving the products in a timely, time-definite way is very, very important. Accessible to inbound domestic inbound production units, railways and terminals allow inputs into that final finishing process, whether it's cellophane for wrapping, cardboard for packaging, et cetera. We have -- and we also, of course, are saying that the modern warehouse is a job-rich environment. And it must have access to a two-tiered labor pool. One that is semi skilled or unskilled that can do the basic warehousing functions, but also a more skilled work force that can do the computer fulfillment, manage books and finance books, et cetera. The kind of complex that a planned unit development would offer. So does New Jersey have that? It has all of the above.
Finally, I think my last slide, these are our recommendations to the state of New Jersey. Should be working with the Port Authority to essentially land bank property to make it be made available. Two - developers who want to locate businesses close to the port and this integrated economic development program should be seen as a single revenue producing project similar to the Alameda Corridor in the west. We're looking for ways to revenue streams not only tax rateables, but other ways to recover costs of infrastructure investment. And that concludes my presentation. Thank you, everybody.
J. Seplow:
Thank you, John. And I hope everybody found all of these presentations interesting. Again, as I mentioned before, the PowerPoints that were used for these presentations will be available in the next few days on the freight planning website. And I will send out an e-mail when those are available. I will jump back to Tara's slide, as I promised so you can get to the websites. And then I'll start with some of the questions that were typed in. I'll start with the questions for Becky and Tara. So we'll jump back to their presentation and then move on to the questions for John. The first question we have is what role did the Oregon freight advisory committee have in the development of the model?
T. Weidner:
Well, the model, as we mentioned in the presentation, the modeling program has been around for about nine years. And the freight advisory committee is a newly-formed committee. And this time they're not focusing on that part of their program. They're looking at bridges. And we haven't discussed what role, if any, they will have in the modeling program itself.
J. Seplow:
Thank you. The next question is also for Becky and Tara. And actually, there's two questions that are similar, so I'm going to read both of them and let you answer them. The first question is truck cargo could also have been shifted to another mode. Was that alternative considered? And then the second question, which is similar, is has the state of Oregon looked at putting more money into rail or barge to keep trucks off of the road system?
T. Weidner:
This is Tara. I'll answer the first part. I'm glad someone asked because in the interest of time, we hadn't gone into alternate modes. The good news is that water and rail do account for, you know, about 15% of the traffic in the state. So there is infrastructure in the state. And additionally, we're talking about heavy freight, which typically goes by these modes as well. Initially, it might be a good match. When you do start to look at it and scratch the surfaces a bit more and look at the appendix of the report, the specific OD. markets that the existing rail system and barge systems surge so it's very limiting. We looked into some of these particular commodities and places that might improvement. And there does seem to be some places where infrastructure could be built to support alternate modes. But it wasn't going to make a huge impact. Not going to decrease. We certainly had to continue to support our roads as well as talk about some alternatives. So that is in the report and -- it is being considered to some degree. I don't think as much as it might have. I don't know. Do you guys want to chime in a bit more?
B. Knudson:
No, I don't have anything to add. And to address the funding question, I don't have an answer. I don't really understand what the investment strategy is.
It's really for rail is a large market. It goes from Seattle to LA. and so it's looking at times there and how to improve that. And some of the tunnels are too short and so forth. There are infrastructure improvements special I think they need to be triggered by the private rail industry and we haven't heard that as much as we might have.
J. Seplow:
Thank you. The next question is were you able to identify the impacts of the highway bridge investment on non-highway freight modes?
T. Weidner:
I guess my response would be not quantitatively. The model that we are working with now has limited multimodal abilities on freight. We are looking on more capabilities in that regard. We weren't able to quantify it other than looking at particular markets, particular OD pairs, particular commodities that might improve with facilities. In fact, some of these existed but in the past decade, trucks have come in with lower costs. So some of these facilities have been outdated or taken down and not used. So we weren't able to quantify. But there were some opportunities but not enough to make a huge -- you know, divert us from the need to improve bridges on the freeways.
J. Seplow:
Thank you. Well, we'll now move on to some questions for John Hummer. And after we get to that, we'll open up the phone lines. John, how closely does the North Jersey Planning Authority work with the Philadelphia MPO, which also has a well coordinated regional freight program?
J. Hummer:
We try to work closely with our sisters. The DVRPC, the one in Philadelphia, and also the New York Metropolitan Transportation Council, representing New York City and its surrounding counties. The DVRPC has an exemplary freight community down there. Very, very active freight advisory infrastructure. They not only encompass the southeast Pennsylvania area around Philadelphia, but several of the counties in New Jersey. And this -- New Jersey is a giant through state. I mean, traffic moves up and down the state. As I said, it's a small state. And so really freight traffic involves essentially the need to coordinate between MPOs in terms of our strategies to work closely with our state DOT in a coordinated way. And currently, there are a number of state-level activities including the preparation of a state -- freight master plan, that are being conducted with close participation of the DVRPC and the NJTPA.
J. Seplow:
Thank you. Next question is understanding the container increases and volumes in New York and New Jersey and the aggressive plans that have you outlined to improve efficiency, how do you plan to incorporate into this process of expansion and development?
J. Hummer:
We've had an extensive community outreach program throughout our brownfield initiative. We've met with mayors, with local community groups. We've met with builders and developers. We've met with trucking companies. We've had a very extensive community outreach. Many communities, as I'm sure many people are aware of, are not terribly friendly to the idea of truck traffic moving into their or near their residential areas. That's a big problem throughout this entire tri-state metro area. But what's true is that the brownfield areas that I've identified on some of the maps in some of the areas that we're looking at are in wholly industrial zones. Is that is, there is no residential development right near that -- those areas, although some areas, there may be some minor residential development. We're very much attune to the idea of environmental justice. But the flip side of environmental justice is economic justice. Where are you creating jobs for working-class people? And how can -- how can the urban work force get to those jobs? If you're creating warehousing and distribution facilities on the far periphery of the region, which is not a dense population area, the urban work force just simply cannot get to those jobs. It can get to the jobs by mass transit that are located nearby. So we try to carefully balance not only the environmental concerns of the community but also the economic aspirations of the community.
J. Seplow:
Okay. The next question is for you, John, as well. Have truck costs been compared to rail costs?
J. Seplow:
Yes. And I think some part of that is with fuel costs rising, how does that affect everything? Well, it's obvious that those cost rings I showed you, become ever more, you know, sharp in the thinking of distribution managers. Not only do they have to comply with hours of service. But the cost of their operations fuel the cost of labor, et cetera, are only rising. So, inevitably, in a dense region like ours, the final delivery to store or to consumer is a truck move. But when one considers that our distribution entails a very broad geographic area beyond our region, increasingly, we are looking to move those goods intermodally by rail. Rail is near more efficient. Railroads magnitude more efficient. Railroads will tell you they can't move goods cost effectively in under 300 to 400 miles. But we're actually looking at ways in talking with the railroads to see if we can't move the diameter of that distribution ring by rail closer into the 200-mile or even less. We're even talking about short distance, spread trains to specific locations of warehousing and distribution. So that's, you know, that's the scenario. The more the fuel costs and labor costs rise, the more efficient and intermodal solution.
J. Seplow:
It looks like a follow-on question was just typed for that. Has travel through the Suez Canal been considered?
J. Hummer:
Yes, as I pointed on that previous slide, travel is being considered by the Suez Canal. As many people know, the huge ships that are currently plying the pacific are 6,000 and 8,000 TEU ships, 20-foot equivalent container ships. Those ships are too large to transit the Panama Canal. Panama Canal wants to expand capacity, widen its locks to accommodate bigger ships. Other thing that happened on the west coast, there was a docker strike. The longshoremen strike a year ago or so. And that began to, you know, people began to say, we can't put all of our eggs in the LA Long Beach basket. We have to find ways to move to both coasts. And the Suez Canal is an obvious solution to that. However, one has to be open-eyed to conditions in the Middle East. Hopefully they settle down at some point. Then the trans-Suez route again offers access to two first world markets in one shipping move.
J. Seplow:
Thank you. The next question that we have is in reference to the portway improvement plan. What is the total cost for this project? Does it include rail and highway improvements? And what is the projected source of funding?
J. Hummer:
Well, the overall cost of the portway program, which is a number of discrete projects along that line of projects I showed on the map, is approaching $750 million to $1 billion. Recently, we participated with the state DOT in something called the portway extensions concept developments study. Where we are now looking at extending portway type infrastructure, upgraded roadway, information systems, and transportation systems. In other directional radii from the port to the south of the port moving down towards the Philadelphia area. To the immediate east of the port to new area that's going to open on the New York harbor called the military terminal ocean at Bayonne, where there are several hundred acres that are probably going to be developed into a port. So we are looking at different areas of that. The funding source is mainly through the state trust funds. There is some mix of federal funding through the MPO onto the roadway and bridge proposals. But some of it right now is in engineering and project development stage. Other projects are actually on the ground being built right now. So it's kind of a mix of funds. The state is taking the lead.
J. Seplow:
Thank you. We have two more questions typed in here for you. To what weighted rate, nine ton, 10 ton, et cetera, will the dedicated freight way be built?
J. Hummer:
Well, street legally in our area, 80,000 pounds for container is kind of the street legal weight. But what happens overseas is that goods are packed mostly into 40-foot containers, which is the equivalent of two TEUs, two 20-foot equivalents. And the shippers on the other side use the entire cube of the box, whether it's TV sets or electronic widgets or toys or whatever. They use the entire cubit of box. Because they don't have basically the same kind of overweight restrictions we have here. So what happens is the container gets here, and it's often overweight. And it needs to go to a nearby transloading warehouse, where the goods can be transloaded into street legal containers for movement further on in the logistics chain. So the immediate portway infrastructure is being designed -- the infrastructure is stunting between the port and rail terminals is being designed to handle overweight containers. I don't know what the upward poundage limit is on that. But it is being designed to handle the overweight roadways and bridges. But what we're saying is that the opportunity to do that warehousing event can take place on the brownfield sites along that route. And furthermore, as long as you're transloading, you might as well do the value-added and other distribution activities as well.
J. Seplow:
Okay. I'll read one more question that was typed in and then we'll open up the phone lines. Last question that's typed in is if 10 trucks bring full containers to a distribution center, how many trucks would be required to take those same goods out of the center?
J. Hummer:
Do you want me to answer that? Yes. All right. Well, what happens is, you know, the 18-wheeler, your standard, big 18-wheeler arrives at a distribution center. And maybe some of the goods in that container or that big truck trailer are destined for northern New Jersey. Others are destined for New York City or Long Island. So they are redistributed into trucks that, you know, will make those deliveries. Often multiple deliveries. The new -- the distribution route may entail dropoffs at several locations. One example is Johnson & Johnson. They talked about -- they distribute essentially health aids. And the guy says, you don't deliver an 18-wheeler of band-aids to a store. You develop a pallet or two, which involves several distribution events. So different size trucks are involved in moving goods to market. Some of them are 18-wheelers. Others are UPS-sized delivery vans. In the Manhattan market, probably most of the trucking that takes place is of the smaller variety to navigate the fairly narrow streets.
J. Seplow:
Thank you. We probably have enough time to take one or two questions over the phone lines. So at this point, let's open up the phone lines for questions.
Operator:
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, if you would like to register a question, please press the 1, followed by the 4 on your telephone. You will hear a three-tone prompt to acknowledge your request. Your line will then be accessed from the conference to obtain information. If your question has been answered and you would like to withdraw your registration, please press the 1, followed by the 3. If you are using a speaker phone, please lift your handset before asking your request. One moment, please, for the first question. Miss Seplow, we have no questions at this time.
J. Seplow
Okay. Well, at this point if nobody has any other questions, I think we'll bring this -- I'm sorry?
J. Hummer:
I did receive -- I did see one question directed to me regarding port security. And I -- if you would like, I could probably address that right now. I just want to say a couple of things. There is no region on planet earth that is more attuned to security than the New York-New Jersey metro region after the 9 /11 events that took place right outside the window I'm sitting in here. And port security is obviously a big, big issue. And as is becoming more security and safety aware and redundancy aware for all transportation planning agencies at the state level, at the MPO, county and city and municipal, et cetera. Port security is a big issue. You've heard senators and congressmen talking about it. Currently, you know, maybe only 2% of containers are actually physically examined at the ports. And containers that are examined are either coming from locations that are deemed to be not terribly safe or secure. Or they have other intelligence on those containers that makes them want to examine them. We're working with a number of state agencies, police agencies, and others trying to identify security issues in our region. We're working with the port on these same issues. The information being developed is, you know, as you can imagine, proprietary and secure. But we're looking to enhance redundancy in our planning. We're looking to increase the level of inspections at inbound locations, such as port and rail terminals. And of course, transportation system securities is a big, big issue throughout our entire region as it is anywhere in the nation.
J. Seplow:
Thank you. And actually, Becky or Tara, if you have anything to add in closing, please feel free to do so.
B. Knudson/T. Weidner:
I don't think so.
J. Seplow:
Okay. Well, at this point, I think we'll bring this seminar to a close. And I do thank everybody for attending, Becky, Tara, and John, I thank you each for interesting presentations. The recordings for this seminar will be available in the next few days on the Talking Freight website. Again, I'll send out an e-mail to let you know when that is available and the transcript as well, also asking for feedback. The next seminar will be held on June 16th. It is entitled Perspectives from Freight Transportation Providers: Ports and Shipping Lines. We'll have speakers from two ports, from the world shipping organization, and a representative from a shipping line. If you haven't done so already, I encourage you to visit the Talking Freight website and sign up for this one as well as future seminars. I also encourage you to join the freight planning listserv if you have not done so already. And the address for that is up on the screen. Thank you, everybody. And enjoy your day.
Operator:
Ladies and gentlemen, that does conclude the conference call for today. We thank you for your participation and ask that you please disconnect your line.
