Lake Michigan service looks to convert cargo from trucks to ships

Logistics firm Supply Chain Solutions will launch a shipping route across Lake Michigan that will divert an estimated one million semi-truck trailers off northwest highways and onto vessels, the company said in a statement Wednesday.    Lake Michigan will become the access point for a new cross-lake shipping route from Wisconsin to Michigan, according to a statement from third-party logistics provider Supply Chain Solutions.
    The Chicago-based firm was awarded the opportunity to launch the first marine highway designation on Lake Michigan and officially announced the endeavor at the Rail Supply Chain Summit in Chicago this week.
   The company is pitching the maritime route across Lake Michigan as a more efficient alternative than sending semi-trailer trucks through Chicago’s congestion, as the shipping route could potentially eliminate one million semi-trailers annually from Northwest Indiana Highways, according to company estimates.
   Rail Supply Chain Summit founder Mary Elisabeth Pitz said the route “has the potential to greatly reduce the amount of truck traffic on the Borman Expressway passing through Northwest Indiana while en route from Michigan to Wisconsin, or vice versa,” according to a report from the Northwest Indiana Times. 
   The route would be operational at the end of summer and restore intermodal service to the Port of Milwaukee. Lake vessels that can travel up to 17 knots per hour and a cargo capacity of 104 TEUs would carry containers directly across the width of Lake Michigan, instead of south and all the way around the southern shore, said the Northwest Indiana Times.
   “According to our modeling, there will be significant cost-savings,” said Supply Chain Solutions CEO Leslie G. Brand III.