Trillion-dollar drag

Trillion-dollar drag Transportation system performance hurts productivity, chamber says.

   Inefficient transportation infrastructure causes a $1 trillion drag on the U.S. economy, according to a new study from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
   The performance of the transportation network across all modes improved 6 percent from 1990 to 2008, but did not keep pace with the growth of the U.S. population (22 percent), passenger travel (39 percent) and freight traffic (27 percent), the business federation said. The ability of transportation infrastructure to support the economy significantly declined during the last five years, it said.
   The Transportation Performance Index measured the supply of transportation, quality and safety of service, and capacity for future growth. The index increased slightly to 51.24 in 2008, but shows a clear downward trend from 2003 to 2008.
   The decline is underscored by a street collapse in Hoboken, N.J., this fall. Officials said that it could take up to a month to fix the 50-foot by 15-foot cave-in.
   Businesses have built that inefficiency into their operations by avoiding congested routes, adding more tucks to deliver the same amount of goods, making deliveries at off-peak hours, implementing flexible work schedules and using information technology to reduce shipping requirements. Logistics professionals say that working around transportation challenges amounts to an indirect tax and that their companies are willing to pay user fees if dedicated to improving transportation networks.
   A 10-point improvement in the new index could generate 3 percent more growth in the gross domestic product, according to the chamber.