Multi-State Freight Transportation Organizations (2001)

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Multi-State Freight Transportation Organizations 1-1 1.0 Introduction 1.1 RESEARCH NEED Freight transportation trips often involve multiple modes and routes that cross several states. To move efficiently, freight movement—regional, national, and global—must cross jurisdictional boundaries with as few impediments as possible. To make it possible to plan and invest to assure reliable freight trips, multi-state freight organizations are needed, especially where the costs of freight improvements are borne by a single state, but benefits accrue to several states. Existing organizations such as the I-95 Corridor Coalition have considerable experience conducting analyses of highway, rail, and maritime freight movement but are not constituted to plan and implement a capital improvement program or coordinate operations for its member states. Proposed freight initiatives such as the I-70 Corridor of the Future project, which would create a four-state truck highway between Ohio and Missouri, may require a multi-state freight organization that can represent the constituent state departments of transportation (DOTs), metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs), and private sector freight carriers to construct and operate the specialized truck lanes. AASHTO and the Freight Stakeholders Coalition have proposed the establishment of multi-state freight organizations along freight corridors and across economic freightsheds “that will make it possible to plan and invest in projects where costs are concentrated in a single state but benefits are distributed among multiple states.” The need for multi-state freight organizations may be accelerated if reauthorization of the national surface transportation program mandates multi-state freight plans and organizations as a condition of federal participation in funding freight transportation projects of national and regional significance. 1.2 RESEARCH OBJECTIVE The Transportation Research Board, though it’s National Cooperative Freight Research Program (NCFRP), commissioned a study of “Institutional Arrangements for Freight Transportation Systems,” which was published as NCFRP Report 2 in 2009.1 1 NCFRP Report 2, Institutional Arrangements for Freight Transportation Systems, Transportation Research Board, Washington, DC, 2009. That study identified “successful and promising institutional arrangements for improving freight movement, now and in the future” and provided guidelines for developing freight transportation

Multi-State Freight Transportation Organizations 1-2 organizations based on the lessons learned from existing organizations. The report examined 36 organizations, which were classified into three general types as summarized in Table 1.1. Table 1.1 Institutional Types Type I Type II Type III • Information Sharing • Consensus Building • Education • Increased Visibility & Awareness • Overcoming Distrust and Competitive Barriers • General Advocacy • Project Evaluation • Project Prioritization • Project Selection and Funding • Consensus Building at Project Level • Focused Advocacy • Leveraged Additional Funds • Project Implementation • Design and Construction • Obtain Environmental Approvals • Managing Financial and Schedule Risks • Construction Oversight • Debt Service Payments • Negotiate Partnership Agreements Source: NCFRP Report 2, Institutional Arrangements for Freight Transportation Systems, Transportation Research Board, Washington, DC, 2009 Among the key findings of the study was the conclusion that no multi-state organizations exist with the necessary authority and capacity to carry out a long- term program of freight planning and investment. Most multi-state transportation organizations were Type I institutions, focused on planning and consensus building to influence project prioritization, but with little capacity to implement improvements or coordinate operations. The few multi-state organizations set up as Type III institutions were interstate compacts involving only two states and focused on specific transportation facilities rather than freight corridors or freightsheds. The study reported that multi-state freight organizations faced three major challenges: • Lack of mandate. Of the existing multi-state freight organizations, relatively few have a definitive mandate. Many are ad hoc arrangements meant to address short-comings and gaps in established agency or industry functions. As such they lack dedicated funding and staffing. As a result, many organizations must devote considerable time and effort to justify their existence, role, and expenditures. Examples include MPO-level freight committees, which have been difficult to sustain because MPOs are perceived as having mandates to address highways, transit, and congestion management, but neither mandated nor funded to address freight issues. • Mismatch of scope. Freight organizations have failed because the scope and scale of their geographic and jurisdictional coverage did not match actual freightsheds and economic blocs. For example, relatively few of the early freight-oriented Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS)/ Commercial Vehicle Operations (CVO) corridor programs have survived, in large part

Multi-State Freight Transportation Organizations 1-3 because they spanned jurisdictions and economic regions that did not have compelling mutual interests. • Insufficient funding. Organizations focused on policy and planning functions often operate on shoestring budgets with limited staff support. They serve an advisory role but their influence can be transitory and highly dependent on the willingness of their political administrators to make use of their advice. Few have the financial capacity to implement capital projects or participate in traffic management operations on behalf of freight movements. The objective of the current study is to examine and suggest potential approaches to establish multi-state freight organizations that can develop and implement long-term investment plans. Emphasis is placed on the legal and financial requirements as well as the composition, structure, and decision-making facets of the organization. 1.3 RESEARCH APPROACH The research approach for this study involved the following steps: • Identify and research existing multi-state organizations. Sixty-five multi- state organizations were identified and researched. The organizations included institutions identified in NCFRP Report 2 as well as other non- transportation, but multi-state, institutions that might provide informative models for development of multi-state freight organizations. The organizations are listed in Section 2.1. • Summarize key characteristics and identify potential models for multi- state organizations. Each organization was reviewed to identify its roles and responsibilities and its legal structure. What was the organization’s mandate? Did its roles and responsibilities cover policy, planning, and advocacy (e.g., a Type I or Type II institution) or did they also include responsibility for programming, funding, and implementation of capital projects? Was the organization capable of developing and implementing long-range plans? What was the underlying legal structure for the organization? What level of effort was required to create the organization? What did it take to sustain and modify it over time as freight transportation needs changed? What were the organization’s sources of funding? From this analysis, three models were identified for further review. The analysis of the existing multi-state models is described in Sections 2.2 and 2.3. • Analyze key legal and financial issues. The legal structure of the three organizational models that seemed to best meet the needs of multi-state freight organizations were analyzed in further detail. The analysis identified the legal foundations for the organizations (e.g., federal or state law), their governance structure, and their sources of funding. The analysis also examined the experience of organizations set up according to these models: How effective had they been? What legal and political constraints shaped

Multi-State Freight Transportation Organizations 1-4 them? Are the lessons learned transferable to new multi-state freight organizations? The legal analysis is documented in Section 3. • Describe a potential approach to establish a multi-state freight corridor organization. The final work step was to describe a model for multi-state freight organizations, outlining the legal foundation, roles and responsibilities, composition, organizational structure, and decision-making processes. The conclusions take into consideration what could be accomplished within current federal and state law, and what could be accomplished through changes in federal and state law, including new legislation. The conclusions are reported in Section 4. 1.4 ORGANIZATION OF REPORT The remainder of the report is organized as follows: • Section 2, Identifying Key Characteristics of Existing Multi-State Organizations, summarizes a review of the existing organizations and identifies three potential models for further legal review; • Section 3, Understanding the Legal Framework of Multi-State Freight Organizations, provides an analysis of the legal and financial framework of three potential models for a multi-state freight transportation organization; and • Section 4, Developing a Successful Multi-State Freight Organization, outlines a potential approach to establish a multi-state freight transportation organization.