fastlane
Shaky platforms
BY THE TIME MANY OF YOU READ THIS, THE COUNTRY WILL
have chosen its next president. Leading up to this, we’ve heard a
tremendous amount of rhetoric from each major candidate about the
Mideast, the economy, oil, jobs, and other issues that are critical to the
country’s future. But we’ve heard little, if anything, about their plans
to address the nation’s deteriorating transportation infrastructure.
It is difficult to imagine that anyone in this country wouldn’t be
concerned about the issue. Our river dams and locks are old and
craft in flight is 50 years old, but we are more concerned about seats coming loose on airplanes.
Fixing the problems won’t be cheap. The
Congressional Budget Office has estimated that we
need to spend an additional $20 billion annually
just to maintain the current, inadequate system.
That sounds like a staggering sum until you consider the alternative. The American Society of Civil
Engineers has estimated that failing to invest in the
country’s bridges and roads will cost us $3.1 trillion in lost GDP growth by 2020.
The effects are already being felt in our industry.
For evidence of that, you need look no further than the recently
released 2013 Third-Party Logistics Study conducted by C. John
Langley. When asked to identify the most common sources of supply
chain disruption, the third-party logistics service providers who participated in the study put infrastructure at the top of the list. Yet the
government seems to view infrastructure improvement as simply a
vehicle to provide jobs.
In an effort to get some clarity on the subject, the National
Industrial Transportation League sent excellent letters to President
Obama and Mitt Romney asking them to outline their plans for
shoring up the nation’s transportation infrastructure, but to my
knowledge, no response has been forthcoming. I thought I might get
a clue by reading the Republican and Democratic platforms and see
what each had to say about infrastructure. (I am not taking a political position—just calling it as I see it.)
First of all, both platforms address the subject, although the
Democrats had less to say about it than the Republicans. They both
support infrastructure improvement; and interestingly enough, both
take credit for the recent highway funding bill.
Considering the content of the bill as it was finally enacted, however, I’m not sure I would be taking credit for it.
Neither party seems to have a firm plan for
funding the improvements. The Republicans
accused the Democrats of spending stimulus
funds on cosmetic, “shovel ready” projects rather
than on real structural improvements. The
What no one seems to grasp
is the importance of a seamless, well-functioning national transportation infrastructure. Abraham Lincoln
understood it when he encouraged the building
of the first transcontinental railroad. Dwight
Eisenhower got it when he envisioned the interstate highway system. But given Congress’s
apparent inability to make sense out of this
issue, whoever our new president is, I’m a little
pessimistic about this problem being resolved
any time soon. I simply don’t think either party
has a good handle on the issue. But hey, as the
Cheshire Cat told Alice (in Wonderland), if you
don’t know where you want to go, it doesn’t
matter which road you take. ;
Clifford F. Lynch is principal of C.F. Lynch & Associates, a provider of
logistics management advisory services, and author of Logistics
Outsourcing – A Management Guide and co-author of The Role of
Transportation in the Supply Chain. He can be reached at cliff@cfly-nch.com.
