INFRA Grants $30 Million to Bolster Trucking Infrastructure
The Nationally Significant Multimodal Freight & Highway Projects program (INFRA) from the United States Department of Transportation announced in late October 2024 that it was granting $2.6 billion across the United States during the 25-26 fiscal year to improve the nation’s infrastructure as a whole. While a lot of these, such as highway expansions, help all users of the road, some of the projects are for the primary or exclusive benefit of truckers.
Details
The two projects to focus upon are ones in Ohio and Wisconsin.
For Ohio, INFRA will grant almost $18 million to repurpose two closed rest areas that are currently only gathering dust, turning them into truck parking spaces to alleviate the truck parking crisis sweeping the nation, with about 10 trucks for every one available public parking spot. One will be on I-70 eastbound near New Paris, with the other being eastbound near Hubbard close to the I-80. The combined refactoring of the rest areas will bring 138 new parking spots available for commercial vehicle use.
Moving northwest to Wisconsin, INFRA will grant $12.5 million for a similar purpose.in the Badger State. Similar to Ohio, the Wisconsin project will rework two rest areas to include more parking spots, 72 in total. The money will also go towards making these new parking spaces safer, including:
- Additional lighting.
- Stronger roadways to and from the parking spaces to better accommodate the increased flow of heavy trucks.
- A new coat of pavement to repair any road damage.
As to be expected, this use of federal funds has been appreciated by members of the trucking industry at large. “We appreciate Secretary Buttigieg’s commitment to addressing this serious issue by supporting the decisions of Ohio, Wisconsin, and Nevada to embed truck parking projects in their transportation plans,” Chris Spear of the ATA said in a statement, while also pining for additional support. “When drivers finish their shift, they deserve to know that they will be able to find a safe place to sleep that night. Congress can be a part of the solution by building on this investment and voting to pass the $200 million for truck parking included in this year’s appropriations bill.”
Conclusion
An additional 200 parking spots to the tune of around $30 million may seem like a questionable return on investment at first, but when the ratio of trucks to the number of available parking spaces is considered, the odds are that these parking spaces will constantly be in use, saving drivers lots of time and stress in trying to find safe and legal parking. As a basic calculation, if each space saves a driver an hour of time, valued at $25, it will be 6.000 hours before the project breaks even, a little more than two-thirds of a year, and that is purely from an economic perspective that does not consider the increase in safety!
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