Cargo Business Newswire

Thursday, June 25, 2015

Officials call for more barge use on Mississippi to ease truck traffic

Local officials, through the Mississippi River Cities & Towns Initiative, are pushing for an increase in barge shipping to help ease truck congestion along major interstates.

The Department of Transportation agrees that using barges to carry containers of goods instead of semi-trucks would help ease congestion, especially along major interstates.

"Our cities suffer from considerable surface trans-
portation congestion which is taking its toll on the infrastructure. That's why we must start using our inland waterway system better. DOT's support is a significant step forward for starting a container-on-vessel program on the Mississippi River," said St. Louis Mayor Francis Slay, a founding MRCTI member.

Dan Overbey, the executive director of the SEMO Port, said while it could relieve some truck traffic, barges are more expensive and much slower—taking up to 15 days to travel from St. Louis to New Orleans versus the 11 hours a truck takes.

"It's very hard to compete with highway trucks," Overbey said. "In fact, we looked at traffic that might have gone by container down to the gulf coast and it actually turned out to be cheaper to go by truck than to set up a system to bring in containers, store them, load them on a barge then unload them at the other end."

For more of the KFVS12 News story: www.kfvs12.com