DOT Focuses on Truck Parking Throughout Driver Appreciation Week – Security & Compliance

Throughout a go to this week to South Dakota, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg met with truckers and addressed the necessity for higher truck parking. The go to was to kick off Nationwide Truck Driver Appreciation Week, throughout which the Division of Transportation introduced greater than $80 million in funding to enhance entry to truck parking and advance freeway security nationwide.

“There are numerous methods to thank America’s hardworking truck drivers throughout Nationwide Truck Driver Appreciation Week, and right this moment we’re doing so by addressing a critical challenge that constantly ranks as considered one of their highest considerations,” stated Chris Spear, American Trucking Associations president and CEO, in a information launch. “The funding being introduced right this moment will assist to alleviate a scarcity of truck driving areas that too typically places drivers in a no-win state of affairs. These tasks being funded by the IIJA [Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act] are an essential step in the appropriate path.”

The funding is a part of President Joe Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Legislation, aka IIJA, and can assist broaden entry to truck parking, put money into essential expertise, enhance security in work zones, rural areas, and excessive crash corridors, and extra, based on the DOT. Grant recipients will embrace states, native governments, non-profit organizations, and tutorial establishments throughout the nation.

“We now have stepped up our work on the truck parking coalition and our efforts to encourage states and different decision-makers to make higher use of infrastructure {dollars} to broaden parking,” stated Buttigieg.

In line with the announcement, high-priority grants will embrace a 65% enhance in funding for truck parking tasks over final 12 months and can assist in offering different steps to enhance freeway security.

Key tasks supported by the funding embrace:

• Increasing entry to truck parking by serving to truck drivers find out there relaxation space truck parking areas in real-time by way of dynamic message indicators alongside highways in Kentucky, Delaware, and Indiana.
• Researching automated, location-based driver alerts by way of digital logging gadgets that inform drivers of upcoming work zones.
• Enhancing digital screening applied sciences, similar to automated license plate readers, USDOT quantity readers, tire monitoring methods, and dangerous supplies placard readers, to detect car violations.
• Offering outreach and schooling to fight human trafficking, an effort wherein truck drivers can play a key position given their time and a spotlight on the highway.

Truck Parking Initiatives

The announcement stated this funding builds on the Biden Administration’s continued funding in truck parking and security on the nation’s roadways, which incorporates greater than $80 million invested in new truck parking areas throughout the nation. Examples of truck parking tasks embrace:

• Caldwell County, Texas: $22.9 million RAISE grant to design and assemble a truck parking plaza that improves security and comfort for truck drivers. The plaza will embrace short- and long-term areas with lighting, fencing, restroom and bathe amenities, and 24-hour monitored safety.
• Caldwell Parish, Louisiana: $10.5 million RAISE grant to purchase land and construct a truck parking facility close to the port and a freeway. It is going to have area for 50 business vans, 100 vehicles, and EV charging stations designed to offer auxiliary energy models to energy a truck cab’s heating and cooling, with out having to run the engine whereas additionally recharging vans. There will even be a system to seek out parking areas in actual time.
• I-4 Between Tampa and Orlando, Florida: $15 million INFRA grant for a brand new truck parking facility with roughly 120 areas, electrical charging stations, and pedestrian infrastructure to entry close by business facilities.
• Memphis, Tennessee: $22 million INFRA grant provides 125 truck parking areas at a spot alongside I-40, a essential freight hall. The mission will even improve adjoining bridge constructions.

Buttigieg’s South Dakota Go to

Buttigieg was joined by trucking trade leaders, drivers, and the media when he visited an Interstate 90 relaxation space close to Salem, South Dakota, on Tuesday. Officers and drivers alike voiced considerations over truck parking.

“The extreme lack of truck parking has an infinite influence on drivers nationwide,” stated America’s Highway Workforce Captain Dean Kay, an expert driver for Ruan Transportation. “It touches virtually each side of our career, from high quality of life to compensation, however greater than that, the shortage of truck parking is basically a security challenge.” (The Highway Workforce is an American Trucking Associations initiative.)

ATA’s Spear likewise confused the necessity for parking throughout Tuesday’s occasion on the relaxation space.

“This occasion is a extremely superb instance of our trade coming collectively and authorities officers truly listening to the problems that our drivers face each day,” stated Spear. “Spending practically an hour on the lookout for parking. Dropping practically $5,000 a 12 months in wages spent on the lookout for a spot to relaxation.”

Truck Parking Security Enchancment Act

The Truck Parking Security Enchancment Act, which might grant funds to broaden business truck parking capability throughout america, was reintroduced earlier this 12 months. As HDT reported, if signed into legislation, it could authorize $755 million in aggressive grant funding to enhance truck parking capability.

“The shortage of secure and accessible truck parking locations an infinite and dear burden on our nation’s truck drivers as they work to ship for the American individuals,” Spear stated in a press launch earlier this 12 months in help of the Truck Parking Security Enchancment Act. “Given the continual nature of this challenge and its nationwide scope, it’s crucial Congress takes motion to offer devoted funding to broaden business truck parking capability.”

In a letter to Buttigieg on behalf of the trucking trade, the ATA in February acknowledged it’s essential that the DOT coordinate with the White Home, state departments of transportation, Congress, and different stakeholders to encourage applicable actions to deal with the truck parking scarcity.

“The truck parking scarcity has plagued the trucking trade for many years, and the implications of inadequate capability are as wide-ranging as they’re extreme,” the letter acknowledged. “The shortage of truck parking areas throughout the nation decreases security for all freeway customers, exacerbates the trade’s longstanding workforce challenges, contributes negatively to driver well being and well-being, diminishes trucking productiveness, and ends in pointless greenhouse gasoline emissions.”

The letter additionally referenced the 2019 Jason’s Legislation Report that detailed how 98% of truck drivers frequently have hassle discovering secure parking. That elevated from 75%, the quantity reported within the 2015 report.

“When drivers are unable to seek out secure, licensed parking, they’re caught in a no-win state of affairs, compelled to both park in unsafe or unlawful places or violate federal [hours of service] rules by persevering with to seek for safer, authorized alternate options,” the letter continued. “A staggering 70% of drivers have been compelled to violate federal HOS guidelines due to this widespread state of affairs. As a final resort, drivers reluctantly park in unsafe places — similar to freeway shoulders, interstate entry and exit ramps, and deserted properties — creating heightened security dangers for all motorists.”