Rep. Rick Crawford Highlights Truck Parking, Freeway Security
Rep. Rick Crawford at a previous listening to. (Al Drago/Bloomberg Information)
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The chairman of a Home transportation subcommittee needs lawmakers to place as a lot give attention to truck parking as they’ve on increasing the scope of electrical automobiles, and laments that the problem wasn’t a central focus of the Infrastructure Funding and Jobs Act that President Joe Biden signed in 2021.
“If you happen to ask the trucking business what’s their most urgent subject, I believe all people goes to say — resoundingly — truck parking,” stated Rep. Rick Crawford (R-Ark.) throughout a wide-ranging interview this month for Transport Matters’ Newsmakers program. “And but there was no consideration given to truck parking, as a substitute placing all these sources into [electric vehicle] charging. Properly, we’re not there but. The trucking business just isn’t there. That’s a really excessive value transition that they’re not keen to make but. The marketplace for it isn’t there.”
Demand for parking is excessive, nevertheless, and Crawford’s panel is aiming to assist. The highways subcommittee on Might 23 accepted the Truck Parking Security Enchancment Act, which might authorize $755 million for state businesses to advance truck parking initiatives. Sponsored by Reps. Mike Bost (R-Unwell.) and Angie Craig (D-Minn.), the invoice awaits consideration on the Home flooring. A Senate companion invoice has but to be thought of.
The problem caught the eye of the American Transportation Analysis Institute, which ranked insufficient entry to parking No. 3 on its “Vital Points within the Trucking Trade” listing in 2022.
Reps. Mike Bost (R-Unwell.) and Angie Craig (D-Minn.)
“Truckers are attempting to comply with the foundations,” Crawford stated. “You inform them you’ve bought to relaxation sure quantities of time, however you don’t give them any house to the place they will. That creates security issues, and it creates different points [when] you’ve bought on-ramps and off-ramps filled with vehicles as a result of they don’t have wherever else to park.”
Selling security all through the transportation community is a precedence for Crawford, and he burdened that passenger automobile drivers should focus simply as a lot as skilled truck drivers on protecting roads secure.
“Distractions are problematic, I believe, and pervasive,” he stated. “The opposite factor is simply, fairly frankly, a respect for others — respect for legislation enforcement, private duty, these sorts of issues.”
The Nationwide Freeway Site visitors Security Administration decided 42,795 people died in 2022, primarily based on information about individuals concerned in motorized vehicle crashes. That marked a slight lower from 2021’s estimate of 42,939.
Broadly, oversight of the Biden administration stays a constant precedence for Home Republicans, and Crawford’s highways subcommittee is engaged in reviewing the implementation of the $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure legislation. For Crawford, an examination of IIJA’s multiyear provisions has raised questions in regards to the U.S. Division of Transportation’s administration acumen.
“If I have been giving it a letter grade, I’d most likely give it a couple of D,” he stated. “It hasn’t been a complete failure, however we proceed to listen to some unfavorable suggestions with regard to the place the cash goes, the way it’s flowing, and the way it’s truly being manifested when it comes to precise infrastructure funding.”
“I don’t need to be all unfavorable, however it’s not good at this level,” he stated.
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