By Paul Scott Abbott, AJOTLack of sufficient intermodal transportation infrastructure to handle burgeoning trade volumes is a growing crisis that is causing leadership of the American Association of Port Authorities to push for additional funding and seek innovative solutions. As some 500 leaders of the Western Hemisphere’s port industry gathered for AAPA’s 95th annual convention Sept. 10-14 in New Orleans, there obviously was much talk surrounding the Crescent City’s near-miraculous rebound from a year earlier’s Hurricane Katrina, as well as the status of security on the five-year anniversary of the tragic events of Sept. 11, 2001. But concerns about insufficient intermodal infrastructure seemed to dominate both formal and informal discussions. “I think it’s a crisis,” Bernard S. Groseclose Jr., AAPA’s outgoing board chairman, said at a press conference. Groseclose, who is president and chief executive officer of the South Carolina State Ports Authority, continued, “Maybe the system hasn’t failed, but maybe it hasn’t been challenged yet.” That “challenge date” may not be far off. While earlier projections had called for a doubling of US freight volumes from 2000 to 2020, that doubling now looks like it will occur sooner. Joanne F. “Joni” Casey, president and chief executive officer of the Intermodal Association of North America, said in an interview that she anticipates US ports and inland infrastructure will be grappling with volumes double those of 2000 by 2014 or 2015. IANA and AAPA are among leading industry entities that are seeking to address growing congestion through the national Freight Stakeholders Coalition. Costs of congestion clearly are escalating as well. While the 2005 Urban Mobility Report of the respected Texas Transportation Institute placed the combined cost of congestion in 85 US urban areas at $63.1 billion for 2003, a $200-billion-a-year cost was quoted by US Secretary of Transportation Norman Y. Mineta seven weeks prior to his July resignation, as he unveiled the National Strategy to Reduce Congestion on America’s Transportation Network. Mineta’s unveiling of the national strategy in mid-May came about a month after the release of DOT’s draft framework for a National Freight Policy. That draft framework, dated April 10, begins: “The United States freight system underpins the nation’s continued economic growth, and historically the US has led the world in freight system design and management. Today, the nation faces a new challenge. Dramatically increasing freight flows have created congestion in the transportation system, imposing costs on shippers, consumers and the environment.” National strategies and policies, however, can be effective only if backed with enough dollars going in the right places. As IANA’s Casey put it, “Absent funding, you’ll go nowhere.” Casey, like others, said she is concerned that those in Congress, with an eye on re-election, tend to focus on projects popular with their respective constituents rather than those which might be of far greater systemic benefit. Groseclose told media attending the AAPA convention that he sees the current mechanism of highway reauthorization bills, “a really ineffective system that is largely driven by interests of states or senators.” Infrastructure funding concerns are exacerbated, he said, by the fact that the federal government is not providing ports with the money they need to meet post-9/11 security mandates. “Thus, we have to look at prioritizing what capital we have,” Groseclose said. AAPA’s president and chief executive officer, Kurt J. Nagle, interjected, “We are more and more seeing funds being diverted from infrastructure to security.” Groseclose, referring specifically to South Carolina ports, said, “We feel very confident in moving cargo from the waterside to our gates. Where the uncertainty comes is when it leaves the gates, if you will. “People don’t connect the fact that, in order to have free selection of goods – all the things we like to eat