New Jersey transportation officials will consider ways to best expand truck parking throughout the state this year after the Biden administration’s $1 trillion infrastructure bill failed to tackle the critical issue.
Department of Transportation spokesman Stephen Schapiro says that “consideration for improving truck parking” will be a part of New Jersey’s 2022 Statewide Freight Plan to be released later this year.
“Investments that facilitate the flow of freight, such as improving the availability of parking, will contribute toward ensuring the reliability and safety of these supply chains,” Schapiro said according to NJ News.
“The lack of safe truck parking negatively impacts our tangled supply chain, and more importantly, it makes an already difficult job far more challenging,” said Chris Spear, president and chief executive of the American Trucking Associations.
“The scarcity of truck parking spaces across the country decreases safety for all highway users, exacerbates the industry’s longstanding workforce challenges, contributes negatively to driver health and well-being, diminishes trucking productivity, and results in unnecessary greenhouse gas emissions.”
The ATA and OOIDA have already asked the Department of Transportation to allocate infrastructure funds to building and expanding truck parking across the country.
Not only are states and trucking organizations calling on the federal government to help address the truck parking issue, but even a recent US Department of Transportation report on supply chains cites truck parking as crucial to the overall safety and functionality of the industry, and calls on federal, state, and private sector officials to expand truck parking.
However, even in light of this new study, the U.S Transportation Department’s new safety strategy released last month did not mention the need for truck parking.