We’ve heard a lot of talk out of Washington over the past year about the lack of truck parking across America. The trucking industry is an extremely regulated part of the American economy, and electronic logs ensure trucks are legally required to park for up to ten hours in order to legally continue moving. With a federal government so keen to make it illegal for trucks to move without their drivers getting rest, one would thing this same body would do whatever is possible to make such stops feasible.
A $1.2 TRILLION dollar bill pitched as legislation designed to overhaul America’s aging infrastructure would seemingly be the perfect place to start. Unfortunately it doesn’t appear that’s going to happen. In fact, as of this moment the bill contains not a single dollar for new truck parking. Not one cent.
The infrastructure bill is a 2,700 page piece of legislation that brings in a whopping $555 billion in new federal spending. Sadly only $110 billion of that will be spent on America’s roads and bridges. To put how pitiful this is into perspective, the annual budget for road construction in Indiana (both fed and state funding combined) was about $2 billion… in 2010. For just one state. More than a decade ago.
— STORY CONTINUES BELOW —
Granted, it could and should be argued $110 billion is better than nothing. To many, however, seeing less than 10% of a federal infrastructure bill spent on roads and bridges is nothing short of an insult. And salt gets rubbed into the wound when the bill contains zero dollars for truck parking.
According to the Congressional Budget Office the bill adds more than $200 billion to the federal deficit (debt). With billions spent on agenda items that have nothing to do with infrastructure. And sadly an amendment that would have carved off a billion in funding to address America’s national truck parking shortage was defeated.
It’s leaving many of us wondering where our representation is. Which, of course, is nothing new.
-Eric
DISCUSS THIS STORY ON THE DRIVER LINEUP SOCIAL NETWORK!
