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September 18, 2008

Bolingbrook Golf Club
2001 Rodéo Drive - Bolingbrook, IL
7:00 am - 2:00 pm
 

 

Logistics Summit Logo 

Nearly 400 people attended the event and that's proof in our book that we are attracting highly credible speakers who impart knowledge that people want to hear.
 
 

Transportation Infrastructure at Risk 

All three morning speakers independently stressed that our nation is facing a transportation meltdown brought on by chronic under-funding and the lack of a national plan. That holds profound implications for the movement of consumer goods from ocean ports to local markets, especially when highways are already near gridlock and railroads are nearly at capacity.
 
Allow me to be more succinct. Without aggressive national, state and local transportation plans--and the funding sources to pay for them--we will squander the assets that are allowing Will County and the Chicago region to benefit from the global economy. That's why the CED developed a Transportation Blueprint that the business and labor communities and the public sector can rally around.
 
 

Shooting Ourselves in the Foot

In his summit presentation, John Lanigan, Jr., Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer of BNSF Railway Company, lamented that the "U.S. infrastructure was the envy of the world from1960 to 1985, but then it hit the brakes."

While China builds huge intermodal yards within five years of conception, Lanigan said that BNSF is still working to get local approval, despite four years of trying, to build an intermodal rail yard closer to the Port of Los Angeles.
 
That's not what's happening in competing nations. Leslie Blakey. Executive Director of the Coalition for America's Gateways and Trade Corridors (CAGTC) said that China, India and Europe are spending trillions of public dollars to supplement private investments. They have central plans and Lanigan pointed out that China is building world-class highways, ports and bridges.
 

Leslie Blakey speaks with attendees at the Will County Global Logistics Summit

Leslie Blakey speaks with attendees at the Will County Global Logistics Summit
 

However, Blakey said, "the current administration believes that transportation planning should occur at the state level, but freight moves across state lines from one side of the country to the other and the need for a national strategic plan is obvious." Moreover, when federal transportation money is dispensed, she says that freight projects are always last in line.


Lanigan said that the U.S. is under-spending by $50 billion annually what's needed just to maintain existing infrastructure, while another $57 million annually is needed to build for demand. That's a $107 million yearly shortfall.

Exhibitors at the Logistics Summit

Exhibitors at the Logistics Summit
 
 

Movement in Congress

There's movement in the Congress that may signal change. The National Surface Transportation Policy and Revenue Study Commission completed work in July on policy and funding recommendations while Congress is considering proposals to overhaul the entire transportation system.

Funding proposals before Congress include tax increases, variable toll pricing on highways and turning the management of highway systems over to private companies making people pay as though transportation were a private utility, said Blakey.  "These will have radical impacts," she said, but added that Congress may address them soon.
 
The commission, meanwhile, made three basic recommendations, according to the BNSF's Lanigan: outcome-based rather than political funding programs, mode-neutral policies to optimize the right mode (rivers, rail, highways, and ports) at the right price, and a simple national freight fee.
 
 

The Need for a National Grade Separation Fund 

Blakey said that Canadian National Railway's battle with western and northwestern Chicago communities over its intended purchase of the EJ&E Railway is a scenario that plays out time after time across the U.S.

Acquiring the EJ&E would allow the CN to bypass congested Chicago when hauling containers from western Canadian ports to Southern markets. But opposing communities, some in Will County, are concerned that a fourfold increase in train traffic will hamper emergency responders because most rail crossings are at-grade with streets.
 
The way to preempt the debate, said Blakey, is to create a national fund to pay for grade separations.
 
 

The Fuel Factor 

Trains are more fuel efficient than trucks for long-haul freight and kinder to the environment. Lanigan believes that there's a growing consensus to get long distance trucks off the road and concentrating their use on local and regional deliveries.

Tim Feemster, Sr. Vice President & Director of Global Logistics at Grubb & Ellis, said that future expectations of fuel prices are having a huge impact on where companies are locating distribution centers since transportation accounts for 50 percent of the cost of operating a warehouse.
 
 

Things Will Get Better 

Feemster acknowledged that distribution absorption is down and that demand for small and medium warehouses plummeted, but he says demand for large warehouses is still positive, according to a recent survey. And while TEU (a 20' container) volume growth is flat at LA/Long Beach, it is expected to grow by four percent annually beginning in 2011.
 
The outlook for Will County is all positive in Feemster's mind. It's part of the Chicago metro area, one of the world's mega freight hubs. Yet, Will County contributes only one percent to Chicago's congestion problem while providing wide open access to retail outlets to the south, east and west.
 
Equally important, he said, is Will County's embrace of the transportation and logistics industry. "Logistics, labor and love equal location, location, location," Feemster said.
 
 

The Midwest in Trouble?

A disturbing message for the Midwest, but a positive outlook for Will County, came from Richard Longworth, the summit's keynote speaker. Longworth is a veteran journalist who toured the Midwest in researching his new book: Caught in the Middle--America's Heartland in the Age of Globalism.

The conclusion of the book is that the Midwest is not faring well at all, or as he put it, "We've got a lot of problems." The basic issue is that Midwest manufacturing and small family farming are disappearing in the global economy. Yet, Longworth says, Midwesterners are in denial and cling to the past even as the last factories close and the small family farms disappear. As the result, the Midwest falls further and further behind in the global economy.

Richard Longworth speaks informally with Logistics Summit attendees.

Richard Longworth speaks informally with Logistics Summittee attendees
 

What's needed, he says, is for the Midwest to think of itself-and complete globally--as a unified region, based on its global assets, which cut across state lines. "Globalization couldn't care less about state lines drawn two centuries ago," he said. "Big universities must stop competing and pool their research knowledge and states must stop competing with each other for federal dollars and business investment."


Longworth likes what he sees in Will County, though. "You folks here in Will County are obviously doing things right," referring to the county's decision to pursue transportation and logistics, a global industry.
 
At any rate, Longworth had this piece of advice for those who long for the good old days: "We can't raise the drawbridge or stop the world and get off. Globalization is here and it isn't going away."
 
 

Lawson Touts Benefits of CED Membership 

Curt Lawson, of Interstate Warehousing and chairman of the Will County Transportation and Logistics Council stressed the benefits of membership in the council and of being an investor with the Will County Center for Economic Development (CED).

 

For transportation and logistics practitioners, the council fosters the exchange of information, experience, ideas and best practices, Lawson said, while the CED creates new jobs and investments in part by facilitating proactive cooperation and relationships with key stakeholders.

 

Prior to now, companies have been invited to participate in the TLC at no cost and it has not been required that a company be an Investor in the CED. However, beginning January 1, 2009, it will be required that all members of the TLC be Investors in the CED to continue participation in meetings and events. In addition to all the other benefits that Investment brings, a members-only Web site is in development which will include improved and expanded information for TLC member companies.
 
 

Thanks to Our Sponsors and Exhibitors 

We extend our sincere thanks to those who helped to sponsor the 2008 Will County Global Logistics Summit and to the exhibitors, representing a cross section of the transportation and logistics industry and organizations that service them.
 
 

 

 

       

 
Gold Sponsors
 





Silver Sponsors
 
 
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For more

information, contact
Nicole Puracchio
at (815) 774-6069

 

 


 
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