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NGPRDC - Transportation
2007-11-04
Increasing globalization of the world's economy, opportunities for expanded export of food products, and Congressional passage and approval of the North American Free Trade Agreement place the heartland of North America within a new era as a geographic crossroads for international trade. In order to fully participate in a growing and changing global economy the Northern Great Plains region will need to do more than just identify and develop new export markets for its manufactured goods, shift its agricultural export focus from export of bulk commodities toward export of food products, and provide expanded trade development services for rural businesses. The Region will need to actively work to ensure that its transportation infrastructure is capable of serving the international trade and transportation needs of the Region.
With this in mind, the Northern Great Plains Rural Development Commission established a Transportation Infrastructure Work Group to look specifically at the infrastructure needs of the Region. To accomplish its task the work group took a two part approach. In order to examine the surface infrastructure needs of the Region, the Work Group contracted with Dr. Phillip Baumel, Professor of Economics and Charles F. Curtiss, Distinguished Professor in Agriculture at Iowa State University. Dr. Baumel provided the Work Group with a concise analysis of the issues affecting surface transportation in the Region and offered specific recommendations for the Region regarding investment in surface infrastructure, especially as it fits current trends in agriculture and exports.
To address air transportation needs, the workgroup sought the advice of aviation experts from the Region. The workgroup established an air service sub-group composed of airport managers, state aviation departments, chamber of commerce executives and others. This group met several times to review critical issues affecting air service in the Region and develop recommendations for the Commission.
Dr. Baumel's report is presented here under the heading Surface Transportation - Moving Freight. The air service workgroup's report is presented here under the heading Air Transportation - Moving People and Goods. Mr. Kim Stevens, Director of the Nebraska Department of Aviation provided the initial draft for this section of the report.
The Northern Great Plains states can be characterized as a largely rural, heavily agricultural area, with low population and high exports of bulk and manufactured products. Thus, transportation capacity and costs are central to efforts to promote rural economic development in this five-state Region.
Railroads and motor carriages are the backbone of the freight transportation system in the five-state area. Barges are crucial to Iowa and Minnesota and provide price and capacity competition to railroads; this competition extends into Nebraska and the Dakotas. This section of the Transportation Infrastructure Work Group's report will describe recent trends and issues for each of these three modes of transport, how these trends affect the transport of different types of rural produced agricultural and manufactured products, and will identify and suggest some policy recommendations designed to foster economic development in the Region.
