Aa new highway opens later this week, promising to relieve traffic congestion and move freight. But here's the kicker: It's not on land.
The "marine highway" officially opens on Friday to ships carrying relatively small amounts of freight among the ports of Boston, Halifax, Nova Scotia (shown) and Portland, Maine.
We first told you about marine highways last year, when the Department of Transportation's Maritime Administration awarded grants funding marine highway proposals. Marine highways already are popular in Europe, plied by ships carrying offloaded freight from large ports to small ones.
According to trade publication Canadian Sailings, American Feeder Lines is inaugurating service on the route with a chartered German-built cargo ship, but has signed letters of intent to build ten new vessels in U.S. shipyards. Like many ships sailing the marine highways in Europe, where the service is known as short-sea shipping, some of the spec-built ships will feature on-board cranes to load and unload cargo at smaller ports.
The new route, called the New England-Halifax Shuttle, follows the marine highway known as M-95 that somewhat follows the famous interstate. It does so with a lot fewer emissions, though.
According to American Feeder Lines, transporting freight via marine highway can cut carbon emissions per ton mile by 27 percent versus double-stacked railcars, and by 77 percent versus big rigs. In addition, a single ship on a marine highway could replace nearly 750 trucks on the already congested roads of the northeast corridor.
It's a pilot project in a larger initiative to open up waterways to smaller ships, and American Feeder Lines says they're in for the long haul.
"Now, we can offer very attractive transit times for imports and exports from and to all major destinations worldwide," said Chief Operating Officer Rudy Mack. "We will market our service to all main liners serving the northeast of the United States and I am sure that the shippers and receivers will ask them to connect with our new service."
According to a proposed route map on their website, American Feeder Lines is interested in expanding along the entire east coast and Gulf of Mexico.
Photo: Flickr/J. Elliott
See Also:
