One of six new Marine Highway Projects named nationally
JEFFERSON CITY – The Missouri Department of Transportation has received one of six Marine Highway Project designations from the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Maritime Administration (MARAD) as part of the America’s Marine Highway Program (AMHP). The application to initiate a container-on-barge service was developed in partnership with AGRIServices of Brunswick (ASB), the largest multimodal transportation provider on the Missouri River.
This is MoDOT’s first designation and only 52 such designations have been approved since the program’s inception in 2010. A Missouri Department of Agriculture grant to ASB was used to develop the application with technical support from MoDOT’s Multimodal Division.
The AMHP encourages the use of America’s navigable waterways for the movement of freight and people as an alternative to land-based transportation. This Container-on-Barge Project will expand options for the transportation of goods on inland waterways beginning with agricultural products at ASB in Central Missouri to international markets in the Gulf of Mexico as early as 2022. The service could then expand to other products along the Missouri River.
Products being transported in rail containers into the Midwest is growing rapidly. Services such as container-on-barge can use this supply of available containers to move Missouri produced goods at a low-cost and environmentally friendly method.
“Missouri’s greatest competitive advantage is our location,” said U.S. Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo. “This designation will allow our state to further capitalize on that advantage by expanding freight capacity on the Missouri River – getting more goods to more markets more efficiently.”
