Truck parking expansion included in DOT’s latest round of infrastructure funding

October 22, 2024

Tyson Fisher

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Multiple truck parking projects are included in the U.S. Department of Transportation’s latest round of Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act funding as the agency continues to chip away at the parking shortage.

On Monday, Oct. 21, the U.S. DOT announced more than $4.2 billion in infrastructure funding for 44 projects across the nation. Three of those projects include truck parking expansion.

In Ohio, the state Department of Transportation will receive nearly $18 million in Infrastructure for Rebuilding America (INFRA) grant money for additional truck parking at two rest areas. The project will repurpose two closed rest areas as new truck parking facilities. Near the Indiana border, a facility on Interstate 70 eastbound will include 100 parking spaces. On the other side of the state near the Pennsylvania border, 38 parking spaces will be built along Interstate 80 eastbound.

According to ODOT, 654 trucks parked in undesignated locations within eight miles of the I-70 truck parking facility in a one-year period. At the I-80 parking site, nearly 500 trucks parked in undesignated locations within two miles.

Further west, the Wisconsin DOT will receive $12.5 million to replace two rest areas, including truck parking expansion at both.

The rest areas are located along Interstate 43 in Manitowoc County, Wis. More than 70 additional truck parking spaces will be included in the project.

Wisconsin’s project will increase the number of safe truck parking spaces between Green Bay and Chicago. Transportation officials hope this will stop truckers from parking in unsafe or unauthorized areas.

Continuing westbound, the Nevada DOT will receive more than $275.5 million for a large widening project on Interstate 80 from Vista Boulevard to USA Parkway between the Reno/Sparks metro area and Tahoe Reno Industrial Center. Although the project focuses on one additional lane in each direction, shoulder widening, bridge reconstruction and new pavement, it also will add 50 truck parking spaces along the corridor.

Support from trucking industry

Both the Ohio and Wisconsin projects received early support from the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association.

In April, OOIDA sent a pair of letters to Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg urging the DOT to award grants to the states’ truck parking projects. OOIDA President Todd Spencer pointed out that truck parking projects often fall to the bottom of the priority list and do not receive funding.

In response to the DOT’s recent announcement awarding grants for those projects, Spencer thanked Buttigieg and the DOT “for their increased focus on resolving an issue that has plagued our industry for decades.”

“Lack of safe truck parking has been a top concern of truckers for decades and as a truck driver, I can tell you firsthand that when truckers don’t have a safe place to park, we are put in a no-win situation,” Spencer said in a statement. “We must either continue to drive while fatigued or out of legal driving time, or park in an undesignated and unsafe location like the side of the road or abandoned lot. It forces truck drivers to make a choice between safety and following federal Hours-of-Service rules.”

Federal funding for truck parking

Recent grants for truck parking projects continue the DOT’s investment into the issue while Congress sits on a bill allocating dedicated funding to address the nationwide parking crisis.

In January, the DOT awarded nearly $300 million for truck parking projects in Florida, Missouri, Washington state and Wisconsin. Those projects were also funded through INFRA grants. Most of that money went to Florida’s project that will build more than 900 parking spaces along Interstate 4 in Central Florida.

Last September, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration announced more than $80 million in truck parking funding through the High Priority grant program.

Although grants through the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act have funded projects that will add hundreds of parking spaces in several states, dedicated funding for truck parking could draw in more projects in states with different priorities. The Truck Parking Safety Improvement Act does exactly that by providing $755 million in existing funding to only projects that will expand free parking.

As of Oct. 22, the bill, HR2367, has 52 co-sponsors, including an even split of 26 Republicans and 26 Democrats. Despite the broad, bipartisan support, the bill has been sitting in limbo since May 2023 after clearing committee.

Supporters of the truck parking bill can urge their lawmakers to join the growing list of co-sponsors by going to FightingForTruckers.com.

In the meantime, grants like INFRA are one of the few ways state DOTs can get federal support for their truck parking projects. In a July interview with Industry Drive, Buttigieg encouraged state DOTs to take advantage of the multiple channels available to them to receive federal funding.

“There is not a truck parking fund per se, but that has been an eligible use for programs … through the president’s infrastructure package,” Buttigieg said. “We’ve been able to add hundreds of truck parking spaces in recent rounds. But I also want to make sure that our state partners are thinking about this. Remember, the bulk of the funding that flows through our department is formula funding that goes to the states. And they decide how to use it. We want to remind them that truck parking projects are often projects that qualify. They have a lot of competition from different ideas on what to do with that funding, but we’ve certainly never regretted investing our discretionary funding at DOT on truck parking. We certainly encourage our counterparts at the state DOTs to do the same thing.” LL