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The industry group, American Trucking Associations, says the Affordable Care Act has saddled trucking companies with extra costs and burdens

By JENNIFER SMITH

President Donald Trump met with trucking executives and drivers at the White House, as he sought to rally support for the House Republican effort to replace the Affordable Care Act, which he said had “inflicted great pain on American truckers.”

Mr. Trump and Vice President Mike Pence greeted members of the American Trucking Associations, an industry group that supports replacing the law, in a sun-splashed gathering alongside two colorful big rigs parked outside the White House.

The president joined the truckers shortly after meeting with members of the conservative House Freedom Caucus over the contentious effort to write a new health care law. At one point he hopped up into the cab of one of the 18-wheelers, grabbed the wheel and hit the horn a few times before heading inside.

New information released by the Department of Transportation (DOT) shows that U.S. driving reached 746 billion miles in the first three months of 2016 — surpassing the previous record of 720.1 billion miles set last year.

For a sense of scale, 746 billion miles is roughly 286.9 times as far as the International Space Station has traveled since it began orbiting in 1998. In fact, Americans drive twice as far on any given day before noon than the space station has ever flown.

The new data, published in the Federal Highway Administration’s (FHWA) latest Traffic Volume Trends report – a monthly estimate of U.S. road travel — show that more than 273.4 billion miles were driven in March 2016 alone, highlighting the growing demands facing the nation’s roads.

The report reaffirms the value of the recently enacted “Fixing America’s Surface Transportation” (FAST) Act, which is investing $305 billion in America’s surface transportation infrastructure – including $226 billion for roads and bridges – over the next five years.

The March 2016 report also includes seasonally-adjusted data, which is conducted by USDOT’s Bureau of Transportation Statistics as a way to even out seasonal variation in travel and enable vehicle miles traveled (VMT) comparisons with any other month in any year.

The seasonally-adjusted vehicle miles traveled for March 2016 were 268.2 billion miles, a new monthly record for seasonally-adjusted VMT. March VMT increased by 5 percent compared to the previous March and by 0.7 percent compared with seasonally-adjusted February 2016 figures. The estimates include passenger vehicle, bus and truck travel.

In March, U.S. drivers increased total mileage among all five regions of the United States. At 6.4 percent, traffic in the Northeast – a nine-state region stretching from Maine to Pennsylvania – led the nation with largest percentage increase in unadjusted VMT, and continued a streak of consecutive monthly increases that began in Nov. 2014. At 4 percent, the West – a 13-state area stretching from including Alaska and Hawaii – had the smallest percentage increase in unadjusted VMT for the month.

At 8.1 percent, Maryland led the nation with the largest unadjusted single-state traffic percent increase compared to the same month a year earlier, followed by Connecticut at 7.8 percent, and Delaware and Pennsylvania with 7.6 percent each. At 3.5 percent, Wyoming had the largest unadjusted traffic single-month decrease due, in part, to heavy snows that caused road closures in February and March.

The new figures confirm the trends identified in Beyond Traffic, a USDOT report issued last year, which projects a 43 percent increase in commercial truck shipments and population growth of 70 million by 2045. The nation’s current infrastructure has ever increasing demands on it, and investments are needed in both the short and long term. Increased gridlock nationwide can be expected unless these investments are made.

To review the VMT data in FHWA’s Traffic Volume Trends reports, which are based on information collected from more than 5,000 continuous count stations nationwide, visit fhwa.dot.gov/policyinformation/travel_monitoring/tvt.cfm.

May 31, 2016By: Trucking News Staff