Neglected Roads and Bridges Take Toll on U.S. Companies

[cpzilliacus]

[WSJ.com is a paywalled site.  If you cannot read this in full, leave me a PM with a real e-mail address and I will send you a link.]

Wall Street Journal: Neglected Roads and Bridges Take Toll on U.S. Companies

Five minutes here and there adds up to $105 million a year for United Parcel Service Inc.

That's what average daily truck delays cost UPS.

The company has to send three of its signature dark-brown trucks instead of two onto heavily trafficked routes around New York, Chicago and Los Angeles to ensure on-time package deliveries.

"It's ugly. We operate inefficiently and redundantly, because we have got to deal with the congestion,"  said Thomas Jensen, the company's vice president of transportation policy.

Transport is one of the weakest links in the corporate supply chain. Mile after mile, America's crumbling infrastructure adds to the cost of moving parts, equipment and inventory across the country.

[SD Mapman]

There was an article in my neck of the woods recently about how a deteriorating bridge is going to force logging trucks and other heavy vehicles to take a very roundabout detour. Linky

And the Pioneer is not paywalled.

[vdeane]

A good way to get around the paywall is to search for the headline on Google and enter the site there.  They made an exception to the paywall for Google News and it affects search results too.