Regional, state leaders in tourism, freight prepare for more traffic

Making room for an increasing number of tourists and everything they need is going to take some planning.

That was the verdict after the first freight and economic development summit hosted by the Sarasota-Manatee Metropolitan Planning Organization on Monday at Port Manatee. State and regional leaders from the trucking, business development and tourism industries convened to discuss the literal road map for the future of Florida’s infrastructure.

The point of the summit wasn’t necessarily to solve anything, said MPO executive director David Hutchinson. Instead, the summit was meant to provide a clear picture to state representatives such as Florida Department of Transportation state seaport manager Bob Emerson and freight and multi-modal operations manager Rickey Fitzgerald.

Concentrating on access to seaports, increasing their capacity through berth and terminal expansions, and optimizing the supply chain are a few of FDOT’s top priorities presented by Emerson. He cited 2010, 2012 and 2014 studies that confirmed Florida’s seaports handle about half of the containerized cargo generated or consumed in Florida, signaling a “great growth opportunity for us.”

A vast majority of the goods used and consumed by residents and tourists travel via cargo containers.

“What that situation results in is a lot of Florida-bound containers come into L.A., are put on a rail going to Texas, Memphis (Tenn.) and Georgia, coming down I-10, I-75 to us here in central and south Florida,” Emerson said. “Other products are coming in through New York, New Jersey, Virginia and Savannah (Ga.) and travel on the I-95 corridor, so that creates a lot of truck traffic on north Florida highways. And by and large, the majority of that goes back up empty. It’s not a very efficient situation for the whole country.”

Though increasing the role of Florida seaports in freight is one way to take some of the onus off of road traffic, trucks will always be a large part of transporting goods in and around Florida. This is true for the 85 percent of the state that is only accessible by truck, according to Tisha Keller, vice president of the Florida Trucking Association. Keller offered perspective from the trucking industry about what drivers and truck companies need to succeed in a state with ever-crowded roadways and constant growth in tourism.

Keller spoke of a shortage in drivers, striving to find different fuel sources such as compressed or liquified natural gas, and truck driver parking.

“We’re working with DOT for truck parking,” Keller said. “It’s really critical in order to get the goods you want when you want them. We hear truckers say, ‘I run out of hours 15 minutes before delivery and have to wait 10 hours.’ In south Florida and southwest Florida, there’s not enough space but there’s a lot of trucks.”

Truck drivers, per federal regulation, can only be on duty for 14 hours.

Arranging for more seaport participation in carrying more of Florida’s freight and finding more places for truckers to park isn’t a conversation had in Florida without at least a mention of how such changes will affect the state’s top industry: tourism.

Virginia Haley, executive director of Visit Sarasota County, Fredrick “Rick” Piccolo, CEO and president of Sarasota-Bradenton International Airport, and Dave DiMaggio, CEO and president of Aqua Communications and Marketing Inc., participated in the summit’s closing tourism panel.

Multi-modal was the buzzword of the summit and DiMaggio, who was filling in for Elliott Falcione, the executive director of the Bradenton Area Convention and Visitors Bureau, spoke to the importance of public transit as a part of that concept.

“European travelers are used to frequent, great-running mass transport,” DiMaggio said.

Haley emphasized the importance of using existing resources to alleviate traffic issues. Visit Sarasota County is currently conducting transit-related visitor studies, Haley said, to figure out which modes of transportation are most-often used by visitors.

“We need to do a better job of using Uber and Lyft for big events,” Haley said. “We need to be smarter in using some of the resources we have available.”

This story was originally published October 24, 2016 at 5:23 PM with the headline "Regional, state leaders in tourism, freight prepare for more traffic."