Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie ndash 2004 Vol 95 No 2 pp 147ndash161copy 2004 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAGPublished by Blackwell Publishing Ltd 9600 Garsington Road Oxford OX4 2DQ UK and 350 Main Street Malden MA 02148 USA

FREIGHT GATEWAYS AND MEGA-URBAN REGIONS THE LOGISTICAL INTEGRATION OF THE BOSTWASH CORRIDOR

1

JEAN-PAUL RODRIGUE

Department of Economics amp Geography Hofstra University Hempstead New York 11549 USA E-mail Jean-paulRodrigueHofstraedu

Received August 2003

ABSTRACTThe geography of freight transportation evolves at various scales but it is increasingly acknowledgedthat freight flows occurring at the local level are a result of global and regional economic processesInternationally distribution networks have expanded namely through the division of productionmanufacturing and consumption This has been accompanied by a growth of the quantity of freightbeing shipped as well as by a complication of supply and distribution chains Most of the geographyof freight at this scale is derived from strategic considerations where issues such as productionand subcontracting planning and the choice of hubs and routes are considered for implementingglobal supply chains Locally many activities concerned with freight distribution have been modifiedwith new transport terminals and distribution centres in response to growing consumption as wellas from the imperatives of fragmented supply chains From their traditional location aroundcentral areas with prevalent port and rail linkages transport terminals and distribution centreshave shifted to peripheral locations where road and airport linkages are more prevalent Thegeography of freight at this scale is mainly derived from operational considerations aimed atservicing the requirements of local distribution with well-known strategies such as just-in-timeand door-to-door This paper is concerned about the intermediate or regional scale of freighttransportation with a specific emphasis on one of the largest urban region in the world theBostonndashWashington corridor (Bostwash) Transport corridors and urban regions represent thegeographical scale of freight distribution where global and local distribution systems interact Theyare the dominant spheres of production and consumption of freight distribution Conceptual andempirical evidence to analyse the relationships between the geography of transport terminalsregional freight distribution and urban corridors is provided

Key words

Freight transportation transport corridors mega-urban regions logistics BosWash

BostWash

INTRODUCTION

The scale and scope of urbanisation attaineda new dimension with globalisation and theassociated economic and technical changes(Hall 1995) One particular outcome has beenthe regionalisation of urbanisation where urbanregions are forming an extended but cohesive

territory creating a new transactional and cir-culation space A commonality of many urbanregions is their orientation and developmentalong corridors where transport economic anddemographic processes are linearly articulatedCorridors tend to offer better accessibility andconnectivity and have consequently shapedurbanisation in many parts of the world The

148

JEAN-PAUL RODRIGUE

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emergence of urban corridors began to beacknowledged in the 1950s as they appeared inthe developed world namely in North America(Gottmann 1961 1987) Western Europe andJapan (UNCRD 1973) More recently corridorsof urbanisation (or mega-urban regions) haveemerged in the developing world particularlyin Pacific Asia (Lo and Yeung 1996)

The issue of transportation remains funda-mental to understand urban corridors How-ever there has been a bias in the investigationof the relationships between transportationurbanisation and the associated spatial struc-tures specifically concerning the scale andmodes While there has been an extensiveliterature relating to intra-urban transportation(eg Hanson 1995) interregional urban trans-portation has received less attention (Rimmer1996) Most of these approaches focused onpassenger transportation and mobility issues byanalysing a geography of circulation but littlehas been done in regards of freight distributionThe role of freight transportation in the geog-raphy of production consumption and distri-bution of urban areas has been overlooked(Hesse and Rodrigue 2004)

This bias has to be considered within thecontext where fundamental structural changeswithin urban regions at the global regional andlocal scales affect the geography of freightdistribution

bull Globally a

complex network of gatewaysare interacting in a system of flows of peoplefreight and information composing spheresof production consumption and circulation(van Klink and van den Berg 1998) Distri-bution networks have expanded namely throughthe division of production manufacturingand consumption This has been accom-panied by a growth of the quantity of freightbeing shipped as well as by more complexsupply and distribution chains Most of thegeography of freight at this scale is derivedfrom strategic considerations where issuessuch as production and subcontractingplanning and the choice of hubs and routesare considered for implementing globalsupply chains

bull Locallyinternally the urban structure hasevolved from a nodal single centre structureto a multi-nodal one with suburbanisation

being the dominant paradigm Additionaldemands for space and lower locational costshave been leading forces behind this processMany activities concerned with freightdistribution have been modified with theconstruction of new transport terminalsand distribution centres in response to grow-ing space consumption as well as from theimperatives of fragmented supply chainsFrom their traditional location aroundcentral areas with prevalent port and raillinkages transport terminals and distributioncentres have shifted to peripheral locationswhere road and airport linkages are morepredominant

bull Regionally a division of economic activitiesregulated by hubs major distribution centresaround which transportation converges isoccurring The prevailing spatial structureof regional accumulation and distributionis thus articulated by a corridor of majorurban centres Transport corridors and urbanregions represent the scale in the geographyof freight distribution where global andlocal distribution systems interact

It is thus argued that freight corridors arethe dominant convergence paradigm ofurbanisation integrating global regional andlocal transportation and economic processesin a geography of distribution The role andfunction of freight distribution in mega-urbanregions will be investigated both from a concep-tual and empirical perspective It mainly focusesupon the case of the Boston ndash Washingtoncorridor (BostWash) which has experiencedsignificant changes over the last 25 years withglobalisation and the associated restructuringof the US economy First an overview of thegeographical theory about corridors is under-taken underlining the current paradigmleaning on distribution Second conceptualrelationships between freight and mega-urbanregions are provided notably over the functionsof articulation and freight distribution Thirdempirical evidence is derived from an overviewof regional freight transportation along theBostWash corridor Freight distribution alongthe corridor is facing an increasingly congestedtransport system and strategies to mitigateregional freight distribution with the impera-tives of modern logistics are being discussed

FREIGHT GATEWAYS AND MEGA-URBAN REGIONS

149

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URBANISATION AND TRANSPORT CORRIDORS

Corridors of urbanisation ndash

Corridors as anaccumulation of flows and infrastructures aredynamic entities linked with economic infra-structural and technological processes Whenthese processes involve urban developmenturbanisation corridors are a system of citiesoriented along an axis commonly fluvial ora coastline Historically urbanisation wasmainly a factor of agricultural productivityand of the communication capacities offeredby fluvial and coastal maritime transportation(van der Woude

et al

1990) Many urbanregions share this historical commonality Thegeographical scale of the processes shapingurbanisation has however changed Out of thetraditional consideration where urbanisation isthe outcome of socio-economic processes occur-ring nationally integration to global economicprocesses are among the strongest forcesshaping contemporary urbanisation Three

dominant paradigms of geographical theorycan be considered to relate urbanisation trans-portation and corridors (Figure 1)

The urban-system and central places theorymainly considers cities as structurally indepen-dent entities that compete over overlappingmarket areas Under the location and accessibilityparadigm an urban region is considered as ahierarchyorder of services and functions andthe corridor a structure organising interactionswithin this hierarchy Transport costs are con-sidered a dominant factor in the organisationof the spatial structure as the hinterland of eachcentre is the outcome of the consumersrsquo abilityto access its range of goods and services (Berry1967) Because of higher levels of accessibilityalong the corridor market areas are smaller andthe extent of goods and services being offeredare broader (Figure 1A)

The specialisation and interdependency para-digm considers that some cities can have a levelof interaction and that transportation could bemore than a factor of market accessibility but

Figure 1 Paradigms in the representation of transport corridors

150

JEAN-PAUL RODRIGUE

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also of regional specialisation and of compara-tive advantages (Pred 1977) The megalopolisconcept introduced by Gottmann (1961)acknowledges the creation of large urban corri-dors structured by transportation infrastruc-tures and terminals maintaining interactionsAccessibility and economies of scale both inproduction and consumption are factors sup-porting the development of such entities whereurban areas are increasingly specialised andinterdependent Most of this interdependenceinitially took place at the regional level as themega-urban region is a more comprehensivesystem of production and consumption thanthe sum of its parts The main assumption isthat the accessibility provided by the corridorreinforces territorial specialisation and inter-dependency along its main axis and consequentlythe reliance on a regional transport system(Figure 1B)

The two representations previously discussedare inadequate to explain the growing linksbetween the regionalism of urban corridorsand the global processes of trade investmentsand specifically the integration of global andregional distribution systems The current distri-bution paradigm is thus one where a globalcity commonly the major

articulation point

of amega-urban region serves as the main interfacebetween global national and regional systemsof accumulation and distribution Under sucha paradigm three core structural elements aredefining an urban corridor

bull Articulations points where the regulation offreight distribution is taking place throughterminals and distribution centres They pro-vide an interface between global and regionalflows

bull Freight corridors with a linear accumulationof transport infrastructures servicing a setof articulation points They provide for thephysical capacity of distribution

bull Freight distribution illustrating flows theirspatial structure and the underlying spheresof production circulation and consumption

These elements place the emphasis on theintermodal capacity of hub centres having aninterface with multimodal transportation sys-tems as well as with the logistical managementof this complex distribution system where thelocal is integrated with the global The corridor

is then a sequence of distribution activitiessupporting a vast array of functions within theurban region a logistically integrated axis(Figure 1C)

Globalisation transportation and mega-urban regions ndash

Mega-urban regions are the mainrecipients of global spatial accumulation sincethey are the spatial structures the most inte-grated to its forces The international trans-portation system both adapted to and shapedthe international division of production A newtransactional environment has emerged alongwith a new sphere of distribution regulated bymajor gateways Each articulation point mustdevelop an efficient regional transportationnetwork to coordinate and transit the produc-tion and consumption of a vast territory andmaintain or increase its importance at a globalscale Intermodal transportation has been adominant factor of change in international andregional freight transportation with improvedefficiency in distribution (Slack 1998 Rodrigue1999 DeWitt and Clinger 2001) If an articu-lation point has efficient intermodal infrastruc-tures it could strengthen its position within theglobal economy Such a hub is a point of origindestination and transit of large quantities offreight people and information

Urban regions as functional entities accountfor a dominant share of global trade flows Theincreased levels of interdependency are con-comitant with the growing fragmentation andspecialisation of production distribution andconsumption However this process is farfrom being uniform as mega-urban regions haveadapted differently depending upon whichfunction they dominantly fulfil their respectivecomparative advantages and the distribution sys-tems they have access to They are an expressionof global market forces industrial relocationand comparative advantages in productionand distribution enabling regional differen-tiations and interdependencies This implies thatmega-urban regions are structurally and oper-ationally similar but since they have differentspheres of production and consumption theyhave specific geographies of distribution Forinstance while mega-urban regions in East andSoutheast Asia provide significant productionand export functions going through major hubs(Hong Kong Singapore Shanghai Kaohsiung

FREIGHT GATEWAYS AND MEGA-URBAN REGIONS

151

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and Pusan) mega-urban regions in developedcountries have expanded their import andconsumption functions The result has been agrowing circulation of freight between andwithin mega-urban regions

FREIGHT AND MEGA-URBAN REGIONS

Most freight flows are a consequence of globaland regional economic activities Mega-urbanregions are dominantly structural and functionalentities since they do not fall into any specificjurisdiction and are rarely recognised as suchSince its inception the concept of mega-urbanregions has been subject to many nuancesconcerning its geographical extent They haveproved to be geographically difficult to defineformally and to analyse comprehensively Ifan urban area can be partially defined by thecommuting field of its residents where internalflows of passengers are more significant thanexternal flows the dynamics of a mega-urbanregion can reside on movements of freight

As a space of flows mega-urban regions havedominantly been considered in terms of flows ofpeople ndash they are after all large concentrationsof populations While passenger flows arederived from economic and social interactionswhich have a tendency to be skewed by manyfactors freight flows are dominantly derivednot only from the location of production andconsumption activities but from the complexweb of intermediate activities such as ware-housing and transshipment Combined theyform a regional transactional space in which manyactors in the supply chain from producers toconsumers interact The relationships betweenfreight and mega-urban regions can be betterunderstood through the concepts of articu-lation points corridors and distribution centres

Articulation points ndash

An articulation point isa location that promotes the continuity of cir-culation in a transportation system servicing asupply chain It is the interface between differentspatial systems a gateway between spheres ofproduction and consumption It also expandsthe hub concept as it includes the considerationof terminal facilities but also the numerousactivities linked with freight circulation such asdistribution centres warehouses and financeThese separate but closely integrated activities

along with the terminals they are linked toform an agglomeration of distribution Conven-tionally geographical factors linked to the siteand situation of lsquohardrsquo terminals (especiallyfor maritime terminals) were bounded with thelocation of articulation points Around thesefacilities agglomerated many freight handlingand distribution activities The emergence ofintermodal transportation systems reinforcesarticulation points as major locations of conver-gence and transshipment and has modifiedtheir geography with increased locationalflexibility While major terminals have expandedand relocated to more peripheral locationsnamely port facilities many distribution centreshave relocated even further away

The importance of an articulation pointis measured by the volume and the nature ofthe traffic it handles at its terminals and thegeographical extent of the distribution systemit provides For instance an internationalarticulation point handles a substantial amountof maritime land and air traffic and has ahinterland that encompasses several regionalarticulation points A regional articulation pointwill handle traffic mostly related to land trans-portation and will be characterised by a smallerhinterland Functionally an articulation pointis a concrete geographical node within a widevariety of supply chains It involves a concen-tration of many transport terminals with eachhub servicing its respective distribution systemThe hierarchy and sequence of freight distri-bution will thus be reflected in the hierarchyand sequence of articulation points

Three dominant functions of freight cir-culation can be assumed by articulation pointseach deriving added value (Figure 2)

bull

Freight Transshipment (A)

Involves a setof intermodal activities transshipping freightfrom one mode to the other Dominant articu-lation points handle substantial amountsof freight through their transport terminalsThis function is particularly important forgateways providing an interface betweenregions and the global economy

bull

Freight Integration (B)

Involves activitiesrelated to the logistics of freight circulationthe most common being the compositionwarehousing and decomposition of freightshipments Distribution centres are the

152

JEAN-PAUL RODRIGUE

copy 2004 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG

common expression of this function of articu-lation (B2) often linked with transshipmentactivities taking place at major terminals (B1)

bull

Freight Convergence (C)

Involves flows offreight bound to another location but goingthrough an articulation point because of itsintermediacy Increased congestion has oftenmade these flows less desirable with modalshift

alternatives being considered

The different scales and functions of articu-lation are linked with different transport ter-minals Major international articulation points arenot dissociated from port and airport terminalswhile regional articulation points tend to belinked with inland transport terminals alonga freight corridor

Freight corridors ndash

A freight corridor is a linearorientation of freight flows supported by anaccumulation of transport infrastructuresand activities servicing these flows Flows can bedivided by mode and by the infrastructuresservicing them Corridors have become theobject of intense modal competition with thegrowth of movements of passengers and freightTraditionally flows in freight corridors tendedto be fragmented and segmented since eachmode tried to exploit its own advantages in termsof cost service reliability and safety In manycases transportation on the roads benefited

taking a significant share of regional freighttransportation More recently as congestionincreased along corridors and as productivityand efficiency improvements were sought withinsupply chains modal complementarity improvedCorridors represent a setting where integratedtransport systems through intermodality areparticularly suitable to improve freight mobility(Figure 3)

As either distance or congestion increasesthe efficiency of road freight distribution alongcorridors is challenged Improvements can beachieved by shifting freight to another modethat is less congested or by using existing modesin a combination where they are respectivelythe most efficient The latter opens opportunitiesof freight diversion where a terminal locatedalong the corridor is used to transfer freight toa mode that lessens congestion inbound oroutbound in a metropolitan area Freight distri-bution centres are increasingly assuming thearticulation of freight distribution in corridors

Freight centres and freight distribution ndash

Thereis a changing geography of distribution withinmega-urban regions as many freight distributionactivities are relocated to suburban areasConventionally many transport terminals anddistribution centres were located close to cen-tral areas mainly as a factor of market and ter-minal proximity A new locational dynamic has

Figure 2 Articulation point and freight distribution

FREIGHT GATEWAYS AND MEGA-URBAN REGIONS

153

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emerged with increased economic integrationand specialisation which involved a suburban-isation of distribution centres and terminalsThis process is well documented and revolvesaround factors such as significant land require-ments for logistics (namely warehousing anddistribution centres) access to road transportsystems and regional markets The corridorsignificantly expands the sphere of distributionby providing an axis along which distributioncentres can reliably service many locations alongthe corridor Terminals and freight distributioncentres located in suburban locations have asphere of distribution that includes both the

metropolitan area and the urban region(Figure 4)

Consequently the combination of suburbanlocations of distribution centres and of a trans-port corridor creates an expanded sphere ofregional freight circulation This trend hasbeen underlined by the lsquosub-harbourisationrsquoof many port terminals and the use of satelliteterminals to lessen congestion (Slack 1999)Further terminals located at the periphery ofmetropolitan areas are able to partake in a pro-cess of freight diversion where freight flows areavoiding more congested central areas and usingless congested modes such as rail and barges

Figure 3 Freight corridor and modal integration

Figure 4 Freight distribution centres along a corridor

154

JEAN-PAUL RODRIGUE

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The corridors between metropolitan areas arethus prone to the accumulation of a variety ofintermodal activities and distribution centres

THE BOSTWASH FREIGHT CORRIDOR

2

Overview ndash

Many terms have been used todefine the mega-urban region on the North-eastern seaboard of the United States includingthe lsquoMegalopolisrsquo lsquoBosWashrsquo the lsquoEast CoastMetroplexrsquo or the lsquoI-95 Corridorrsquo

3

They all tryto label an extensive urban region where thecore commonality is an orientation along atransport corridor notably an interstate systemThis corridor extends along the seaboard andinland including four major metropolitan areas(Boston New York Baltimore Philadelphiaand Washington) with numerous small urbanareas with indistinct functional boundariesbetween them Overlapping influences of largemetropolitan areas their interrelatedness andtheir relationships with local regional andglobal processes characterises the urbancorridor This regionalisation of urbanisationhas been implicitly acknowledged by differentlevels of government with the consideration of

consolidated metropolitan statistical areas(CMSA

4

) and regional planningcoordinationagencies

5

focusing on freight transportationThe BostWash corridor is part of a national

system of trade areas where freight distributionis coordinated by major articulation points(Figure 5) Their extent is mainly a function ofthe average length of domestic truck freighthaul which was around 550 miles in 2000Like many segments of the US economy andterritory integration processes namely NorthAmerican Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)have impacted on the nature and function ofcontinental production consumption anddistribution (Holmes 2000 Woudsma 1999)About a third of the American trade took placewithin NAFTA in 2000 (US Department ofCommerce 2002)

Land gateways are dominantly servicing animport function expanded under NAFTA tradeand connected to corridors of continentalfreight circulation These include three longi-tudinal and four latitudinal axes One such axislabelled as the NAFTA Corridor links the twolargest land gateways of North America DetroitMichigan and Laredo Texas It dominantly

Source Adapted from Cambridge Systematics (2001)

Figure 5 National trade areas articulation points and major land freight gateways

FREIGHT GATEWAYS AND MEGA-URBAN REGIONS

155

copy 2004 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG

relies upon trucking as about 65 per cent of thevalue of the NAFTA trade is serviced by thismode However it is far from being a continu-ous corridor as northbound flows of Mexicanimports and the southbound flows of Canadianimports dwindle as the distance from theirrespective borders increases The equilibriumpoint is around the TennesseeKentucky rangepast which the respective flows are very smallAbout a third of the volume involves auto-mobile parts produced in Southern Ontario andin the Maquiladoras of Mexico which are usedfor low-cost car manufacturing in the Southeaststates (McCray 1998 Weiler

et al

2001)In this system of continental freight cir-

culation the importance and structure of theBostWash corridor can be preliminary assessed bythe size of its market With a population nearing75 million accounting for about 27 per cent ofthe US population but occupying only 62 percent of its landmass the significance of thecorridor as a sphere of consumption is undis-putable The New York metropolitan statisticalarea alone with its population of 212 million

accounts for 75 per cent of the national popu-lation High population densities over 250persons per square mile on a conterminoussegment of about 400 miles between Bostonand Washington are also observed (Figure 6)This concentration of population facilities andtheir associated circulation makes the corridorthe most congested region in the United States

The corridor thus represents a significantshare of the US economy and generates attractsand transships a large amount of freightthrough its infrastructures distribution centresand terminals It is caught in a wider context ofgrowth and change within national transpor-tation where since 1970 the number of annualpassenger-miles per capita has increased by58 per cent (from 11400 to around 18000) andwhere the annual tonnes-miles of freight havedoubled This trend in freight circulation isderived from growing consumption by individ-uals and enterprises and by production systemsthat are increasingly globally integrated (FHWA-DOT 2001 Lakshmanan and Anderson 2002)which involves

Figure 6 The BostWash corridor

156

JEAN-PAUL RODRIGUE

copy 2004 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG

bull

Changing demand for freight

Linked tonew markets conditions namely a greaterreliance on global supply chains concomitantto a tertiarisation of the US economy as itshifts from manufacturing to services Sincethe mid 1970s the US economy has system-atically produced a negative goods tradebalance This is jointly the result of a growthof national consumption an appreciationof the value of the US dollar making foreignproducts cheaper and a shift of labour-intensive manufacturing activities outside theUnited States While exports of goods haveconsistently grown to reach $7188 billionin 2001 this growth has been outpaced byimports that totalled $13563 billion the sameyear Imbalances in freight distribution havethus resulted and impacted on its geography

bull

Changing supply of freight

Linked to thedevelopment of intermodal transportationsystems and the integration of freight trans-port services namely by third party logisticalproviders This goes on par with a higherlevel of supply chain management

bull

Public policy

In many cases public policy hasnot addressed much freight transportationissues Overall there is a variety of convergingand diverging policies concerning transpor-tation in general and freight transportationin particular Such issues involve investmentzoning security and safety regulation that canimpair or improve the efficiency of freighttransportation A major shift has been froma modal to multi-modal surface transpor-tation policy embedded with increasedenvironmental accountability

Freight terminals ndash

Among the vast number oftransport terminals located along the BostWashcorridor 13 major airports 11 major seaports andmany other intermodal facilities can be found(Figure 7) Each terminal is an element in thecontinuity of global national and regional freightdistribution and contributes to the articulationfunction of their respective metropolitan areasNew York is the traditional gateway of the corri-dor a function that has been developed over thelast two hundred years and which has significantly

Figure 7 Major intermodal terminals BostWash corridor

FREIGHT GATEWAYS AND MEGA-URBAN REGIONS

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impacted on the structure of the metropolitanarea with large port and rail terminals (Chinitz1960) The development of air transportationand the growing reliance on air freight hasadded a new terminal dynamics as the corridorrsquosmajor airports handled more than 9 milliontonnes of landed freight in 2000 The two majorairports of the New York metropolitan areaalone handled about 28 per cent of this traffic(25 million tonnes) Containerised traffic is alsoan activity relying on a new dynamics of inte-gration between transport terminals and freightdistribution systems As such maritime containerterminals are becoming increasingly linkedwith inland COFCTOFC (container on flat cartrailers on flat car) facilities bound to localregional and national distribution (Figure 7)

From 1991 to 2000 container traffic at theseven major ports (New YorkNew JerseyBaltimore Philadelphia Wilmington BostonRichmond and Portland) increased from27 million to above four million TEUs Threequarters of the growth occurred at the Port ofNew York and New Jersey which in 2000 handledjust over three million TEUs one million morethan just eight years earlier This growth is jointlythe result of regional freight demand and ofglobal distribution chains used by multinationalcorporations Although during the 1980s andearly 1990s the hubbing role of New York waschallenged by traditional rivals such as BaltimorePhiladelphia and Montreal and by new rivalssuch as Halifax and Hampton Roads the begin-ning of the 21st century leaves New York theundisputable maritime container hub of thecorridor This status was confirmed in 1999when Maersk-Sealand the worldrsquos largest con-tainer shipper decided to keep New York as theirEast Coast hub The growth of containerisedtraffic for New YorkNew Jersey during the1990s topped the combined growth of all itscompeting ports of the North Atlantic NewYorkrsquos hubbing role is one of the most pro-nounced in the United States since it receivedthe largest number of containership calls evenif it is the third largest container port Unlikethe Pacific the Atlantic seaboard has muchpotential for coastal freight distribution with anumber of small and medium-sized ports

Freight distribution ndash

The BostWash corridor hasparticularly been impacted by the restructuration

of the US economy For instance recent trendsunderline that about 183 million Americansworked in manufacturing in 2000 a figure simi-lar to the 1950s Concomitantly the workforcein the service sector has growth from 30 millionto 107 million The functions of distributionand consumption have consequently grown muchmore substantially than production a trendreflected by a growth in interregional and inter-national freight flows More than 11 millionpeople worked in the logistics and distributionsector in the five largest metropolitan areas ofthe corridor

The amount of domestic tonne-miles carriedin the United States between 1980 and 2000 hasmore than doubled for road traffic and morethan tripled for air freight Over 136 billiontonnes of freight valued at $9 trillion was carriedin the United States in 1998 Of these figuresthe BostWash corridor accounted for 35 billiontonnes valued at $26 trillion 26 per cent of thecarried tonnes and 28 per cent of the value Thenature of freight circulation implies a higherlevel of flexibility more frequent deliveries andgreater reliance on trucking From freight ter-minals a large quantity of freight flows throughthe corridor Moreover freight circulation hasexpanded with the growth of containerisedtraffic handled at ports but also from the con-tainerised traffic transshipped at West Coast portsand moved through the continental landbridgeto be distributed along the East Coast Muchconventional cargo is also being distributedIn addition the BaltimorendashPhiladelphiandashNewJersey ndash New York corridor

6

(Figure 7) serves asmajor distribution points for high volumes ofintermodal rail to truck transfers of domesti-cally produced automobiles (mixing centres)and also for a wide range of bulk productsThese goods are moved by rail and then trans-ferred to trucks for regional and local distri-bution Regional rail freight handles more than225 million tonnes of containerised and non-containerised cargo originating or bound tothe region An additional 90 million tonnes istransiting through the region

Challenges ndash

The development of transportsystems in the BostWash corridor has createda strong dependency on trucking for regionalfreight distribution With the development ofthe Interstate highway system in the 1960s and

158

JEAN-PAUL RODRIGUE

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1970s growing freight circulation was accom-modated by growing road capacities The growthof one was the rationale behind the growthof the other The expansion of road infrastruc-tures has however declined substantially inthe 1980s and 1990s leaving the growth of roadfreight distribution without significant addi-tional capacities As the road transport systemgot increasingly congested including accessto major transport terminals alternatives aresought to improve its capacity Estimates bythe Federal Highway Administration place thegrowth of freight transportation in the corridorto figures around 75 between 2000 and 2020In a tightly integrated distribution systemcongestion involves delays and a disruption oftrade and production The growing integrationbetween the functions of production and trans-portation underline this trend Among the majortransport challenges affecting distribution inthe corridor are (I-95 Coalition 2001)

bull

Road Congestion

Congestion in the corridorinvolves many dimensions ranging from

highways access to terminals and urban cir-culation It has traditionally being perceivedwith the purpose of improving passengermobility as investments going to highwaydevelopment benefited trucking With thespectacular growth of trucking congestion isreducing the effectiveness of distributionsystems over which trucking is particularlyvulnerable Each day 38000 trucks go throughthe New YorkndashNorthern New Jersey regionOf these 10000 trucks are using the I-95accounting between 10 per cent and 20 percent of all vehicles using this highway seg-ment As such trucking may cause between30 per cent to 40 per cent of all highwaycongestion Most of the major highways alongthe corridor are operating around or abovedesign capacity (Figure 8) Congestion is fur-ther exacerbated by the geographical scaleof distribution most of it taking place withinthe corridor and using its major highwaysUntil recently little alternatives to regionaldistribution outside trucking were beingconsidered

Figure 8 Volume to capacity ratio major highways BostWash corridor 1998

FREIGHT GATEWAYS AND MEGA-URBAN REGIONS

159

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bull

Circulation bottlenecks

Freight distributionis currently hitting many road rail and portbottlenecks raising questions about thecapacity of the regional transport system toanswer the expected growth of the demandUrban areas and access to major port railand air terminals represent significantbottlenecks impairing trucking A survey ofthe Mid-Atlantic rail corridor identified 25locations having insufficient capacity and90 locations where vertical clearance cannotaccommodate double stacking container railcars (Cambridge Systematics 2002) Improv-ing flows at critical bottlenecks will requirelarge infrastructure upgrades

bull

Intermodal capacity

There is a lack ofefficient intermodal transfers in the corridorparticularly truck-to-rail transfer facilities(TOFC) and rail integration at port terminals(COFC) notably at the Port of New York andNew Jersey Since 85 of containers boundfor the port are carried by 15000 truck-journeys each day

7

local accessibility tomaritime terminals is a fundamental issue Forinstance in 1991 the Port of New York andNew Jersey inaugurated a direct ship-to-railand rail-to-ship transshipment facility a func-tion which grew at a phenomenal rate from43000 containers handled in 1992 to 228000in 2002 It is expected that by 2010 inter-modal rail share would climb to between 25 percentndash30 per cent of transshipped containersresulting in improved economic and environ-mental benefits for the locality (NYMTC 2001)Inland rail terminals could consequently actas satellite terminals and permit freight cir-culation to avoid the congested road systemof the metropolitan area especially near portterminal facilities

bull

Modal shift

A shift of road freight to othermodes remains one of the most importantchallenges for the corridor Attempts atseparating freight and passenger circulationare likely to improve the performance of bothsystems Intermodal transportation is chang-ing the dynamics of regional transportationfrom a situation of modal competition to thedevelopment of modal complementarity Forcontainer transportation a higher usage ofrail and barges for regional circulation couldalso significantly alleviate the road systemespecially over local access to large terminals

Since the corridor is oriented along a coast-line the development of a regional systemof maritime distribution servicing the existinginternational system could provide substan-tial benefits The importance of air transpor-tation for regional short distance movementshas also created an unsustainable situationFor instance 40 per cent of all the flightsfrom Logan airport (Boston) are bound forNew York only 200 miles away The develop-ment of a more efficient and possibly highspeed rail service would free much neededairport capacity in the corridor capacity thatcould easily accommodate the growth ofair freight

bull

Freight diversion

The development of inlandterminals a strategy pursued by many freightforwarders and port authorities is creating aprocess of freight diversion The port inlanddistribution network (PIDN) developed bythe Port Authority of New York and NewJersey and the Virginia inland port are twonotable example of this strategy Through theusage of inland rail and barge terminals afreight diversion effect would prevent trucksentering the congested metropolitan areasand enable the respective ports to capturea wider market area (PANYNJ 2003) Aprocess of lsquosub-harbourisationrsquo is well underway

CONCLUSION

Urbanisation as a regional process resulted inspatial structures that are inherently complexand in which flows of people and freightrequire a high level of regulation In manyurban regions corridors represent a paradigmof urbanisation over which it has been arguedthat freight distribution offers a perspective tounderstand their dynamics They are servicedby complex freight distribution systems linkingglobal national and regional distributionsystems Mega-urban regions as

logisticallyintegrated entities

have adapted differently toa changing geography of production consump-tion and distribution as they are the mainstructures behind the international division oflabour and production This integration issupported by articulation points where anaccumulation and a concentration of terminalsdistribution centres and related activities

160

JEAN-PAUL RODRIGUE

copy 2004 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG

coordinate local regional and global freightdistribution Concomitantly to the special-isation and fragmentation of production aspecialisation of distribution is taking place

Being one of the worldrsquos leading urbanregions BostWash has experienced a qualitativeand quantitative shift in its distribution Firstthe corridor is imbedded in a system of nationalcorridors of freight circulation that haveexpanded since NAFTA was established Secondwhile regional freight movements are increas-ingly been linked with a growth of consumptiontransport terminals have adapted to globallyoriented supply chains where inbound trafficfar exceeds outbound traffic Many distributioncentres have been sub-urbanised to answerthe requirements of additional space to satisfya dependence on trucking and to access theregional market in a timely fashion A notableconcentration of terminals and distributioncentres has taken place along the BaltimorendashPhiladelphiandashNew JerseyndashNew York axis to offera corridor-wide level of freight distributionIn turn this has exacerbated congestionalong major highway axis and next to majorintermodal terminals Among many of thestrategies implemented to address the corridor-wide challenges of freight distribution aprocess of lsquosub-harbourisationrsquo is taking placewithin the corridor in addition to a modalshift from road to rail How well these regionalchallenges will be addressed is of strategicimportance to insure that present and futuredistributional needs of BostWash remains to beanswered The issue of freight corridors logis-tics and distribution certainly deserves furtherinvestigations

Notes

1 The author would like to thank Brian Slack foruseful comments

2 We prefer to use the term lsquoBostWashrsquo instead oflsquoBosWashrsquo as initially introduced by Gottmann(1961) Although it is less phonetically elegant itprovides a clearer reference to Boston and abetter indication that it is a neologism

3 The number of the interstate highway at the coreof the corridor

4 CMSAs are composed of two or more adjoiningmetropolitan areas which have demonstratedsome economic linkage

5 The I-95 Corridor Coalition initiated in 1993 isan attempt to manage this entity by forming aregional partnership of major public and privatetransportation agencies toll authorities andindustry associations serving the Northeasternpart of the United States from Maine to VirginiaIt tries to offer a multi-jurisdictional approach totransportation issues covering multiple stateslthttpwwwi95coalitionorggt

6 A sub-corridor that can be labelled as lsquointermodalalleyrsquo

7 The national average is 44

REFERENCES

Berry

BJL (1967)

Geography of Market Centersand Retail Distribution

Englewood Cliffs NJPrentice-Hall

Cambridge

Systematics

(2001) Freight TrendsIssues and Data Needs presented at the Conferenceon Data Needs in the Changing World of Logisticsand Freight Transportation Saratoga SpringsNY lthttpwwwdotstatenyusttssconferencegrenzebackpdfgt

Cambridge

Systematics

(2002) Mid-Atlantic RailOperations Study lthttpwwwi95coalitionorggt

Chinitz

B (1960)

Freight and the Metropolis The Impactof Americarsquos Transport Revolutions on the New YorkRegion

Cambridge MA Harvard University Press

DeWitt

W amp J

Clinger

(2001) Intermodal FreightTransportation Millennium Paper TRB Committeeon Intermodal Freight Transportation (A1B05)Washington DC National Academy Press lthttpwwwnationalacademiesorgtrbpublicationsmillennium00061pdfgt

FHWA-DOT (2001) National Freight Issues ampPolicy Options Office of Freight Management andOperations lthttpopsfhwadotgovfreightgt

Gottmann

J (1961)

Megalopolis The UrbanizedNortheast Seaboard of the United States

New YorkTwentieth Century Fund

Gottmann

J (1987)

Megalopolis Revisited 25 YearsLater

The University of Maryland Institute forUrban Studies

Hall

P (1995) Towards a General Urban Theory

In

J

Brotchie

M

Batty

E

Blakely

P

Hall

ampP

Newton

eds

Cities in Competition Productiveand Sustainable Cities for the 21st Century

pp 3ndash32Melbourne Longman Australia

Hanson

S (1995)

The Geography of Urban Trans-portation

2nd edn New York Guilford

148

JEAN-PAUL RODRIGUE

copy 2004 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG

emergence of urban corridors began to beacknowledged in the 1950s as they appeared inthe developed world namely in North America(Gottmann 1961 1987) Western Europe andJapan (UNCRD 1973) More recently corridorsof urbanisation (or mega-urban regions) haveemerged in the developing world particularlyin Pacific Asia (Lo and Yeung 1996)

The issue of transportation remains funda-mental to understand urban corridors How-ever there has been a bias in the investigationof the relationships between transportationurbanisation and the associated spatial struc-tures specifically concerning the scale andmodes While there has been an extensiveliterature relating to intra-urban transportation(eg Hanson 1995) interregional urban trans-portation has received less attention (Rimmer1996) Most of these approaches focused onpassenger transportation and mobility issues byanalysing a geography of circulation but littlehas been done in regards of freight distributionThe role of freight transportation in the geog-raphy of production consumption and distri-bution of urban areas has been overlooked(Hesse and Rodrigue 2004)

This bias has to be considered within thecontext where fundamental structural changeswithin urban regions at the global regional andlocal scales affect the geography of freightdistribution

bull Globally a

complex network of gatewaysare interacting in a system of flows of peoplefreight and information composing spheresof production consumption and circulation(van Klink and van den Berg 1998) Distri-bution networks have expanded namely throughthe division of production manufacturingand consumption This has been accom-panied by a growth of the quantity of freightbeing shipped as well as by more complexsupply and distribution chains Most of thegeography of freight at this scale is derivedfrom strategic considerations where issuessuch as production and subcontractingplanning and the choice of hubs and routesare considered for implementing globalsupply chains

bull Locallyinternally the urban structure hasevolved from a nodal single centre structureto a multi-nodal one with suburbanisation

being the dominant paradigm Additionaldemands for space and lower locational costshave been leading forces behind this processMany activities concerned with freightdistribution have been modified with theconstruction of new transport terminalsand distribution centres in response to grow-ing space consumption as well as from theimperatives of fragmented supply chainsFrom their traditional location aroundcentral areas with prevalent port and raillinkages transport terminals and distributioncentres have shifted to peripheral locationswhere road and airport linkages are morepredominant

bull Regionally a division of economic activitiesregulated by hubs major distribution centresaround which transportation converges isoccurring The prevailing spatial structureof regional accumulation and distributionis thus articulated by a corridor of majorurban centres Transport corridors and urbanregions represent the scale in the geographyof freight distribution where global andlocal distribution systems interact

It is thus argued that freight corridors arethe dominant convergence paradigm ofurbanisation integrating global regional andlocal transportation and economic processesin a geography of distribution The role andfunction of freight distribution in mega-urbanregions will be investigated both from a concep-tual and empirical perspective It mainly focusesupon the case of the Boston ndash Washingtoncorridor (BostWash) which has experiencedsignificant changes over the last 25 years withglobalisation and the associated restructuringof the US economy First an overview of thegeographical theory about corridors is under-taken underlining the current paradigmleaning on distribution Second conceptualrelationships between freight and mega-urbanregions are provided notably over the functionsof articulation and freight distribution Thirdempirical evidence is derived from an overviewof regional freight transportation along theBostWash corridor Freight distribution alongthe corridor is facing an increasingly congestedtransport system and strategies to mitigateregional freight distribution with the impera-tives of modern logistics are being discussed

FREIGHT GATEWAYS AND MEGA-URBAN REGIONS

149

copy 2004 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG

URBANISATION AND TRANSPORT CORRIDORS

Corridors of urbanisation ndash

Corridors as anaccumulation of flows and infrastructures aredynamic entities linked with economic infra-structural and technological processes Whenthese processes involve urban developmenturbanisation corridors are a system of citiesoriented along an axis commonly fluvial ora coastline Historically urbanisation wasmainly a factor of agricultural productivityand of the communication capacities offeredby fluvial and coastal maritime transportation(van der Woude

et al

1990) Many urbanregions share this historical commonality Thegeographical scale of the processes shapingurbanisation has however changed Out of thetraditional consideration where urbanisation isthe outcome of socio-economic processes occur-ring nationally integration to global economicprocesses are among the strongest forcesshaping contemporary urbanisation Three

dominant paradigms of geographical theorycan be considered to relate urbanisation trans-portation and corridors (Figure 1)

The urban-system and central places theorymainly considers cities as structurally indepen-dent entities that compete over overlappingmarket areas Under the location and accessibilityparadigm an urban region is considered as ahierarchyorder of services and functions andthe corridor a structure organising interactionswithin this hierarchy Transport costs are con-sidered a dominant factor in the organisationof the spatial structure as the hinterland of eachcentre is the outcome of the consumersrsquo abilityto access its range of goods and services (Berry1967) Because of higher levels of accessibilityalong the corridor market areas are smaller andthe extent of goods and services being offeredare broader (Figure 1A)

The specialisation and interdependency para-digm considers that some cities can have a levelof interaction and that transportation could bemore than a factor of market accessibility but

Figure 1 Paradigms in the representation of transport corridors

150

JEAN-PAUL RODRIGUE

copy 2004 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG

also of regional specialisation and of compara-tive advantages (Pred 1977) The megalopolisconcept introduced by Gottmann (1961)acknowledges the creation of large urban corri-dors structured by transportation infrastruc-tures and terminals maintaining interactionsAccessibility and economies of scale both inproduction and consumption are factors sup-porting the development of such entities whereurban areas are increasingly specialised andinterdependent Most of this interdependenceinitially took place at the regional level as themega-urban region is a more comprehensivesystem of production and consumption thanthe sum of its parts The main assumption isthat the accessibility provided by the corridorreinforces territorial specialisation and inter-dependency along its main axis and consequentlythe reliance on a regional transport system(Figure 1B)

The two representations previously discussedare inadequate to explain the growing linksbetween the regionalism of urban corridorsand the global processes of trade investmentsand specifically the integration of global andregional distribution systems The current distri-bution paradigm is thus one where a globalcity commonly the major

articulation point

of amega-urban region serves as the main interfacebetween global national and regional systemsof accumulation and distribution Under sucha paradigm three core structural elements aredefining an urban corridor

bull Articulations points where the regulation offreight distribution is taking place throughterminals and distribution centres They pro-vide an interface between global and regionalflows

bull Freight corridors with a linear accumulationof transport infrastructures servicing a setof articulation points They provide for thephysical capacity of distribution

bull Freight distribution illustrating flows theirspatial structure and the underlying spheresof production circulation and consumption

These elements place the emphasis on theintermodal capacity of hub centres having aninterface with multimodal transportation sys-tems as well as with the logistical managementof this complex distribution system where thelocal is integrated with the global The corridor

is then a sequence of distribution activitiessupporting a vast array of functions within theurban region a logistically integrated axis(Figure 1C)

Globalisation transportation and mega-urban regions ndash

Mega-urban regions are the mainrecipients of global spatial accumulation sincethey are the spatial structures the most inte-grated to its forces The international trans-portation system both adapted to and shapedthe international division of production A newtransactional environment has emerged alongwith a new sphere of distribution regulated bymajor gateways Each articulation point mustdevelop an efficient regional transportationnetwork to coordinate and transit the produc-tion and consumption of a vast territory andmaintain or increase its importance at a globalscale Intermodal transportation has been adominant factor of change in international andregional freight transportation with improvedefficiency in distribution (Slack 1998 Rodrigue1999 DeWitt and Clinger 2001) If an articu-lation point has efficient intermodal infrastruc-tures it could strengthen its position within theglobal economy Such a hub is a point of origindestination and transit of large quantities offreight people and information

Urban regions as functional entities accountfor a dominant share of global trade flows Theincreased levels of interdependency are con-comitant with the growing fragmentation andspecialisation of production distribution andconsumption However this process is farfrom being uniform as mega-urban regions haveadapted differently depending upon whichfunction they dominantly fulfil their respectivecomparative advantages and the distribution sys-tems they have access to They are an expressionof global market forces industrial relocationand comparative advantages in productionand distribution enabling regional differen-tiations and interdependencies This implies thatmega-urban regions are structurally and oper-ationally similar but since they have differentspheres of production and consumption theyhave specific geographies of distribution Forinstance while mega-urban regions in East andSoutheast Asia provide significant productionand export functions going through major hubs(Hong Kong Singapore Shanghai Kaohsiung

FREIGHT GATEWAYS AND MEGA-URBAN REGIONS

151

copy 2004 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG

and Pusan) mega-urban regions in developedcountries have expanded their import andconsumption functions The result has been agrowing circulation of freight between andwithin mega-urban regions

FREIGHT AND MEGA-URBAN REGIONS

Most freight flows are a consequence of globaland regional economic activities Mega-urbanregions are dominantly structural and functionalentities since they do not fall into any specificjurisdiction and are rarely recognised as suchSince its inception the concept of mega-urbanregions has been subject to many nuancesconcerning its geographical extent They haveproved to be geographically difficult to defineformally and to analyse comprehensively Ifan urban area can be partially defined by thecommuting field of its residents where internalflows of passengers are more significant thanexternal flows the dynamics of a mega-urbanregion can reside on movements of freight

As a space of flows mega-urban regions havedominantly been considered in terms of flows ofpeople ndash they are after all large concentrationsof populations While passenger flows arederived from economic and social interactionswhich have a tendency to be skewed by manyfactors freight flows are dominantly derivednot only from the location of production andconsumption activities but from the complexweb of intermediate activities such as ware-housing and transshipment Combined theyform a regional transactional space in which manyactors in the supply chain from producers toconsumers interact The relationships betweenfreight and mega-urban regions can be betterunderstood through the concepts of articu-lation points corridors and distribution centres

Articulation points ndash

An articulation point isa location that promotes the continuity of cir-culation in a transportation system servicing asupply chain It is the interface between differentspatial systems a gateway between spheres ofproduction and consumption It also expandsthe hub concept as it includes the considerationof terminal facilities but also the numerousactivities linked with freight circulation such asdistribution centres warehouses and financeThese separate but closely integrated activities

along with the terminals they are linked toform an agglomeration of distribution Conven-tionally geographical factors linked to the siteand situation of lsquohardrsquo terminals (especiallyfor maritime terminals) were bounded with thelocation of articulation points Around thesefacilities agglomerated many freight handlingand distribution activities The emergence ofintermodal transportation systems reinforcesarticulation points as major locations of conver-gence and transshipment and has modifiedtheir geography with increased locationalflexibility While major terminals have expandedand relocated to more peripheral locationsnamely port facilities many distribution centreshave relocated even further away

The importance of an articulation pointis measured by the volume and the nature ofthe traffic it handles at its terminals and thegeographical extent of the distribution systemit provides For instance an internationalarticulation point handles a substantial amountof maritime land and air traffic and has ahinterland that encompasses several regionalarticulation points A regional articulation pointwill handle traffic mostly related to land trans-portation and will be characterised by a smallerhinterland Functionally an articulation pointis a concrete geographical node within a widevariety of supply chains It involves a concen-tration of many transport terminals with eachhub servicing its respective distribution systemThe hierarchy and sequence of freight distri-bution will thus be reflected in the hierarchyand sequence of articulation points

Three dominant functions of freight cir-culation can be assumed by articulation pointseach deriving added value (Figure 2)

bull

Freight Transshipment (A)

Involves a setof intermodal activities transshipping freightfrom one mode to the other Dominant articu-lation points handle substantial amountsof freight through their transport terminalsThis function is particularly important forgateways providing an interface betweenregions and the global economy

bull

Freight Integration (B)

Involves activitiesrelated to the logistics of freight circulationthe most common being the compositionwarehousing and decomposition of freightshipments Distribution centres are the

152

JEAN-PAUL RODRIGUE

copy 2004 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG

common expression of this function of articu-lation (B2) often linked with transshipmentactivities taking place at major terminals (B1)

bull

Freight Convergence (C)

Involves flows offreight bound to another location but goingthrough an articulation point because of itsintermediacy Increased congestion has oftenmade these flows less desirable with modalshift

alternatives being considered

The different scales and functions of articu-lation are linked with different transport ter-minals Major international articulation points arenot dissociated from port and airport terminalswhile regional articulation points tend to belinked with inland transport terminals alonga freight corridor

Freight corridors ndash

A freight corridor is a linearorientation of freight flows supported by anaccumulation of transport infrastructuresand activities servicing these flows Flows can bedivided by mode and by the infrastructuresservicing them Corridors have become theobject of intense modal competition with thegrowth of movements of passengers and freightTraditionally flows in freight corridors tendedto be fragmented and segmented since eachmode tried to exploit its own advantages in termsof cost service reliability and safety In manycases transportation on the roads benefited

taking a significant share of regional freighttransportation More recently as congestionincreased along corridors and as productivityand efficiency improvements were sought withinsupply chains modal complementarity improvedCorridors represent a setting where integratedtransport systems through intermodality areparticularly suitable to improve freight mobility(Figure 3)

As either distance or congestion increasesthe efficiency of road freight distribution alongcorridors is challenged Improvements can beachieved by shifting freight to another modethat is less congested or by using existing modesin a combination where they are respectivelythe most efficient The latter opens opportunitiesof freight diversion where a terminal locatedalong the corridor is used to transfer freight toa mode that lessens congestion inbound oroutbound in a metropolitan area Freight distri-bution centres are increasingly assuming thearticulation of freight distribution in corridors

Freight centres and freight distribution ndash

Thereis a changing geography of distribution withinmega-urban regions as many freight distributionactivities are relocated to suburban areasConventionally many transport terminals anddistribution centres were located close to cen-tral areas mainly as a factor of market and ter-minal proximity A new locational dynamic has

Figure 2 Articulation point and freight distribution

FREIGHT GATEWAYS AND MEGA-URBAN REGIONS

153

copy 2004 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG

emerged with increased economic integrationand specialisation which involved a suburban-isation of distribution centres and terminalsThis process is well documented and revolvesaround factors such as significant land require-ments for logistics (namely warehousing anddistribution centres) access to road transportsystems and regional markets The corridorsignificantly expands the sphere of distributionby providing an axis along which distributioncentres can reliably service many locations alongthe corridor Terminals and freight distributioncentres located in suburban locations have asphere of distribution that includes both the

metropolitan area and the urban region(Figure 4)

Consequently the combination of suburbanlocations of distribution centres and of a trans-port corridor creates an expanded sphere ofregional freight circulation This trend hasbeen underlined by the lsquosub-harbourisationrsquoof many port terminals and the use of satelliteterminals to lessen congestion (Slack 1999)Further terminals located at the periphery ofmetropolitan areas are able to partake in a pro-cess of freight diversion where freight flows areavoiding more congested central areas and usingless congested modes such as rail and barges

Figure 3 Freight corridor and modal integration

Figure 4 Freight distribution centres along a corridor

154

JEAN-PAUL RODRIGUE

copy 2004 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG

The corridors between metropolitan areas arethus prone to the accumulation of a variety ofintermodal activities and distribution centres

THE BOSTWASH FREIGHT CORRIDOR

2

Overview ndash

Many terms have been used todefine the mega-urban region on the North-eastern seaboard of the United States includingthe lsquoMegalopolisrsquo lsquoBosWashrsquo the lsquoEast CoastMetroplexrsquo or the lsquoI-95 Corridorrsquo

3

They all tryto label an extensive urban region where thecore commonality is an orientation along atransport corridor notably an interstate systemThis corridor extends along the seaboard andinland including four major metropolitan areas(Boston New York Baltimore Philadelphiaand Washington) with numerous small urbanareas with indistinct functional boundariesbetween them Overlapping influences of largemetropolitan areas their interrelatedness andtheir relationships with local regional andglobal processes characterises the urbancorridor This regionalisation of urbanisationhas been implicitly acknowledged by differentlevels of government with the consideration of

consolidated metropolitan statistical areas(CMSA

4

) and regional planningcoordinationagencies

5

focusing on freight transportationThe BostWash corridor is part of a national

system of trade areas where freight distributionis coordinated by major articulation points(Figure 5) Their extent is mainly a function ofthe average length of domestic truck freighthaul which was around 550 miles in 2000Like many segments of the US economy andterritory integration processes namely NorthAmerican Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)have impacted on the nature and function ofcontinental production consumption anddistribution (Holmes 2000 Woudsma 1999)About a third of the American trade took placewithin NAFTA in 2000 (US Department ofCommerce 2002)

Land gateways are dominantly servicing animport function expanded under NAFTA tradeand connected to corridors of continentalfreight circulation These include three longi-tudinal and four latitudinal axes One such axislabelled as the NAFTA Corridor links the twolargest land gateways of North America DetroitMichigan and Laredo Texas It dominantly

Source Adapted from Cambridge Systematics (2001)

Figure 5 National trade areas articulation points and major land freight gateways

FREIGHT GATEWAYS AND MEGA-URBAN REGIONS

155

copy 2004 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG

relies upon trucking as about 65 per cent of thevalue of the NAFTA trade is serviced by thismode However it is far from being a continu-ous corridor as northbound flows of Mexicanimports and the southbound flows of Canadianimports dwindle as the distance from theirrespective borders increases The equilibriumpoint is around the TennesseeKentucky rangepast which the respective flows are very smallAbout a third of the volume involves auto-mobile parts produced in Southern Ontario andin the Maquiladoras of Mexico which are usedfor low-cost car manufacturing in the Southeaststates (McCray 1998 Weiler

et al

2001)In this system of continental freight cir-

culation the importance and structure of theBostWash corridor can be preliminary assessed bythe size of its market With a population nearing75 million accounting for about 27 per cent ofthe US population but occupying only 62 percent of its landmass the significance of thecorridor as a sphere of consumption is undis-putable The New York metropolitan statisticalarea alone with its population of 212 million

accounts for 75 per cent of the national popu-lation High population densities over 250persons per square mile on a conterminoussegment of about 400 miles between Bostonand Washington are also observed (Figure 6)This concentration of population facilities andtheir associated circulation makes the corridorthe most congested region in the United States

The corridor thus represents a significantshare of the US economy and generates attractsand transships a large amount of freightthrough its infrastructures distribution centresand terminals It is caught in a wider context ofgrowth and change within national transpor-tation where since 1970 the number of annualpassenger-miles per capita has increased by58 per cent (from 11400 to around 18000) andwhere the annual tonnes-miles of freight havedoubled This trend in freight circulation isderived from growing consumption by individ-uals and enterprises and by production systemsthat are increasingly globally integrated (FHWA-DOT 2001 Lakshmanan and Anderson 2002)which involves

Figure 6 The BostWash corridor

156

JEAN-PAUL RODRIGUE

copy 2004 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG

bull

Changing demand for freight

Linked tonew markets conditions namely a greaterreliance on global supply chains concomitantto a tertiarisation of the US economy as itshifts from manufacturing to services Sincethe mid 1970s the US economy has system-atically produced a negative goods tradebalance This is jointly the result of a growthof national consumption an appreciationof the value of the US dollar making foreignproducts cheaper and a shift of labour-intensive manufacturing activities outside theUnited States While exports of goods haveconsistently grown to reach $7188 billionin 2001 this growth has been outpaced byimports that totalled $13563 billion the sameyear Imbalances in freight distribution havethus resulted and impacted on its geography

bull

Changing supply of freight

Linked to thedevelopment of intermodal transportationsystems and the integration of freight trans-port services namely by third party logisticalproviders This goes on par with a higherlevel of supply chain management

bull

Public policy

In many cases public policy hasnot addressed much freight transportationissues Overall there is a variety of convergingand diverging policies concerning transpor-tation in general and freight transportationin particular Such issues involve investmentzoning security and safety regulation that canimpair or improve the efficiency of freighttransportation A major shift has been froma modal to multi-modal surface transpor-tation policy embedded with increasedenvironmental accountability

Freight terminals ndash

Among the vast number oftransport terminals located along the BostWashcorridor 13 major airports 11 major seaports andmany other intermodal facilities can be found(Figure 7) Each terminal is an element in thecontinuity of global national and regional freightdistribution and contributes to the articulationfunction of their respective metropolitan areasNew York is the traditional gateway of the corri-dor a function that has been developed over thelast two hundred years and which has significantly

Figure 7 Major intermodal terminals BostWash corridor

FREIGHT GATEWAYS AND MEGA-URBAN REGIONS

157

copy 2004 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG

impacted on the structure of the metropolitanarea with large port and rail terminals (Chinitz1960) The development of air transportationand the growing reliance on air freight hasadded a new terminal dynamics as the corridorrsquosmajor airports handled more than 9 milliontonnes of landed freight in 2000 The two majorairports of the New York metropolitan areaalone handled about 28 per cent of this traffic(25 million tonnes) Containerised traffic is alsoan activity relying on a new dynamics of inte-gration between transport terminals and freightdistribution systems As such maritime containerterminals are becoming increasingly linkedwith inland COFCTOFC (container on flat cartrailers on flat car) facilities bound to localregional and national distribution (Figure 7)

From 1991 to 2000 container traffic at theseven major ports (New YorkNew JerseyBaltimore Philadelphia Wilmington BostonRichmond and Portland) increased from27 million to above four million TEUs Threequarters of the growth occurred at the Port ofNew York and New Jersey which in 2000 handledjust over three million TEUs one million morethan just eight years earlier This growth is jointlythe result of regional freight demand and ofglobal distribution chains used by multinationalcorporations Although during the 1980s andearly 1990s the hubbing role of New York waschallenged by traditional rivals such as BaltimorePhiladelphia and Montreal and by new rivalssuch as Halifax and Hampton Roads the begin-ning of the 21st century leaves New York theundisputable maritime container hub of thecorridor This status was confirmed in 1999when Maersk-Sealand the worldrsquos largest con-tainer shipper decided to keep New York as theirEast Coast hub The growth of containerisedtraffic for New YorkNew Jersey during the1990s topped the combined growth of all itscompeting ports of the North Atlantic NewYorkrsquos hubbing role is one of the most pro-nounced in the United States since it receivedthe largest number of containership calls evenif it is the third largest container port Unlikethe Pacific the Atlantic seaboard has muchpotential for coastal freight distribution with anumber of small and medium-sized ports

Freight distribution ndash

The BostWash corridor hasparticularly been impacted by the restructuration

of the US economy For instance recent trendsunderline that about 183 million Americansworked in manufacturing in 2000 a figure simi-lar to the 1950s Concomitantly the workforcein the service sector has growth from 30 millionto 107 million The functions of distributionand consumption have consequently grown muchmore substantially than production a trendreflected by a growth in interregional and inter-national freight flows More than 11 millionpeople worked in the logistics and distributionsector in the five largest metropolitan areas ofthe corridor

The amount of domestic tonne-miles carriedin the United States between 1980 and 2000 hasmore than doubled for road traffic and morethan tripled for air freight Over 136 billiontonnes of freight valued at $9 trillion was carriedin the United States in 1998 Of these figuresthe BostWash corridor accounted for 35 billiontonnes valued at $26 trillion 26 per cent of thecarried tonnes and 28 per cent of the value Thenature of freight circulation implies a higherlevel of flexibility more frequent deliveries andgreater reliance on trucking From freight ter-minals a large quantity of freight flows throughthe corridor Moreover freight circulation hasexpanded with the growth of containerisedtraffic handled at ports but also from the con-tainerised traffic transshipped at West Coast portsand moved through the continental landbridgeto be distributed along the East Coast Muchconventional cargo is also being distributedIn addition the BaltimorendashPhiladelphiandashNewJersey ndash New York corridor

6

(Figure 7) serves asmajor distribution points for high volumes ofintermodal rail to truck transfers of domesti-cally produced automobiles (mixing centres)and also for a wide range of bulk productsThese goods are moved by rail and then trans-ferred to trucks for regional and local distri-bution Regional rail freight handles more than225 million tonnes of containerised and non-containerised cargo originating or bound tothe region An additional 90 million tonnes istransiting through the region

Challenges ndash

The development of transportsystems in the BostWash corridor has createda strong dependency on trucking for regionalfreight distribution With the development ofthe Interstate highway system in the 1960s and

158

JEAN-PAUL RODRIGUE

copy 2004 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG

1970s growing freight circulation was accom-modated by growing road capacities The growthof one was the rationale behind the growthof the other The expansion of road infrastruc-tures has however declined substantially inthe 1980s and 1990s leaving the growth of roadfreight distribution without significant addi-tional capacities As the road transport systemgot increasingly congested including accessto major transport terminals alternatives aresought to improve its capacity Estimates bythe Federal Highway Administration place thegrowth of freight transportation in the corridorto figures around 75 between 2000 and 2020In a tightly integrated distribution systemcongestion involves delays and a disruption oftrade and production The growing integrationbetween the functions of production and trans-portation underline this trend Among the majortransport challenges affecting distribution inthe corridor are (I-95 Coalition 2001)

bull

Road Congestion

Congestion in the corridorinvolves many dimensions ranging from

highways access to terminals and urban cir-culation It has traditionally being perceivedwith the purpose of improving passengermobility as investments going to highwaydevelopment benefited trucking With thespectacular growth of trucking congestion isreducing the effectiveness of distributionsystems over which trucking is particularlyvulnerable Each day 38000 trucks go throughthe New YorkndashNorthern New Jersey regionOf these 10000 trucks are using the I-95accounting between 10 per cent and 20 percent of all vehicles using this highway seg-ment As such trucking may cause between30 per cent to 40 per cent of all highwaycongestion Most of the major highways alongthe corridor are operating around or abovedesign capacity (Figure 8) Congestion is fur-ther exacerbated by the geographical scaleof distribution most of it taking place withinthe corridor and using its major highwaysUntil recently little alternatives to regionaldistribution outside trucking were beingconsidered

Figure 8 Volume to capacity ratio major highways BostWash corridor 1998

FREIGHT GATEWAYS AND MEGA-URBAN REGIONS

159

copy 2004 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG

bull

Circulation bottlenecks

Freight distributionis currently hitting many road rail and portbottlenecks raising questions about thecapacity of the regional transport system toanswer the expected growth of the demandUrban areas and access to major port railand air terminals represent significantbottlenecks impairing trucking A survey ofthe Mid-Atlantic rail corridor identified 25locations having insufficient capacity and90 locations where vertical clearance cannotaccommodate double stacking container railcars (Cambridge Systematics 2002) Improv-ing flows at critical bottlenecks will requirelarge infrastructure upgrades

bull

Intermodal capacity

There is a lack ofefficient intermodal transfers in the corridorparticularly truck-to-rail transfer facilities(TOFC) and rail integration at port terminals(COFC) notably at the Port of New York andNew Jersey Since 85 of containers boundfor the port are carried by 15000 truck-journeys each day

7

local accessibility tomaritime terminals is a fundamental issue Forinstance in 1991 the Port of New York andNew Jersey inaugurated a direct ship-to-railand rail-to-ship transshipment facility a func-tion which grew at a phenomenal rate from43000 containers handled in 1992 to 228000in 2002 It is expected that by 2010 inter-modal rail share would climb to between 25 percentndash30 per cent of transshipped containersresulting in improved economic and environ-mental benefits for the locality (NYMTC 2001)Inland rail terminals could consequently actas satellite terminals and permit freight cir-culation to avoid the congested road systemof the metropolitan area especially near portterminal facilities

bull

Modal shift

A shift of road freight to othermodes remains one of the most importantchallenges for the corridor Attempts atseparating freight and passenger circulationare likely to improve the performance of bothsystems Intermodal transportation is chang-ing the dynamics of regional transportationfrom a situation of modal competition to thedevelopment of modal complementarity Forcontainer transportation a higher usage ofrail and barges for regional circulation couldalso significantly alleviate the road systemespecially over local access to large terminals

Since the corridor is oriented along a coast-line the development of a regional systemof maritime distribution servicing the existinginternational system could provide substan-tial benefits The importance of air transpor-tation for regional short distance movementshas also created an unsustainable situationFor instance 40 per cent of all the flightsfrom Logan airport (Boston) are bound forNew York only 200 miles away The develop-ment of a more efficient and possibly highspeed rail service would free much neededairport capacity in the corridor capacity thatcould easily accommodate the growth ofair freight

bull

Freight diversion

The development of inlandterminals a strategy pursued by many freightforwarders and port authorities is creating aprocess of freight diversion The port inlanddistribution network (PIDN) developed bythe Port Authority of New York and NewJersey and the Virginia inland port are twonotable example of this strategy Through theusage of inland rail and barge terminals afreight diversion effect would prevent trucksentering the congested metropolitan areasand enable the respective ports to capturea wider market area (PANYNJ 2003) Aprocess of lsquosub-harbourisationrsquo is well underway

CONCLUSION

Urbanisation as a regional process resulted inspatial structures that are inherently complexand in which flows of people and freightrequire a high level of regulation In manyurban regions corridors represent a paradigmof urbanisation over which it has been arguedthat freight distribution offers a perspective tounderstand their dynamics They are servicedby complex freight distribution systems linkingglobal national and regional distributionsystems Mega-urban regions as

logisticallyintegrated entities

have adapted differently toa changing geography of production consump-tion and distribution as they are the mainstructures behind the international division oflabour and production This integration issupported by articulation points where anaccumulation and a concentration of terminalsdistribution centres and related activities

160

JEAN-PAUL RODRIGUE

copy 2004 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG

coordinate local regional and global freightdistribution Concomitantly to the special-isation and fragmentation of production aspecialisation of distribution is taking place

Being one of the worldrsquos leading urbanregions BostWash has experienced a qualitativeand quantitative shift in its distribution Firstthe corridor is imbedded in a system of nationalcorridors of freight circulation that haveexpanded since NAFTA was established Secondwhile regional freight movements are increas-ingly been linked with a growth of consumptiontransport terminals have adapted to globallyoriented supply chains where inbound trafficfar exceeds outbound traffic Many distributioncentres have been sub-urbanised to answerthe requirements of additional space to satisfya dependence on trucking and to access theregional market in a timely fashion A notableconcentration of terminals and distributioncentres has taken place along the BaltimorendashPhiladelphiandashNew JerseyndashNew York axis to offera corridor-wide level of freight distributionIn turn this has exacerbated congestionalong major highway axis and next to majorintermodal terminals Among many of thestrategies implemented to address the corridor-wide challenges of freight distribution aprocess of lsquosub-harbourisationrsquo is taking placewithin the corridor in addition to a modalshift from road to rail How well these regionalchallenges will be addressed is of strategicimportance to insure that present and futuredistributional needs of BostWash remains to beanswered The issue of freight corridors logis-tics and distribution certainly deserves furtherinvestigations

Notes

1 The author would like to thank Brian Slack foruseful comments

2 We prefer to use the term lsquoBostWashrsquo instead oflsquoBosWashrsquo as initially introduced by Gottmann(1961) Although it is less phonetically elegant itprovides a clearer reference to Boston and abetter indication that it is a neologism

3 The number of the interstate highway at the coreof the corridor

4 CMSAs are composed of two or more adjoiningmetropolitan areas which have demonstratedsome economic linkage

5 The I-95 Corridor Coalition initiated in 1993 isan attempt to manage this entity by forming aregional partnership of major public and privatetransportation agencies toll authorities andindustry associations serving the Northeasternpart of the United States from Maine to VirginiaIt tries to offer a multi-jurisdictional approach totransportation issues covering multiple stateslthttpwwwi95coalitionorggt

6 A sub-corridor that can be labelled as lsquointermodalalleyrsquo

7 The national average is 44

REFERENCES

Berry

BJL (1967)

Geography of Market Centersand Retail Distribution

Englewood Cliffs NJPrentice-Hall

Cambridge

Systematics

(2001) Freight TrendsIssues and Data Needs presented at the Conferenceon Data Needs in the Changing World of Logisticsand Freight Transportation Saratoga SpringsNY lthttpwwwdotstatenyusttssconferencegrenzebackpdfgt

Cambridge

Systematics

(2002) Mid-Atlantic RailOperations Study lthttpwwwi95coalitionorggt

Chinitz

B (1960)

Freight and the Metropolis The Impactof Americarsquos Transport Revolutions on the New YorkRegion

Cambridge MA Harvard University Press

DeWitt

W amp J

Clinger

(2001) Intermodal FreightTransportation Millennium Paper TRB Committeeon Intermodal Freight Transportation (A1B05)Washington DC National Academy Press lthttpwwwnationalacademiesorgtrbpublicationsmillennium00061pdfgt

FHWA-DOT (2001) National Freight Issues ampPolicy Options Office of Freight Management andOperations lthttpopsfhwadotgovfreightgt

Gottmann

J (1961)

Megalopolis The UrbanizedNortheast Seaboard of the United States

New YorkTwentieth Century Fund

Gottmann

J (1987)

Megalopolis Revisited 25 YearsLater

The University of Maryland Institute forUrban Studies

Hall

P (1995) Towards a General Urban Theory

In

J

Brotchie

M

Batty

E

Blakely

P

Hall

ampP

Newton

eds

Cities in Competition Productiveand Sustainable Cities for the 21st Century

pp 3ndash32Melbourne Longman Australia

Hanson

S (1995)

The Geography of Urban Trans-portation

2nd edn New York Guilford

FREIGHT GATEWAYS AND MEGA-URBAN REGIONS

149

copy 2004 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG

URBANISATION AND TRANSPORT CORRIDORS

Corridors of urbanisation ndash

Corridors as anaccumulation of flows and infrastructures aredynamic entities linked with economic infra-structural and technological processes Whenthese processes involve urban developmenturbanisation corridors are a system of citiesoriented along an axis commonly fluvial ora coastline Historically urbanisation wasmainly a factor of agricultural productivityand of the communication capacities offeredby fluvial and coastal maritime transportation(van der Woude

et al

1990) Many urbanregions share this historical commonality Thegeographical scale of the processes shapingurbanisation has however changed Out of thetraditional consideration where urbanisation isthe outcome of socio-economic processes occur-ring nationally integration to global economicprocesses are among the strongest forcesshaping contemporary urbanisation Three

dominant paradigms of geographical theorycan be considered to relate urbanisation trans-portation and corridors (Figure 1)

The urban-system and central places theorymainly considers cities as structurally indepen-dent entities that compete over overlappingmarket areas Under the location and accessibilityparadigm an urban region is considered as ahierarchyorder of services and functions andthe corridor a structure organising interactionswithin this hierarchy Transport costs are con-sidered a dominant factor in the organisationof the spatial structure as the hinterland of eachcentre is the outcome of the consumersrsquo abilityto access its range of goods and services (Berry1967) Because of higher levels of accessibilityalong the corridor market areas are smaller andthe extent of goods and services being offeredare broader (Figure 1A)

The specialisation and interdependency para-digm considers that some cities can have a levelof interaction and that transportation could bemore than a factor of market accessibility but

Figure 1 Paradigms in the representation of transport corridors

150

JEAN-PAUL RODRIGUE

copy 2004 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG

also of regional specialisation and of compara-tive advantages (Pred 1977) The megalopolisconcept introduced by Gottmann (1961)acknowledges the creation of large urban corri-dors structured by transportation infrastruc-tures and terminals maintaining interactionsAccessibility and economies of scale both inproduction and consumption are factors sup-porting the development of such entities whereurban areas are increasingly specialised andinterdependent Most of this interdependenceinitially took place at the regional level as themega-urban region is a more comprehensivesystem of production and consumption thanthe sum of its parts The main assumption isthat the accessibility provided by the corridorreinforces territorial specialisation and inter-dependency along its main axis and consequentlythe reliance on a regional transport system(Figure 1B)

The two representations previously discussedare inadequate to explain the growing linksbetween the regionalism of urban corridorsand the global processes of trade investmentsand specifically the integration of global andregional distribution systems The current distri-bution paradigm is thus one where a globalcity commonly the major

articulation point

of amega-urban region serves as the main interfacebetween global national and regional systemsof accumulation and distribution Under sucha paradigm three core structural elements aredefining an urban corridor

bull Articulations points where the regulation offreight distribution is taking place throughterminals and distribution centres They pro-vide an interface between global and regionalflows

bull Freight corridors with a linear accumulationof transport infrastructures servicing a setof articulation points They provide for thephysical capacity of distribution

bull Freight distribution illustrating flows theirspatial structure and the underlying spheresof production circulation and consumption

These elements place the emphasis on theintermodal capacity of hub centres having aninterface with multimodal transportation sys-tems as well as with the logistical managementof this complex distribution system where thelocal is integrated with the global The corridor

is then a sequence of distribution activitiessupporting a vast array of functions within theurban region a logistically integrated axis(Figure 1C)

Globalisation transportation and mega-urban regions ndash

Mega-urban regions are the mainrecipients of global spatial accumulation sincethey are the spatial structures the most inte-grated to its forces The international trans-portation system both adapted to and shapedthe international division of production A newtransactional environment has emerged alongwith a new sphere of distribution regulated bymajor gateways Each articulation point mustdevelop an efficient regional transportationnetwork to coordinate and transit the produc-tion and consumption of a vast territory andmaintain or increase its importance at a globalscale Intermodal transportation has been adominant factor of change in international andregional freight transportation with improvedefficiency in distribution (Slack 1998 Rodrigue1999 DeWitt and Clinger 2001) If an articu-lation point has efficient intermodal infrastruc-tures it could strengthen its position within theglobal economy Such a hub is a point of origindestination and transit of large quantities offreight people and information

Urban regions as functional entities accountfor a dominant share of global trade flows Theincreased levels of interdependency are con-comitant with the growing fragmentation andspecialisation of production distribution andconsumption However this process is farfrom being uniform as mega-urban regions haveadapted differently depending upon whichfunction they dominantly fulfil their respectivecomparative advantages and the distribution sys-tems they have access to They are an expressionof global market forces industrial relocationand comparative advantages in productionand distribution enabling regional differen-tiations and interdependencies This implies thatmega-urban regions are structurally and oper-ationally similar but since they have differentspheres of production and consumption theyhave specific geographies of distribution Forinstance while mega-urban regions in East andSoutheast Asia provide significant productionand export functions going through major hubs(Hong Kong Singapore Shanghai Kaohsiung

FREIGHT GATEWAYS AND MEGA-URBAN REGIONS

151

copy 2004 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG

and Pusan) mega-urban regions in developedcountries have expanded their import andconsumption functions The result has been agrowing circulation of freight between andwithin mega-urban regions

FREIGHT AND MEGA-URBAN REGIONS

Most freight flows are a consequence of globaland regional economic activities Mega-urbanregions are dominantly structural and functionalentities since they do not fall into any specificjurisdiction and are rarely recognised as suchSince its inception the concept of mega-urbanregions has been subject to many nuancesconcerning its geographical extent They haveproved to be geographically difficult to defineformally and to analyse comprehensively Ifan urban area can be partially defined by thecommuting field of its residents where internalflows of passengers are more significant thanexternal flows the dynamics of a mega-urbanregion can reside on movements of freight

As a space of flows mega-urban regions havedominantly been considered in terms of flows ofpeople ndash they are after all large concentrationsof populations While passenger flows arederived from economic and social interactionswhich have a tendency to be skewed by manyfactors freight flows are dominantly derivednot only from the location of production andconsumption activities but from the complexweb of intermediate activities such as ware-housing and transshipment Combined theyform a regional transactional space in which manyactors in the supply chain from producers toconsumers interact The relationships betweenfreight and mega-urban regions can be betterunderstood through the concepts of articu-lation points corridors and distribution centres

Articulation points ndash

An articulation point isa location that promotes the continuity of cir-culation in a transportation system servicing asupply chain It is the interface between differentspatial systems a gateway between spheres ofproduction and consumption It also expandsthe hub concept as it includes the considerationof terminal facilities but also the numerousactivities linked with freight circulation such asdistribution centres warehouses and financeThese separate but closely integrated activities

along with the terminals they are linked toform an agglomeration of distribution Conven-tionally geographical factors linked to the siteand situation of lsquohardrsquo terminals (especiallyfor maritime terminals) were bounded with thelocation of articulation points Around thesefacilities agglomerated many freight handlingand distribution activities The emergence ofintermodal transportation systems reinforcesarticulation points as major locations of conver-gence and transshipment and has modifiedtheir geography with increased locationalflexibility While major terminals have expandedand relocated to more peripheral locationsnamely port facilities many distribution centreshave relocated even further away

The importance of an articulation pointis measured by the volume and the nature ofthe traffic it handles at its terminals and thegeographical extent of the distribution systemit provides For instance an internationalarticulation point handles a substantial amountof maritime land and air traffic and has ahinterland that encompasses several regionalarticulation points A regional articulation pointwill handle traffic mostly related to land trans-portation and will be characterised by a smallerhinterland Functionally an articulation pointis a concrete geographical node within a widevariety of supply chains It involves a concen-tration of many transport terminals with eachhub servicing its respective distribution systemThe hierarchy and sequence of freight distri-bution will thus be reflected in the hierarchyand sequence of articulation points

Three dominant functions of freight cir-culation can be assumed by articulation pointseach deriving added value (Figure 2)

bull

Freight Transshipment (A)

Involves a setof intermodal activities transshipping freightfrom one mode to the other Dominant articu-lation points handle substantial amountsof freight through their transport terminalsThis function is particularly important forgateways providing an interface betweenregions and the global economy

bull

Freight Integration (B)

Involves activitiesrelated to the logistics of freight circulationthe most common being the compositionwarehousing and decomposition of freightshipments Distribution centres are the

152

JEAN-PAUL RODRIGUE

copy 2004 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG

common expression of this function of articu-lation (B2) often linked with transshipmentactivities taking place at major terminals (B1)

bull

Freight Convergence (C)

Involves flows offreight bound to another location but goingthrough an articulation point because of itsintermediacy Increased congestion has oftenmade these flows less desirable with modalshift

alternatives being considered

The different scales and functions of articu-lation are linked with different transport ter-minals Major international articulation points arenot dissociated from port and airport terminalswhile regional articulation points tend to belinked with inland transport terminals alonga freight corridor

Freight corridors ndash

A freight corridor is a linearorientation of freight flows supported by anaccumulation of transport infrastructuresand activities servicing these flows Flows can bedivided by mode and by the infrastructuresservicing them Corridors have become theobject of intense modal competition with thegrowth of movements of passengers and freightTraditionally flows in freight corridors tendedto be fragmented and segmented since eachmode tried to exploit its own advantages in termsof cost service reliability and safety In manycases transportation on the roads benefited

taking a significant share of regional freighttransportation More recently as congestionincreased along corridors and as productivityand efficiency improvements were sought withinsupply chains modal complementarity improvedCorridors represent a setting where integratedtransport systems through intermodality areparticularly suitable to improve freight mobility(Figure 3)

As either distance or congestion increasesthe efficiency of road freight distribution alongcorridors is challenged Improvements can beachieved by shifting freight to another modethat is less congested or by using existing modesin a combination where they are respectivelythe most efficient The latter opens opportunitiesof freight diversion where a terminal locatedalong the corridor is used to transfer freight toa mode that lessens congestion inbound oroutbound in a metropolitan area Freight distri-bution centres are increasingly assuming thearticulation of freight distribution in corridors

Freight centres and freight distribution ndash

Thereis a changing geography of distribution withinmega-urban regions as many freight distributionactivities are relocated to suburban areasConventionally many transport terminals anddistribution centres were located close to cen-tral areas mainly as a factor of market and ter-minal proximity A new locational dynamic has

Figure 2 Articulation point and freight distribution

FREIGHT GATEWAYS AND MEGA-URBAN REGIONS

153

copy 2004 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG

emerged with increased economic integrationand specialisation which involved a suburban-isation of distribution centres and terminalsThis process is well documented and revolvesaround factors such as significant land require-ments for logistics (namely warehousing anddistribution centres) access to road transportsystems and regional markets The corridorsignificantly expands the sphere of distributionby providing an axis along which distributioncentres can reliably service many locations alongthe corridor Terminals and freight distributioncentres located in suburban locations have asphere of distribution that includes both the

metropolitan area and the urban region(Figure 4)

Consequently the combination of suburbanlocations of distribution centres and of a trans-port corridor creates an expanded sphere ofregional freight circulation This trend hasbeen underlined by the lsquosub-harbourisationrsquoof many port terminals and the use of satelliteterminals to lessen congestion (Slack 1999)Further terminals located at the periphery ofmetropolitan areas are able to partake in a pro-cess of freight diversion where freight flows areavoiding more congested central areas and usingless congested modes such as rail and barges

Figure 3 Freight corridor and modal integration

Figure 4 Freight distribution centres along a corridor

154

JEAN-PAUL RODRIGUE

copy 2004 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG

The corridors between metropolitan areas arethus prone to the accumulation of a variety ofintermodal activities and distribution centres

THE BOSTWASH FREIGHT CORRIDOR

2

Overview ndash

Many terms have been used todefine the mega-urban region on the North-eastern seaboard of the United States includingthe lsquoMegalopolisrsquo lsquoBosWashrsquo the lsquoEast CoastMetroplexrsquo or the lsquoI-95 Corridorrsquo

3

They all tryto label an extensive urban region where thecore commonality is an orientation along atransport corridor notably an interstate systemThis corridor extends along the seaboard andinland including four major metropolitan areas(Boston New York Baltimore Philadelphiaand Washington) with numerous small urbanareas with indistinct functional boundariesbetween them Overlapping influences of largemetropolitan areas their interrelatedness andtheir relationships with local regional andglobal processes characterises the urbancorridor This regionalisation of urbanisationhas been implicitly acknowledged by differentlevels of government with the consideration of

consolidated metropolitan statistical areas(CMSA

4

) and regional planningcoordinationagencies

5

focusing on freight transportationThe BostWash corridor is part of a national

system of trade areas where freight distributionis coordinated by major articulation points(Figure 5) Their extent is mainly a function ofthe average length of domestic truck freighthaul which was around 550 miles in 2000Like many segments of the US economy andterritory integration processes namely NorthAmerican Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)have impacted on the nature and function ofcontinental production consumption anddistribution (Holmes 2000 Woudsma 1999)About a third of the American trade took placewithin NAFTA in 2000 (US Department ofCommerce 2002)

Land gateways are dominantly servicing animport function expanded under NAFTA tradeand connected to corridors of continentalfreight circulation These include three longi-tudinal and four latitudinal axes One such axislabelled as the NAFTA Corridor links the twolargest land gateways of North America DetroitMichigan and Laredo Texas It dominantly

Source Adapted from Cambridge Systematics (2001)

Figure 5 National trade areas articulation points and major land freight gateways

FREIGHT GATEWAYS AND MEGA-URBAN REGIONS

155

copy 2004 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG

relies upon trucking as about 65 per cent of thevalue of the NAFTA trade is serviced by thismode However it is far from being a continu-ous corridor as northbound flows of Mexicanimports and the southbound flows of Canadianimports dwindle as the distance from theirrespective borders increases The equilibriumpoint is around the TennesseeKentucky rangepast which the respective flows are very smallAbout a third of the volume involves auto-mobile parts produced in Southern Ontario andin the Maquiladoras of Mexico which are usedfor low-cost car manufacturing in the Southeaststates (McCray 1998 Weiler

et al

2001)In this system of continental freight cir-

culation the importance and structure of theBostWash corridor can be preliminary assessed bythe size of its market With a population nearing75 million accounting for about 27 per cent ofthe US population but occupying only 62 percent of its landmass the significance of thecorridor as a sphere of consumption is undis-putable The New York metropolitan statisticalarea alone with its population of 212 million

accounts for 75 per cent of the national popu-lation High population densities over 250persons per square mile on a conterminoussegment of about 400 miles between Bostonand Washington are also observed (Figure 6)This concentration of population facilities andtheir associated circulation makes the corridorthe most congested region in the United States

The corridor thus represents a significantshare of the US economy and generates attractsand transships a large amount of freightthrough its infrastructures distribution centresand terminals It is caught in a wider context ofgrowth and change within national transpor-tation where since 1970 the number of annualpassenger-miles per capita has increased by58 per cent (from 11400 to around 18000) andwhere the annual tonnes-miles of freight havedoubled This trend in freight circulation isderived from growing consumption by individ-uals and enterprises and by production systemsthat are increasingly globally integrated (FHWA-DOT 2001 Lakshmanan and Anderson 2002)which involves

Figure 6 The BostWash corridor

156

JEAN-PAUL RODRIGUE

copy 2004 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG

bull

Changing demand for freight

Linked tonew markets conditions namely a greaterreliance on global supply chains concomitantto a tertiarisation of the US economy as itshifts from manufacturing to services Sincethe mid 1970s the US economy has system-atically produced a negative goods tradebalance This is jointly the result of a growthof national consumption an appreciationof the value of the US dollar making foreignproducts cheaper and a shift of labour-intensive manufacturing activities outside theUnited States While exports of goods haveconsistently grown to reach $7188 billionin 2001 this growth has been outpaced byimports that totalled $13563 billion the sameyear Imbalances in freight distribution havethus resulted and impacted on its geography

bull

Changing supply of freight

Linked to thedevelopment of intermodal transportationsystems and the integration of freight trans-port services namely by third party logisticalproviders This goes on par with a higherlevel of supply chain management

bull

Public policy

In many cases public policy hasnot addressed much freight transportationissues Overall there is a variety of convergingand diverging policies concerning transpor-tation in general and freight transportationin particular Such issues involve investmentzoning security and safety regulation that canimpair or improve the efficiency of freighttransportation A major shift has been froma modal to multi-modal surface transpor-tation policy embedded with increasedenvironmental accountability

Freight terminals ndash

Among the vast number oftransport terminals located along the BostWashcorridor 13 major airports 11 major seaports andmany other intermodal facilities can be found(Figure 7) Each terminal is an element in thecontinuity of global national and regional freightdistribution and contributes to the articulationfunction of their respective metropolitan areasNew York is the traditional gateway of the corri-dor a function that has been developed over thelast two hundred years and which has significantly

Figure 7 Major intermodal terminals BostWash corridor

FREIGHT GATEWAYS AND MEGA-URBAN REGIONS

157

copy 2004 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG

impacted on the structure of the metropolitanarea with large port and rail terminals (Chinitz1960) The development of air transportationand the growing reliance on air freight hasadded a new terminal dynamics as the corridorrsquosmajor airports handled more than 9 milliontonnes of landed freight in 2000 The two majorairports of the New York metropolitan areaalone handled about 28 per cent of this traffic(25 million tonnes) Containerised traffic is alsoan activity relying on a new dynamics of inte-gration between transport terminals and freightdistribution systems As such maritime containerterminals are becoming increasingly linkedwith inland COFCTOFC (container on flat cartrailers on flat car) facilities bound to localregional and national distribution (Figure 7)

From 1991 to 2000 container traffic at theseven major ports (New YorkNew JerseyBaltimore Philadelphia Wilmington BostonRichmond and Portland) increased from27 million to above four million TEUs Threequarters of the growth occurred at the Port ofNew York and New Jersey which in 2000 handledjust over three million TEUs one million morethan just eight years earlier This growth is jointlythe result of regional freight demand and ofglobal distribution chains used by multinationalcorporations Although during the 1980s andearly 1990s the hubbing role of New York waschallenged by traditional rivals such as BaltimorePhiladelphia and Montreal and by new rivalssuch as Halifax and Hampton Roads the begin-ning of the 21st century leaves New York theundisputable maritime container hub of thecorridor This status was confirmed in 1999when Maersk-Sealand the worldrsquos largest con-tainer shipper decided to keep New York as theirEast Coast hub The growth of containerisedtraffic for New YorkNew Jersey during the1990s topped the combined growth of all itscompeting ports of the North Atlantic NewYorkrsquos hubbing role is one of the most pro-nounced in the United States since it receivedthe largest number of containership calls evenif it is the third largest container port Unlikethe Pacific the Atlantic seaboard has muchpotential for coastal freight distribution with anumber of small and medium-sized ports

Freight distribution ndash

The BostWash corridor hasparticularly been impacted by the restructuration

of the US economy For instance recent trendsunderline that about 183 million Americansworked in manufacturing in 2000 a figure simi-lar to the 1950s Concomitantly the workforcein the service sector has growth from 30 millionto 107 million The functions of distributionand consumption have consequently grown muchmore substantially than production a trendreflected by a growth in interregional and inter-national freight flows More than 11 millionpeople worked in the logistics and distributionsector in the five largest metropolitan areas ofthe corridor

The amount of domestic tonne-miles carriedin the United States between 1980 and 2000 hasmore than doubled for road traffic and morethan tripled for air freight Over 136 billiontonnes of freight valued at $9 trillion was carriedin the United States in 1998 Of these figuresthe BostWash corridor accounted for 35 billiontonnes valued at $26 trillion 26 per cent of thecarried tonnes and 28 per cent of the value Thenature of freight circulation implies a higherlevel of flexibility more frequent deliveries andgreater reliance on trucking From freight ter-minals a large quantity of freight flows throughthe corridor Moreover freight circulation hasexpanded with the growth of containerisedtraffic handled at ports but also from the con-tainerised traffic transshipped at West Coast portsand moved through the continental landbridgeto be distributed along the East Coast Muchconventional cargo is also being distributedIn addition the BaltimorendashPhiladelphiandashNewJersey ndash New York corridor

6

(Figure 7) serves asmajor distribution points for high volumes ofintermodal rail to truck transfers of domesti-cally produced automobiles (mixing centres)and also for a wide range of bulk productsThese goods are moved by rail and then trans-ferred to trucks for regional and local distri-bution Regional rail freight handles more than225 million tonnes of containerised and non-containerised cargo originating or bound tothe region An additional 90 million tonnes istransiting through the region

Challenges ndash

The development of transportsystems in the BostWash corridor has createda strong dependency on trucking for regionalfreight distribution With the development ofthe Interstate highway system in the 1960s and

158

JEAN-PAUL RODRIGUE

copy 2004 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG

1970s growing freight circulation was accom-modated by growing road capacities The growthof one was the rationale behind the growthof the other The expansion of road infrastruc-tures has however declined substantially inthe 1980s and 1990s leaving the growth of roadfreight distribution without significant addi-tional capacities As the road transport systemgot increasingly congested including accessto major transport terminals alternatives aresought to improve its capacity Estimates bythe Federal Highway Administration place thegrowth of freight transportation in the corridorto figures around 75 between 2000 and 2020In a tightly integrated distribution systemcongestion involves delays and a disruption oftrade and production The growing integrationbetween the functions of production and trans-portation underline this trend Among the majortransport challenges affecting distribution inthe corridor are (I-95 Coalition 2001)

bull

Road Congestion

Congestion in the corridorinvolves many dimensions ranging from

highways access to terminals and urban cir-culation It has traditionally being perceivedwith the purpose of improving passengermobility as investments going to highwaydevelopment benefited trucking With thespectacular growth of trucking congestion isreducing the effectiveness of distributionsystems over which trucking is particularlyvulnerable Each day 38000 trucks go throughthe New YorkndashNorthern New Jersey regionOf these 10000 trucks are using the I-95accounting between 10 per cent and 20 percent of all vehicles using this highway seg-ment As such trucking may cause between30 per cent to 40 per cent of all highwaycongestion Most of the major highways alongthe corridor are operating around or abovedesign capacity (Figure 8) Congestion is fur-ther exacerbated by the geographical scaleof distribution most of it taking place withinthe corridor and using its major highwaysUntil recently little alternatives to regionaldistribution outside trucking were beingconsidered

Figure 8 Volume to capacity ratio major highways BostWash corridor 1998

FREIGHT GATEWAYS AND MEGA-URBAN REGIONS

159

copy 2004 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG

bull

Circulation bottlenecks

Freight distributionis currently hitting many road rail and portbottlenecks raising questions about thecapacity of the regional transport system toanswer the expected growth of the demandUrban areas and access to major port railand air terminals represent significantbottlenecks impairing trucking A survey ofthe Mid-Atlantic rail corridor identified 25locations having insufficient capacity and90 locations where vertical clearance cannotaccommodate double stacking container railcars (Cambridge Systematics 2002) Improv-ing flows at critical bottlenecks will requirelarge infrastructure upgrades

bull

Intermodal capacity

There is a lack ofefficient intermodal transfers in the corridorparticularly truck-to-rail transfer facilities(TOFC) and rail integration at port terminals(COFC) notably at the Port of New York andNew Jersey Since 85 of containers boundfor the port are carried by 15000 truck-journeys each day

7

local accessibility tomaritime terminals is a fundamental issue Forinstance in 1991 the Port of New York andNew Jersey inaugurated a direct ship-to-railand rail-to-ship transshipment facility a func-tion which grew at a phenomenal rate from43000 containers handled in 1992 to 228000in 2002 It is expected that by 2010 inter-modal rail share would climb to between 25 percentndash30 per cent of transshipped containersresulting in improved economic and environ-mental benefits for the locality (NYMTC 2001)Inland rail terminals could consequently actas satellite terminals and permit freight cir-culation to avoid the congested road systemof the metropolitan area especially near portterminal facilities

bull

Modal shift

A shift of road freight to othermodes remains one of the most importantchallenges for the corridor Attempts atseparating freight and passenger circulationare likely to improve the performance of bothsystems Intermodal transportation is chang-ing the dynamics of regional transportationfrom a situation of modal competition to thedevelopment of modal complementarity Forcontainer transportation a higher usage ofrail and barges for regional circulation couldalso significantly alleviate the road systemespecially over local access to large terminals

Since the corridor is oriented along a coast-line the development of a regional systemof maritime distribution servicing the existinginternational system could provide substan-tial benefits The importance of air transpor-tation for regional short distance movementshas also created an unsustainable situationFor instance 40 per cent of all the flightsfrom Logan airport (Boston) are bound forNew York only 200 miles away The develop-ment of a more efficient and possibly highspeed rail service would free much neededairport capacity in the corridor capacity thatcould easily accommodate the growth ofair freight

bull

Freight diversion

The development of inlandterminals a strategy pursued by many freightforwarders and port authorities is creating aprocess of freight diversion The port inlanddistribution network (PIDN) developed bythe Port Authority of New York and NewJersey and the Virginia inland port are twonotable example of this strategy Through theusage of inland rail and barge terminals afreight diversion effect would prevent trucksentering the congested metropolitan areasand enable the respective ports to capturea wider market area (PANYNJ 2003) Aprocess of lsquosub-harbourisationrsquo is well underway

CONCLUSION

Urbanisation as a regional process resulted inspatial structures that are inherently complexand in which flows of people and freightrequire a high level of regulation In manyurban regions corridors represent a paradigmof urbanisation over which it has been arguedthat freight distribution offers a perspective tounderstand their dynamics They are servicedby complex freight distribution systems linkingglobal national and regional distributionsystems Mega-urban regions as

logisticallyintegrated entities

have adapted differently toa changing geography of production consump-tion and distribution as they are the mainstructures behind the international division oflabour and production This integration issupported by articulation points where anaccumulation and a concentration of terminalsdistribution centres and related activities

160

JEAN-PAUL RODRIGUE

copy 2004 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG

coordinate local regional and global freightdistribution Concomitantly to the special-isation and fragmentation of production aspecialisation of distribution is taking place

Being one of the worldrsquos leading urbanregions BostWash has experienced a qualitativeand quantitative shift in its distribution Firstthe corridor is imbedded in a system of nationalcorridors of freight circulation that haveexpanded since NAFTA was established Secondwhile regional freight movements are increas-ingly been linked with a growth of consumptiontransport terminals have adapted to globallyoriented supply chains where inbound trafficfar exceeds outbound traffic Many distributioncentres have been sub-urbanised to answerthe requirements of additional space to satisfya dependence on trucking and to access theregional market in a timely fashion A notableconcentration of terminals and distributioncentres has taken place along the BaltimorendashPhiladelphiandashNew JerseyndashNew York axis to offera corridor-wide level of freight distributionIn turn this has exacerbated congestionalong major highway axis and next to majorintermodal terminals Among many of thestrategies implemented to address the corridor-wide challenges of freight distribution aprocess of lsquosub-harbourisationrsquo is taking placewithin the corridor in addition to a modalshift from road to rail How well these regionalchallenges will be addressed is of strategicimportance to insure that present and futuredistributional needs of BostWash remains to beanswered The issue of freight corridors logis-tics and distribution certainly deserves furtherinvestigations

Notes

1 The author would like to thank Brian Slack foruseful comments

2 We prefer to use the term lsquoBostWashrsquo instead oflsquoBosWashrsquo as initially introduced by Gottmann(1961) Although it is less phonetically elegant itprovides a clearer reference to Boston and abetter indication that it is a neologism

3 The number of the interstate highway at the coreof the corridor

4 CMSAs are composed of two or more adjoiningmetropolitan areas which have demonstratedsome economic linkage

5 The I-95 Corridor Coalition initiated in 1993 isan attempt to manage this entity by forming aregional partnership of major public and privatetransportation agencies toll authorities andindustry associations serving the Northeasternpart of the United States from Maine to VirginiaIt tries to offer a multi-jurisdictional approach totransportation issues covering multiple stateslthttpwwwi95coalitionorggt

6 A sub-corridor that can be labelled as lsquointermodalalleyrsquo

7 The national average is 44

REFERENCES

Berry

BJL (1967)

Geography of Market Centersand Retail Distribution

Englewood Cliffs NJPrentice-Hall

Cambridge

Systematics

(2001) Freight TrendsIssues and Data Needs presented at the Conferenceon Data Needs in the Changing World of Logisticsand Freight Transportation Saratoga SpringsNY lthttpwwwdotstatenyusttssconferencegrenzebackpdfgt

Cambridge

Systematics

(2002) Mid-Atlantic RailOperations Study lthttpwwwi95coalitionorggt

Chinitz

B (1960)

Freight and the Metropolis The Impactof Americarsquos Transport Revolutions on the New YorkRegion

Cambridge MA Harvard University Press

DeWitt

W amp J

Clinger

(2001) Intermodal FreightTransportation Millennium Paper TRB Committeeon Intermodal Freight Transportation (A1B05)Washington DC National Academy Press lthttpwwwnationalacademiesorgtrbpublicationsmillennium00061pdfgt

FHWA-DOT (2001) National Freight Issues ampPolicy Options Office of Freight Management andOperations lthttpopsfhwadotgovfreightgt

Gottmann

J (1961)

Megalopolis The UrbanizedNortheast Seaboard of the United States

New YorkTwentieth Century Fund

Gottmann

J (1987)

Megalopolis Revisited 25 YearsLater

The University of Maryland Institute forUrban Studies

Hall

P (1995) Towards a General Urban Theory

In

J

Brotchie

M

Batty

E

Blakely

P

Hall

ampP

Newton

eds

Cities in Competition Productiveand Sustainable Cities for the 21st Century

pp 3ndash32Melbourne Longman Australia

Hanson

S (1995)

The Geography of Urban Trans-portation

2nd edn New York Guilford

150

JEAN-PAUL RODRIGUE

copy 2004 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG

also of regional specialisation and of compara-tive advantages (Pred 1977) The megalopolisconcept introduced by Gottmann (1961)acknowledges the creation of large urban corri-dors structured by transportation infrastruc-tures and terminals maintaining interactionsAccessibility and economies of scale both inproduction and consumption are factors sup-porting the development of such entities whereurban areas are increasingly specialised andinterdependent Most of this interdependenceinitially took place at the regional level as themega-urban region is a more comprehensivesystem of production and consumption thanthe sum of its parts The main assumption isthat the accessibility provided by the corridorreinforces territorial specialisation and inter-dependency along its main axis and consequentlythe reliance on a regional transport system(Figure 1B)

The two representations previously discussedare inadequate to explain the growing linksbetween the regionalism of urban corridorsand the global processes of trade investmentsand specifically the integration of global andregional distribution systems The current distri-bution paradigm is thus one where a globalcity commonly the major

articulation point

of amega-urban region serves as the main interfacebetween global national and regional systemsof accumulation and distribution Under sucha paradigm three core structural elements aredefining an urban corridor

bull Articulations points where the regulation offreight distribution is taking place throughterminals and distribution centres They pro-vide an interface between global and regionalflows

bull Freight corridors with a linear accumulationof transport infrastructures servicing a setof articulation points They provide for thephysical capacity of distribution

bull Freight distribution illustrating flows theirspatial structure and the underlying spheresof production circulation and consumption

These elements place the emphasis on theintermodal capacity of hub centres having aninterface with multimodal transportation sys-tems as well as with the logistical managementof this complex distribution system where thelocal is integrated with the global The corridor

is then a sequence of distribution activitiessupporting a vast array of functions within theurban region a logistically integrated axis(Figure 1C)

Globalisation transportation and mega-urban regions ndash

Mega-urban regions are the mainrecipients of global spatial accumulation sincethey are the spatial structures the most inte-grated to its forces The international trans-portation system both adapted to and shapedthe international division of production A newtransactional environment has emerged alongwith a new sphere of distribution regulated bymajor gateways Each articulation point mustdevelop an efficient regional transportationnetwork to coordinate and transit the produc-tion and consumption of a vast territory andmaintain or increase its importance at a globalscale Intermodal transportation has been adominant factor of change in international andregional freight transportation with improvedefficiency in distribution (Slack 1998 Rodrigue1999 DeWitt and Clinger 2001) If an articu-lation point has efficient intermodal infrastruc-tures it could strengthen its position within theglobal economy Such a hub is a point of origindestination and transit of large quantities offreight people and information

Urban regions as functional entities accountfor a dominant share of global trade flows Theincreased levels of interdependency are con-comitant with the growing fragmentation andspecialisation of production distribution andconsumption However this process is farfrom being uniform as mega-urban regions haveadapted differently depending upon whichfunction they dominantly fulfil their respectivecomparative advantages and the distribution sys-tems they have access to They are an expressionof global market forces industrial relocationand comparative advantages in productionand distribution enabling regional differen-tiations and interdependencies This implies thatmega-urban regions are structurally and oper-ationally similar but since they have differentspheres of production and consumption theyhave specific geographies of distribution Forinstance while mega-urban regions in East andSoutheast Asia provide significant productionand export functions going through major hubs(Hong Kong Singapore Shanghai Kaohsiung

FREIGHT GATEWAYS AND MEGA-URBAN REGIONS

151

copy 2004 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG

and Pusan) mega-urban regions in developedcountries have expanded their import andconsumption functions The result has been agrowing circulation of freight between andwithin mega-urban regions

FREIGHT AND MEGA-URBAN REGIONS

Most freight flows are a consequence of globaland regional economic activities Mega-urbanregions are dominantly structural and functionalentities since they do not fall into any specificjurisdiction and are rarely recognised as suchSince its inception the concept of mega-urbanregions has been subject to many nuancesconcerning its geographical extent They haveproved to be geographically difficult to defineformally and to analyse comprehensively Ifan urban area can be partially defined by thecommuting field of its residents where internalflows of passengers are more significant thanexternal flows the dynamics of a mega-urbanregion can reside on movements of freight

As a space of flows mega-urban regions havedominantly been considered in terms of flows ofpeople ndash they are after all large concentrationsof populations While passenger flows arederived from economic and social interactionswhich have a tendency to be skewed by manyfactors freight flows are dominantly derivednot only from the location of production andconsumption activities but from the complexweb of intermediate activities such as ware-housing and transshipment Combined theyform a regional transactional space in which manyactors in the supply chain from producers toconsumers interact The relationships betweenfreight and mega-urban regions can be betterunderstood through the concepts of articu-lation points corridors and distribution centres

Articulation points ndash

An articulation point isa location that promotes the continuity of cir-culation in a transportation system servicing asupply chain It is the interface between differentspatial systems a gateway between spheres ofproduction and consumption It also expandsthe hub concept as it includes the considerationof terminal facilities but also the numerousactivities linked with freight circulation such asdistribution centres warehouses and financeThese separate but closely integrated activities

along with the terminals they are linked toform an agglomeration of distribution Conven-tionally geographical factors linked to the siteand situation of lsquohardrsquo terminals (especiallyfor maritime terminals) were bounded with thelocation of articulation points Around thesefacilities agglomerated many freight handlingand distribution activities The emergence ofintermodal transportation systems reinforcesarticulation points as major locations of conver-gence and transshipment and has modifiedtheir geography with increased locationalflexibility While major terminals have expandedand relocated to more peripheral locationsnamely port facilities many distribution centreshave relocated even further away

The importance of an articulation pointis measured by the volume and the nature ofthe traffic it handles at its terminals and thegeographical extent of the distribution systemit provides For instance an internationalarticulation point handles a substantial amountof maritime land and air traffic and has ahinterland that encompasses several regionalarticulation points A regional articulation pointwill handle traffic mostly related to land trans-portation and will be characterised by a smallerhinterland Functionally an articulation pointis a concrete geographical node within a widevariety of supply chains It involves a concen-tration of many transport terminals with eachhub servicing its respective distribution systemThe hierarchy and sequence of freight distri-bution will thus be reflected in the hierarchyand sequence of articulation points

Three dominant functions of freight cir-culation can be assumed by articulation pointseach deriving added value (Figure 2)

bull

Freight Transshipment (A)

Involves a setof intermodal activities transshipping freightfrom one mode to the other Dominant articu-lation points handle substantial amountsof freight through their transport terminalsThis function is particularly important forgateways providing an interface betweenregions and the global economy

bull

Freight Integration (B)

Involves activitiesrelated to the logistics of freight circulationthe most common being the compositionwarehousing and decomposition of freightshipments Distribution centres are the

152

JEAN-PAUL RODRIGUE

copy 2004 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG

common expression of this function of articu-lation (B2) often linked with transshipmentactivities taking place at major terminals (B1)

bull

Freight Convergence (C)

Involves flows offreight bound to another location but goingthrough an articulation point because of itsintermediacy Increased congestion has oftenmade these flows less desirable with modalshift

alternatives being considered

The different scales and functions of articu-lation are linked with different transport ter-minals Major international articulation points arenot dissociated from port and airport terminalswhile regional articulation points tend to belinked with inland transport terminals alonga freight corridor

Freight corridors ndash

A freight corridor is a linearorientation of freight flows supported by anaccumulation of transport infrastructuresand activities servicing these flows Flows can bedivided by mode and by the infrastructuresservicing them Corridors have become theobject of intense modal competition with thegrowth of movements of passengers and freightTraditionally flows in freight corridors tendedto be fragmented and segmented since eachmode tried to exploit its own advantages in termsof cost service reliability and safety In manycases transportation on the roads benefited

taking a significant share of regional freighttransportation More recently as congestionincreased along corridors and as productivityand efficiency improvements were sought withinsupply chains modal complementarity improvedCorridors represent a setting where integratedtransport systems through intermodality areparticularly suitable to improve freight mobility(Figure 3)

As either distance or congestion increasesthe efficiency of road freight distribution alongcorridors is challenged Improvements can beachieved by shifting freight to another modethat is less congested or by using existing modesin a combination where they are respectivelythe most efficient The latter opens opportunitiesof freight diversion where a terminal locatedalong the corridor is used to transfer freight toa mode that lessens congestion inbound oroutbound in a metropolitan area Freight distri-bution centres are increasingly assuming thearticulation of freight distribution in corridors

Freight centres and freight distribution ndash

Thereis a changing geography of distribution withinmega-urban regions as many freight distributionactivities are relocated to suburban areasConventionally many transport terminals anddistribution centres were located close to cen-tral areas mainly as a factor of market and ter-minal proximity A new locational dynamic has

Figure 2 Articulation point and freight distribution

FREIGHT GATEWAYS AND MEGA-URBAN REGIONS

153

copy 2004 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG

emerged with increased economic integrationand specialisation which involved a suburban-isation of distribution centres and terminalsThis process is well documented and revolvesaround factors such as significant land require-ments for logistics (namely warehousing anddistribution centres) access to road transportsystems and regional markets The corridorsignificantly expands the sphere of distributionby providing an axis along which distributioncentres can reliably service many locations alongthe corridor Terminals and freight distributioncentres located in suburban locations have asphere of distribution that includes both the

metropolitan area and the urban region(Figure 4)

Consequently the combination of suburbanlocations of distribution centres and of a trans-port corridor creates an expanded sphere ofregional freight circulation This trend hasbeen underlined by the lsquosub-harbourisationrsquoof many port terminals and the use of satelliteterminals to lessen congestion (Slack 1999)Further terminals located at the periphery ofmetropolitan areas are able to partake in a pro-cess of freight diversion where freight flows areavoiding more congested central areas and usingless congested modes such as rail and barges

Figure 3 Freight corridor and modal integration

Figure 4 Freight distribution centres along a corridor

154

JEAN-PAUL RODRIGUE

copy 2004 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG

The corridors between metropolitan areas arethus prone to the accumulation of a variety ofintermodal activities and distribution centres

THE BOSTWASH FREIGHT CORRIDOR

2

Overview ndash

Many terms have been used todefine the mega-urban region on the North-eastern seaboard of the United States includingthe lsquoMegalopolisrsquo lsquoBosWashrsquo the lsquoEast CoastMetroplexrsquo or the lsquoI-95 Corridorrsquo

3

They all tryto label an extensive urban region where thecore commonality is an orientation along atransport corridor notably an interstate systemThis corridor extends along the seaboard andinland including four major metropolitan areas(Boston New York Baltimore Philadelphiaand Washington) with numerous small urbanareas with indistinct functional boundariesbetween them Overlapping influences of largemetropolitan areas their interrelatedness andtheir relationships with local regional andglobal processes characterises the urbancorridor This regionalisation of urbanisationhas been implicitly acknowledged by differentlevels of government with the consideration of

consolidated metropolitan statistical areas(CMSA

4

) and regional planningcoordinationagencies

5

focusing on freight transportationThe BostWash corridor is part of a national

system of trade areas where freight distributionis coordinated by major articulation points(Figure 5) Their extent is mainly a function ofthe average length of domestic truck freighthaul which was around 550 miles in 2000Like many segments of the US economy andterritory integration processes namely NorthAmerican Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)have impacted on the nature and function ofcontinental production consumption anddistribution (Holmes 2000 Woudsma 1999)About a third of the American trade took placewithin NAFTA in 2000 (US Department ofCommerce 2002)

Land gateways are dominantly servicing animport function expanded under NAFTA tradeand connected to corridors of continentalfreight circulation These include three longi-tudinal and four latitudinal axes One such axislabelled as the NAFTA Corridor links the twolargest land gateways of North America DetroitMichigan and Laredo Texas It dominantly

Source Adapted from Cambridge Systematics (2001)

Figure 5 National trade areas articulation points and major land freight gateways

FREIGHT GATEWAYS AND MEGA-URBAN REGIONS

155

copy 2004 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG

relies upon trucking as about 65 per cent of thevalue of the NAFTA trade is serviced by thismode However it is far from being a continu-ous corridor as northbound flows of Mexicanimports and the southbound flows of Canadianimports dwindle as the distance from theirrespective borders increases The equilibriumpoint is around the TennesseeKentucky rangepast which the respective flows are very smallAbout a third of the volume involves auto-mobile parts produced in Southern Ontario andin the Maquiladoras of Mexico which are usedfor low-cost car manufacturing in the Southeaststates (McCray 1998 Weiler

et al

2001)In this system of continental freight cir-

culation the importance and structure of theBostWash corridor can be preliminary assessed bythe size of its market With a population nearing75 million accounting for about 27 per cent ofthe US population but occupying only 62 percent of its landmass the significance of thecorridor as a sphere of consumption is undis-putable The New York metropolitan statisticalarea alone with its population of 212 million

accounts for 75 per cent of the national popu-lation High population densities over 250persons per square mile on a conterminoussegment of about 400 miles between Bostonand Washington are also observed (Figure 6)This concentration of population facilities andtheir associated circulation makes the corridorthe most congested region in the United States

The corridor thus represents a significantshare of the US economy and generates attractsand transships a large amount of freightthrough its infrastructures distribution centresand terminals It is caught in a wider context ofgrowth and change within national transpor-tation where since 1970 the number of annualpassenger-miles per capita has increased by58 per cent (from 11400 to around 18000) andwhere the annual tonnes-miles of freight havedoubled This trend in freight circulation isderived from growing consumption by individ-uals and enterprises and by production systemsthat are increasingly globally integrated (FHWA-DOT 2001 Lakshmanan and Anderson 2002)which involves

Figure 6 The BostWash corridor

156

JEAN-PAUL RODRIGUE

copy 2004 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG

bull

Changing demand for freight

Linked tonew markets conditions namely a greaterreliance on global supply chains concomitantto a tertiarisation of the US economy as itshifts from manufacturing to services Sincethe mid 1970s the US economy has system-atically produced a negative goods tradebalance This is jointly the result of a growthof national consumption an appreciationof the value of the US dollar making foreignproducts cheaper and a shift of labour-intensive manufacturing activities outside theUnited States While exports of goods haveconsistently grown to reach $7188 billionin 2001 this growth has been outpaced byimports that totalled $13563 billion the sameyear Imbalances in freight distribution havethus resulted and impacted on its geography

bull

Changing supply of freight

Linked to thedevelopment of intermodal transportationsystems and the integration of freight trans-port services namely by third party logisticalproviders This goes on par with a higherlevel of supply chain management

bull

Public policy

In many cases public policy hasnot addressed much freight transportationissues Overall there is a variety of convergingand diverging policies concerning transpor-tation in general and freight transportationin particular Such issues involve investmentzoning security and safety regulation that canimpair or improve the efficiency of freighttransportation A major shift has been froma modal to multi-modal surface transpor-tation policy embedded with increasedenvironmental accountability

Freight terminals ndash

Among the vast number oftransport terminals located along the BostWashcorridor 13 major airports 11 major seaports andmany other intermodal facilities can be found(Figure 7) Each terminal is an element in thecontinuity of global national and regional freightdistribution and contributes to the articulationfunction of their respective metropolitan areasNew York is the traditional gateway of the corri-dor a function that has been developed over thelast two hundred years and which has significantly

Figure 7 Major intermodal terminals BostWash corridor

FREIGHT GATEWAYS AND MEGA-URBAN REGIONS

157

copy 2004 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG

impacted on the structure of the metropolitanarea with large port and rail terminals (Chinitz1960) The development of air transportationand the growing reliance on air freight hasadded a new terminal dynamics as the corridorrsquosmajor airports handled more than 9 milliontonnes of landed freight in 2000 The two majorairports of the New York metropolitan areaalone handled about 28 per cent of this traffic(25 million tonnes) Containerised traffic is alsoan activity relying on a new dynamics of inte-gration between transport terminals and freightdistribution systems As such maritime containerterminals are becoming increasingly linkedwith inland COFCTOFC (container on flat cartrailers on flat car) facilities bound to localregional and national distribution (Figure 7)

From 1991 to 2000 container traffic at theseven major ports (New YorkNew JerseyBaltimore Philadelphia Wilmington BostonRichmond and Portland) increased from27 million to above four million TEUs Threequarters of the growth occurred at the Port ofNew York and New Jersey which in 2000 handledjust over three million TEUs one million morethan just eight years earlier This growth is jointlythe result of regional freight demand and ofglobal distribution chains used by multinationalcorporations Although during the 1980s andearly 1990s the hubbing role of New York waschallenged by traditional rivals such as BaltimorePhiladelphia and Montreal and by new rivalssuch as Halifax and Hampton Roads the begin-ning of the 21st century leaves New York theundisputable maritime container hub of thecorridor This status was confirmed in 1999when Maersk-Sealand the worldrsquos largest con-tainer shipper decided to keep New York as theirEast Coast hub The growth of containerisedtraffic for New YorkNew Jersey during the1990s topped the combined growth of all itscompeting ports of the North Atlantic NewYorkrsquos hubbing role is one of the most pro-nounced in the United States since it receivedthe largest number of containership calls evenif it is the third largest container port Unlikethe Pacific the Atlantic seaboard has muchpotential for coastal freight distribution with anumber of small and medium-sized ports

Freight distribution ndash

The BostWash corridor hasparticularly been impacted by the restructuration

of the US economy For instance recent trendsunderline that about 183 million Americansworked in manufacturing in 2000 a figure simi-lar to the 1950s Concomitantly the workforcein the service sector has growth from 30 millionto 107 million The functions of distributionand consumption have consequently grown muchmore substantially than production a trendreflected by a growth in interregional and inter-national freight flows More than 11 millionpeople worked in the logistics and distributionsector in the five largest metropolitan areas ofthe corridor

The amount of domestic tonne-miles carriedin the United States between 1980 and 2000 hasmore than doubled for road traffic and morethan tripled for air freight Over 136 billiontonnes of freight valued at $9 trillion was carriedin the United States in 1998 Of these figuresthe BostWash corridor accounted for 35 billiontonnes valued at $26 trillion 26 per cent of thecarried tonnes and 28 per cent of the value Thenature of freight circulation implies a higherlevel of flexibility more frequent deliveries andgreater reliance on trucking From freight ter-minals a large quantity of freight flows throughthe corridor Moreover freight circulation hasexpanded with the growth of containerisedtraffic handled at ports but also from the con-tainerised traffic transshipped at West Coast portsand moved through the continental landbridgeto be distributed along the East Coast Muchconventional cargo is also being distributedIn addition the BaltimorendashPhiladelphiandashNewJersey ndash New York corridor

6

(Figure 7) serves asmajor distribution points for high volumes ofintermodal rail to truck transfers of domesti-cally produced automobiles (mixing centres)and also for a wide range of bulk productsThese goods are moved by rail and then trans-ferred to trucks for regional and local distri-bution Regional rail freight handles more than225 million tonnes of containerised and non-containerised cargo originating or bound tothe region An additional 90 million tonnes istransiting through the region

Challenges ndash

The development of transportsystems in the BostWash corridor has createda strong dependency on trucking for regionalfreight distribution With the development ofthe Interstate highway system in the 1960s and

158

JEAN-PAUL RODRIGUE

copy 2004 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG

1970s growing freight circulation was accom-modated by growing road capacities The growthof one was the rationale behind the growthof the other The expansion of road infrastruc-tures has however declined substantially inthe 1980s and 1990s leaving the growth of roadfreight distribution without significant addi-tional capacities As the road transport systemgot increasingly congested including accessto major transport terminals alternatives aresought to improve its capacity Estimates bythe Federal Highway Administration place thegrowth of freight transportation in the corridorto figures around 75 between 2000 and 2020In a tightly integrated distribution systemcongestion involves delays and a disruption oftrade and production The growing integrationbetween the functions of production and trans-portation underline this trend Among the majortransport challenges affecting distribution inthe corridor are (I-95 Coalition 2001)

bull

Road Congestion

Congestion in the corridorinvolves many dimensions ranging from

highways access to terminals and urban cir-culation It has traditionally being perceivedwith the purpose of improving passengermobility as investments going to highwaydevelopment benefited trucking With thespectacular growth of trucking congestion isreducing the effectiveness of distributionsystems over which trucking is particularlyvulnerable Each day 38000 trucks go throughthe New YorkndashNorthern New Jersey regionOf these 10000 trucks are using the I-95accounting between 10 per cent and 20 percent of all vehicles using this highway seg-ment As such trucking may cause between30 per cent to 40 per cent of all highwaycongestion Most of the major highways alongthe corridor are operating around or abovedesign capacity (Figure 8) Congestion is fur-ther exacerbated by the geographical scaleof distribution most of it taking place withinthe corridor and using its major highwaysUntil recently little alternatives to regionaldistribution outside trucking were beingconsidered

Figure 8 Volume to capacity ratio major highways BostWash corridor 1998

FREIGHT GATEWAYS AND MEGA-URBAN REGIONS

159

copy 2004 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG

bull

Circulation bottlenecks

Freight distributionis currently hitting many road rail and portbottlenecks raising questions about thecapacity of the regional transport system toanswer the expected growth of the demandUrban areas and access to major port railand air terminals represent significantbottlenecks impairing trucking A survey ofthe Mid-Atlantic rail corridor identified 25locations having insufficient capacity and90 locations where vertical clearance cannotaccommodate double stacking container railcars (Cambridge Systematics 2002) Improv-ing flows at critical bottlenecks will requirelarge infrastructure upgrades

bull

Intermodal capacity

There is a lack ofefficient intermodal transfers in the corridorparticularly truck-to-rail transfer facilities(TOFC) and rail integration at port terminals(COFC) notably at the Port of New York andNew Jersey Since 85 of containers boundfor the port are carried by 15000 truck-journeys each day

7

local accessibility tomaritime terminals is a fundamental issue Forinstance in 1991 the Port of New York andNew Jersey inaugurated a direct ship-to-railand rail-to-ship transshipment facility a func-tion which grew at a phenomenal rate from43000 containers handled in 1992 to 228000in 2002 It is expected that by 2010 inter-modal rail share would climb to between 25 percentndash30 per cent of transshipped containersresulting in improved economic and environ-mental benefits for the locality (NYMTC 2001)Inland rail terminals could consequently actas satellite terminals and permit freight cir-culation to avoid the congested road systemof the metropolitan area especially near portterminal facilities

bull

Modal shift

A shift of road freight to othermodes remains one of the most importantchallenges for the corridor Attempts atseparating freight and passenger circulationare likely to improve the performance of bothsystems Intermodal transportation is chang-ing the dynamics of regional transportationfrom a situation of modal competition to thedevelopment of modal complementarity Forcontainer transportation a higher usage ofrail and barges for regional circulation couldalso significantly alleviate the road systemespecially over local access to large terminals

Since the corridor is oriented along a coast-line the development of a regional systemof maritime distribution servicing the existinginternational system could provide substan-tial benefits The importance of air transpor-tation for regional short distance movementshas also created an unsustainable situationFor instance 40 per cent of all the flightsfrom Logan airport (Boston) are bound forNew York only 200 miles away The develop-ment of a more efficient and possibly highspeed rail service would free much neededairport capacity in the corridor capacity thatcould easily accommodate the growth ofair freight

bull

Freight diversion

The development of inlandterminals a strategy pursued by many freightforwarders and port authorities is creating aprocess of freight diversion The port inlanddistribution network (PIDN) developed bythe Port Authority of New York and NewJersey and the Virginia inland port are twonotable example of this strategy Through theusage of inland rail and barge terminals afreight diversion effect would prevent trucksentering the congested metropolitan areasand enable the respective ports to capturea wider market area (PANYNJ 2003) Aprocess of lsquosub-harbourisationrsquo is well underway

CONCLUSION

Urbanisation as a regional process resulted inspatial structures that are inherently complexand in which flows of people and freightrequire a high level of regulation In manyurban regions corridors represent a paradigmof urbanisation over which it has been arguedthat freight distribution offers a perspective tounderstand their dynamics They are servicedby complex freight distribution systems linkingglobal national and regional distributionsystems Mega-urban regions as

logisticallyintegrated entities

have adapted differently toa changing geography of production consump-tion and distribution as they are the mainstructures behind the international division oflabour and production This integration issupported by articulation points where anaccumulation and a concentration of terminalsdistribution centres and related activities

160

JEAN-PAUL RODRIGUE

copy 2004 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG

coordinate local regional and global freightdistribution Concomitantly to the special-isation and fragmentation of production aspecialisation of distribution is taking place

Being one of the worldrsquos leading urbanregions BostWash has experienced a qualitativeand quantitative shift in its distribution Firstthe corridor is imbedded in a system of nationalcorridors of freight circulation that haveexpanded since NAFTA was established Secondwhile regional freight movements are increas-ingly been linked with a growth of consumptiontransport terminals have adapted to globallyoriented supply chains where inbound trafficfar exceeds outbound traffic Many distributioncentres have been sub-urbanised to answerthe requirements of additional space to satisfya dependence on trucking and to access theregional market in a timely fashion A notableconcentration of terminals and distributioncentres has taken place along the BaltimorendashPhiladelphiandashNew JerseyndashNew York axis to offera corridor-wide level of freight distributionIn turn this has exacerbated congestionalong major highway axis and next to majorintermodal terminals Among many of thestrategies implemented to address the corridor-wide challenges of freight distribution aprocess of lsquosub-harbourisationrsquo is taking placewithin the corridor in addition to a modalshift from road to rail How well these regionalchallenges will be addressed is of strategicimportance to insure that present and futuredistributional needs of BostWash remains to beanswered The issue of freight corridors logis-tics and distribution certainly deserves furtherinvestigations

Notes

1 The author would like to thank Brian Slack foruseful comments

2 We prefer to use the term lsquoBostWashrsquo instead oflsquoBosWashrsquo as initially introduced by Gottmann(1961) Although it is less phonetically elegant itprovides a clearer reference to Boston and abetter indication that it is a neologism

3 The number of the interstate highway at the coreof the corridor

4 CMSAs are composed of two or more adjoiningmetropolitan areas which have demonstratedsome economic linkage

5 The I-95 Corridor Coalition initiated in 1993 isan attempt to manage this entity by forming aregional partnership of major public and privatetransportation agencies toll authorities andindustry associations serving the Northeasternpart of the United States from Maine to VirginiaIt tries to offer a multi-jurisdictional approach totransportation issues covering multiple stateslthttpwwwi95coalitionorggt

6 A sub-corridor that can be labelled as lsquointermodalalleyrsquo

7 The national average is 44

REFERENCES

Berry

BJL (1967)

Geography of Market Centersand Retail Distribution

Englewood Cliffs NJPrentice-Hall

Cambridge

Systematics

(2001) Freight TrendsIssues and Data Needs presented at the Conferenceon Data Needs in the Changing World of Logisticsand Freight Transportation Saratoga SpringsNY lthttpwwwdotstatenyusttssconferencegrenzebackpdfgt

Cambridge

Systematics

(2002) Mid-Atlantic RailOperations Study lthttpwwwi95coalitionorggt

Chinitz

B (1960)

Freight and the Metropolis The Impactof Americarsquos Transport Revolutions on the New YorkRegion

Cambridge MA Harvard University Press

DeWitt

W amp J

Clinger

(2001) Intermodal FreightTransportation Millennium Paper TRB Committeeon Intermodal Freight Transportation (A1B05)Washington DC National Academy Press lthttpwwwnationalacademiesorgtrbpublicationsmillennium00061pdfgt

FHWA-DOT (2001) National Freight Issues ampPolicy Options Office of Freight Management andOperations lthttpopsfhwadotgovfreightgt

Gottmann

J (1961)

Megalopolis The UrbanizedNortheast Seaboard of the United States

New YorkTwentieth Century Fund

Gottmann

J (1987)

Megalopolis Revisited 25 YearsLater

The University of Maryland Institute forUrban Studies

Hall

P (1995) Towards a General Urban Theory

In

J

Brotchie

M

Batty

E

Blakely

P

Hall

ampP

Newton

eds

Cities in Competition Productiveand Sustainable Cities for the 21st Century

pp 3ndash32Melbourne Longman Australia

Hanson

S (1995)

The Geography of Urban Trans-portation

2nd edn New York Guilford

FREIGHT GATEWAYS AND MEGA-URBAN REGIONS

151

copy 2004 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG

and Pusan) mega-urban regions in developedcountries have expanded their import andconsumption functions The result has been agrowing circulation of freight between andwithin mega-urban regions

FREIGHT AND MEGA-URBAN REGIONS

Most freight flows are a consequence of globaland regional economic activities Mega-urbanregions are dominantly structural and functionalentities since they do not fall into any specificjurisdiction and are rarely recognised as suchSince its inception the concept of mega-urbanregions has been subject to many nuancesconcerning its geographical extent They haveproved to be geographically difficult to defineformally and to analyse comprehensively Ifan urban area can be partially defined by thecommuting field of its residents where internalflows of passengers are more significant thanexternal flows the dynamics of a mega-urbanregion can reside on movements of freight

As a space of flows mega-urban regions havedominantly been considered in terms of flows ofpeople ndash they are after all large concentrationsof populations While passenger flows arederived from economic and social interactionswhich have a tendency to be skewed by manyfactors freight flows are dominantly derivednot only from the location of production andconsumption activities but from the complexweb of intermediate activities such as ware-housing and transshipment Combined theyform a regional transactional space in which manyactors in the supply chain from producers toconsumers interact The relationships betweenfreight and mega-urban regions can be betterunderstood through the concepts of articu-lation points corridors and distribution centres

Articulation points ndash

An articulation point isa location that promotes the continuity of cir-culation in a transportation system servicing asupply chain It is the interface between differentspatial systems a gateway between spheres ofproduction and consumption It also expandsthe hub concept as it includes the considerationof terminal facilities but also the numerousactivities linked with freight circulation such asdistribution centres warehouses and financeThese separate but closely integrated activities

along with the terminals they are linked toform an agglomeration of distribution Conven-tionally geographical factors linked to the siteand situation of lsquohardrsquo terminals (especiallyfor maritime terminals) were bounded with thelocation of articulation points Around thesefacilities agglomerated many freight handlingand distribution activities The emergence ofintermodal transportation systems reinforcesarticulation points as major locations of conver-gence and transshipment and has modifiedtheir geography with increased locationalflexibility While major terminals have expandedand relocated to more peripheral locationsnamely port facilities many distribution centreshave relocated even further away

The importance of an articulation pointis measured by the volume and the nature ofthe traffic it handles at its terminals and thegeographical extent of the distribution systemit provides For instance an internationalarticulation point handles a substantial amountof maritime land and air traffic and has ahinterland that encompasses several regionalarticulation points A regional articulation pointwill handle traffic mostly related to land trans-portation and will be characterised by a smallerhinterland Functionally an articulation pointis a concrete geographical node within a widevariety of supply chains It involves a concen-tration of many transport terminals with eachhub servicing its respective distribution systemThe hierarchy and sequence of freight distri-bution will thus be reflected in the hierarchyand sequence of articulation points

Three dominant functions of freight cir-culation can be assumed by articulation pointseach deriving added value (Figure 2)

bull

Freight Transshipment (A)

Involves a setof intermodal activities transshipping freightfrom one mode to the other Dominant articu-lation points handle substantial amountsof freight through their transport terminalsThis function is particularly important forgateways providing an interface betweenregions and the global economy

bull

Freight Integration (B)

Involves activitiesrelated to the logistics of freight circulationthe most common being the compositionwarehousing and decomposition of freightshipments Distribution centres are the

152

JEAN-PAUL RODRIGUE

copy 2004 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG

common expression of this function of articu-lation (B2) often linked with transshipmentactivities taking place at major terminals (B1)

bull

Freight Convergence (C)

Involves flows offreight bound to another location but goingthrough an articulation point because of itsintermediacy Increased congestion has oftenmade these flows less desirable with modalshift

alternatives being considered

The different scales and functions of articu-lation are linked with different transport ter-minals Major international articulation points arenot dissociated from port and airport terminalswhile regional articulation points tend to belinked with inland transport terminals alonga freight corridor

Freight corridors ndash

A freight corridor is a linearorientation of freight flows supported by anaccumulation of transport infrastructuresand activities servicing these flows Flows can bedivided by mode and by the infrastructuresservicing them Corridors have become theobject of intense modal competition with thegrowth of movements of passengers and freightTraditionally flows in freight corridors tendedto be fragmented and segmented since eachmode tried to exploit its own advantages in termsof cost service reliability and safety In manycases transportation on the roads benefited

taking a significant share of regional freighttransportation More recently as congestionincreased along corridors and as productivityand efficiency improvements were sought withinsupply chains modal complementarity improvedCorridors represent a setting where integratedtransport systems through intermodality areparticularly suitable to improve freight mobility(Figure 3)

As either distance or congestion increasesthe efficiency of road freight distribution alongcorridors is challenged Improvements can beachieved by shifting freight to another modethat is less congested or by using existing modesin a combination where they are respectivelythe most efficient The latter opens opportunitiesof freight diversion where a terminal locatedalong the corridor is used to transfer freight toa mode that lessens congestion inbound oroutbound in a metropolitan area Freight distri-bution centres are increasingly assuming thearticulation of freight distribution in corridors

Freight centres and freight distribution ndash

Thereis a changing geography of distribution withinmega-urban regions as many freight distributionactivities are relocated to suburban areasConventionally many transport terminals anddistribution centres were located close to cen-tral areas mainly as a factor of market and ter-minal proximity A new locational dynamic has

Figure 2 Articulation point and freight distribution

FREIGHT GATEWAYS AND MEGA-URBAN REGIONS

153

copy 2004 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG

emerged with increased economic integrationand specialisation which involved a suburban-isation of distribution centres and terminalsThis process is well documented and revolvesaround factors such as significant land require-ments for logistics (namely warehousing anddistribution centres) access to road transportsystems and regional markets The corridorsignificantly expands the sphere of distributionby providing an axis along which distributioncentres can reliably service many locations alongthe corridor Terminals and freight distributioncentres located in suburban locations have asphere of distribution that includes both the

metropolitan area and the urban region(Figure 4)

Consequently the combination of suburbanlocations of distribution centres and of a trans-port corridor creates an expanded sphere ofregional freight circulation This trend hasbeen underlined by the lsquosub-harbourisationrsquoof many port terminals and the use of satelliteterminals to lessen congestion (Slack 1999)Further terminals located at the periphery ofmetropolitan areas are able to partake in a pro-cess of freight diversion where freight flows areavoiding more congested central areas and usingless congested modes such as rail and barges

Figure 3 Freight corridor and modal integration

Figure 4 Freight distribution centres along a corridor

154

JEAN-PAUL RODRIGUE

copy 2004 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG

The corridors between metropolitan areas arethus prone to the accumulation of a variety ofintermodal activities and distribution centres

THE BOSTWASH FREIGHT CORRIDOR

2

Overview ndash

Many terms have been used todefine the mega-urban region on the North-eastern seaboard of the United States includingthe lsquoMegalopolisrsquo lsquoBosWashrsquo the lsquoEast CoastMetroplexrsquo or the lsquoI-95 Corridorrsquo

3

They all tryto label an extensive urban region where thecore commonality is an orientation along atransport corridor notably an interstate systemThis corridor extends along the seaboard andinland including four major metropolitan areas(Boston New York Baltimore Philadelphiaand Washington) with numerous small urbanareas with indistinct functional boundariesbetween them Overlapping influences of largemetropolitan areas their interrelatedness andtheir relationships with local regional andglobal processes characterises the urbancorridor This regionalisation of urbanisationhas been implicitly acknowledged by differentlevels of government with the consideration of

consolidated metropolitan statistical areas(CMSA

4

) and regional planningcoordinationagencies

5

focusing on freight transportationThe BostWash corridor is part of a national

system of trade areas where freight distributionis coordinated by major articulation points(Figure 5) Their extent is mainly a function ofthe average length of domestic truck freighthaul which was around 550 miles in 2000Like many segments of the US economy andterritory integration processes namely NorthAmerican Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)have impacted on the nature and function ofcontinental production consumption anddistribution (Holmes 2000 Woudsma 1999)About a third of the American trade took placewithin NAFTA in 2000 (US Department ofCommerce 2002)

Land gateways are dominantly servicing animport function expanded under NAFTA tradeand connected to corridors of continentalfreight circulation These include three longi-tudinal and four latitudinal axes One such axislabelled as the NAFTA Corridor links the twolargest land gateways of North America DetroitMichigan and Laredo Texas It dominantly

Source Adapted from Cambridge Systematics (2001)

Figure 5 National trade areas articulation points and major land freight gateways

FREIGHT GATEWAYS AND MEGA-URBAN REGIONS

155

copy 2004 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG

relies upon trucking as about 65 per cent of thevalue of the NAFTA trade is serviced by thismode However it is far from being a continu-ous corridor as northbound flows of Mexicanimports and the southbound flows of Canadianimports dwindle as the distance from theirrespective borders increases The equilibriumpoint is around the TennesseeKentucky rangepast which the respective flows are very smallAbout a third of the volume involves auto-mobile parts produced in Southern Ontario andin the Maquiladoras of Mexico which are usedfor low-cost car manufacturing in the Southeaststates (McCray 1998 Weiler

et al

2001)In this system of continental freight cir-

culation the importance and structure of theBostWash corridor can be preliminary assessed bythe size of its market With a population nearing75 million accounting for about 27 per cent ofthe US population but occupying only 62 percent of its landmass the significance of thecorridor as a sphere of consumption is undis-putable The New York metropolitan statisticalarea alone with its population of 212 million

accounts for 75 per cent of the national popu-lation High population densities over 250persons per square mile on a conterminoussegment of about 400 miles between Bostonand Washington are also observed (Figure 6)This concentration of population facilities andtheir associated circulation makes the corridorthe most congested region in the United States

The corridor thus represents a significantshare of the US economy and generates attractsand transships a large amount of freightthrough its infrastructures distribution centresand terminals It is caught in a wider context ofgrowth and change within national transpor-tation where since 1970 the number of annualpassenger-miles per capita has increased by58 per cent (from 11400 to around 18000) andwhere the annual tonnes-miles of freight havedoubled This trend in freight circulation isderived from growing consumption by individ-uals and enterprises and by production systemsthat are increasingly globally integrated (FHWA-DOT 2001 Lakshmanan and Anderson 2002)which involves

Figure 6 The BostWash corridor

156

JEAN-PAUL RODRIGUE

copy 2004 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG

bull

Changing demand for freight

Linked tonew markets conditions namely a greaterreliance on global supply chains concomitantto a tertiarisation of the US economy as itshifts from manufacturing to services Sincethe mid 1970s the US economy has system-atically produced a negative goods tradebalance This is jointly the result of a growthof national consumption an appreciationof the value of the US dollar making foreignproducts cheaper and a shift of labour-intensive manufacturing activities outside theUnited States While exports of goods haveconsistently grown to reach $7188 billionin 2001 this growth has been outpaced byimports that totalled $13563 billion the sameyear Imbalances in freight distribution havethus resulted and impacted on its geography

bull

Changing supply of freight

Linked to thedevelopment of intermodal transportationsystems and the integration of freight trans-port services namely by third party logisticalproviders This goes on par with a higherlevel of supply chain management

bull

Public policy

In many cases public policy hasnot addressed much freight transportationissues Overall there is a variety of convergingand diverging policies concerning transpor-tation in general and freight transportationin particular Such issues involve investmentzoning security and safety regulation that canimpair or improve the efficiency of freighttransportation A major shift has been froma modal to multi-modal surface transpor-tation policy embedded with increasedenvironmental accountability

Freight terminals ndash

Among the vast number oftransport terminals located along the BostWashcorridor 13 major airports 11 major seaports andmany other intermodal facilities can be found(Figure 7) Each terminal is an element in thecontinuity of global national and regional freightdistribution and contributes to the articulationfunction of their respective metropolitan areasNew York is the traditional gateway of the corri-dor a function that has been developed over thelast two hundred years and which has significantly

Figure 7 Major intermodal terminals BostWash corridor

FREIGHT GATEWAYS AND MEGA-URBAN REGIONS

157

copy 2004 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG

impacted on the structure of the metropolitanarea with large port and rail terminals (Chinitz1960) The development of air transportationand the growing reliance on air freight hasadded a new terminal dynamics as the corridorrsquosmajor airports handled more than 9 milliontonnes of landed freight in 2000 The two majorairports of the New York metropolitan areaalone handled about 28 per cent of this traffic(25 million tonnes) Containerised traffic is alsoan activity relying on a new dynamics of inte-gration between transport terminals and freightdistribution systems As such maritime containerterminals are becoming increasingly linkedwith inland COFCTOFC (container on flat cartrailers on flat car) facilities bound to localregional and national distribution (Figure 7)

From 1991 to 2000 container traffic at theseven major ports (New YorkNew JerseyBaltimore Philadelphia Wilmington BostonRichmond and Portland) increased from27 million to above four million TEUs Threequarters of the growth occurred at the Port ofNew York and New Jersey which in 2000 handledjust over three million TEUs one million morethan just eight years earlier This growth is jointlythe result of regional freight demand and ofglobal distribution chains used by multinationalcorporations Although during the 1980s andearly 1990s the hubbing role of New York waschallenged by traditional rivals such as BaltimorePhiladelphia and Montreal and by new rivalssuch as Halifax and Hampton Roads the begin-ning of the 21st century leaves New York theundisputable maritime container hub of thecorridor This status was confirmed in 1999when Maersk-Sealand the worldrsquos largest con-tainer shipper decided to keep New York as theirEast Coast hub The growth of containerisedtraffic for New YorkNew Jersey during the1990s topped the combined growth of all itscompeting ports of the North Atlantic NewYorkrsquos hubbing role is one of the most pro-nounced in the United States since it receivedthe largest number of containership calls evenif it is the third largest container port Unlikethe Pacific the Atlantic seaboard has muchpotential for coastal freight distribution with anumber of small and medium-sized ports

Freight distribution ndash

The BostWash corridor hasparticularly been impacted by the restructuration

of the US economy For instance recent trendsunderline that about 183 million Americansworked in manufacturing in 2000 a figure simi-lar to the 1950s Concomitantly the workforcein the service sector has growth from 30 millionto 107 million The functions of distributionand consumption have consequently grown muchmore substantially than production a trendreflected by a growth in interregional and inter-national freight flows More than 11 millionpeople worked in the logistics and distributionsector in the five largest metropolitan areas ofthe corridor

The amount of domestic tonne-miles carriedin the United States between 1980 and 2000 hasmore than doubled for road traffic and morethan tripled for air freight Over 136 billiontonnes of freight valued at $9 trillion was carriedin the United States in 1998 Of these figuresthe BostWash corridor accounted for 35 billiontonnes valued at $26 trillion 26 per cent of thecarried tonnes and 28 per cent of the value Thenature of freight circulation implies a higherlevel of flexibility more frequent deliveries andgreater reliance on trucking From freight ter-minals a large quantity of freight flows throughthe corridor Moreover freight circulation hasexpanded with the growth of containerisedtraffic handled at ports but also from the con-tainerised traffic transshipped at West Coast portsand moved through the continental landbridgeto be distributed along the East Coast Muchconventional cargo is also being distributedIn addition the BaltimorendashPhiladelphiandashNewJersey ndash New York corridor

6

(Figure 7) serves asmajor distribution points for high volumes ofintermodal rail to truck transfers of domesti-cally produced automobiles (mixing centres)and also for a wide range of bulk productsThese goods are moved by rail and then trans-ferred to trucks for regional and local distri-bution Regional rail freight handles more than225 million tonnes of containerised and non-containerised cargo originating or bound tothe region An additional 90 million tonnes istransiting through the region

Challenges ndash

The development of transportsystems in the BostWash corridor has createda strong dependency on trucking for regionalfreight distribution With the development ofthe Interstate highway system in the 1960s and

158

JEAN-PAUL RODRIGUE

copy 2004 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG

1970s growing freight circulation was accom-modated by growing road capacities The growthof one was the rationale behind the growthof the other The expansion of road infrastruc-tures has however declined substantially inthe 1980s and 1990s leaving the growth of roadfreight distribution without significant addi-tional capacities As the road transport systemgot increasingly congested including accessto major transport terminals alternatives aresought to improve its capacity Estimates bythe Federal Highway Administration place thegrowth of freight transportation in the corridorto figures around 75 between 2000 and 2020In a tightly integrated distribution systemcongestion involves delays and a disruption oftrade and production The growing integrationbetween the functions of production and trans-portation underline this trend Among the majortransport challenges affecting distribution inthe corridor are (I-95 Coalition 2001)

bull

Road Congestion

Congestion in the corridorinvolves many dimensions ranging from

highways access to terminals and urban cir-culation It has traditionally being perceivedwith the purpose of improving passengermobility as investments going to highwaydevelopment benefited trucking With thespectacular growth of trucking congestion isreducing the effectiveness of distributionsystems over which trucking is particularlyvulnerable Each day 38000 trucks go throughthe New YorkndashNorthern New Jersey regionOf these 10000 trucks are using the I-95accounting between 10 per cent and 20 percent of all vehicles using this highway seg-ment As such trucking may cause between30 per cent to 40 per cent of all highwaycongestion Most of the major highways alongthe corridor are operating around or abovedesign capacity (Figure 8) Congestion is fur-ther exacerbated by the geographical scaleof distribution most of it taking place withinthe corridor and using its major highwaysUntil recently little alternatives to regionaldistribution outside trucking were beingconsidered

Figure 8 Volume to capacity ratio major highways BostWash corridor 1998

FREIGHT GATEWAYS AND MEGA-URBAN REGIONS

159

copy 2004 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG

bull

Circulation bottlenecks

Freight distributionis currently hitting many road rail and portbottlenecks raising questions about thecapacity of the regional transport system toanswer the expected growth of the demandUrban areas and access to major port railand air terminals represent significantbottlenecks impairing trucking A survey ofthe Mid-Atlantic rail corridor identified 25locations having insufficient capacity and90 locations where vertical clearance cannotaccommodate double stacking container railcars (Cambridge Systematics 2002) Improv-ing flows at critical bottlenecks will requirelarge infrastructure upgrades

bull

Intermodal capacity

There is a lack ofefficient intermodal transfers in the corridorparticularly truck-to-rail transfer facilities(TOFC) and rail integration at port terminals(COFC) notably at the Port of New York andNew Jersey Since 85 of containers boundfor the port are carried by 15000 truck-journeys each day

7

local accessibility tomaritime terminals is a fundamental issue Forinstance in 1991 the Port of New York andNew Jersey inaugurated a direct ship-to-railand rail-to-ship transshipment facility a func-tion which grew at a phenomenal rate from43000 containers handled in 1992 to 228000in 2002 It is expected that by 2010 inter-modal rail share would climb to between 25 percentndash30 per cent of transshipped containersresulting in improved economic and environ-mental benefits for the locality (NYMTC 2001)Inland rail terminals could consequently actas satellite terminals and permit freight cir-culation to avoid the congested road systemof the metropolitan area especially near portterminal facilities

bull

Modal shift

A shift of road freight to othermodes remains one of the most importantchallenges for the corridor Attempts atseparating freight and passenger circulationare likely to improve the performance of bothsystems Intermodal transportation is chang-ing the dynamics of regional transportationfrom a situation of modal competition to thedevelopment of modal complementarity Forcontainer transportation a higher usage ofrail and barges for regional circulation couldalso significantly alleviate the road systemespecially over local access to large terminals

Since the corridor is oriented along a coast-line the development of a regional systemof maritime distribution servicing the existinginternational system could provide substan-tial benefits The importance of air transpor-tation for regional short distance movementshas also created an unsustainable situationFor instance 40 per cent of all the flightsfrom Logan airport (Boston) are bound forNew York only 200 miles away The develop-ment of a more efficient and possibly highspeed rail service would free much neededairport capacity in the corridor capacity thatcould easily accommodate the growth ofair freight

bull

Freight diversion

The development of inlandterminals a strategy pursued by many freightforwarders and port authorities is creating aprocess of freight diversion The port inlanddistribution network (PIDN) developed bythe Port Authority of New York and NewJersey and the Virginia inland port are twonotable example of this strategy Through theusage of inland rail and barge terminals afreight diversion effect would prevent trucksentering the congested metropolitan areasand enable the respective ports to capturea wider market area (PANYNJ 2003) Aprocess of lsquosub-harbourisationrsquo is well underway

CONCLUSION

Urbanisation as a regional process resulted inspatial structures that are inherently complexand in which flows of people and freightrequire a high level of regulation In manyurban regions corridors represent a paradigmof urbanisation over which it has been arguedthat freight distribution offers a perspective tounderstand their dynamics They are servicedby complex freight distribution systems linkingglobal national and regional distributionsystems Mega-urban regions as

logisticallyintegrated entities

have adapted differently toa changing geography of production consump-tion and distribution as they are the mainstructures behind the international division oflabour and production This integration issupported by articulation points where anaccumulation and a concentration of terminalsdistribution centres and related activities

160

JEAN-PAUL RODRIGUE

copy 2004 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG

coordinate local regional and global freightdistribution Concomitantly to the special-isation and fragmentation of production aspecialisation of distribution is taking place

Being one of the worldrsquos leading urbanregions BostWash has experienced a qualitativeand quantitative shift in its distribution Firstthe corridor is imbedded in a system of nationalcorridors of freight circulation that haveexpanded since NAFTA was established Secondwhile regional freight movements are increas-ingly been linked with a growth of consumptiontransport terminals have adapted to globallyoriented supply chains where inbound trafficfar exceeds outbound traffic Many distributioncentres have been sub-urbanised to answerthe requirements of additional space to satisfya dependence on trucking and to access theregional market in a timely fashion A notableconcentration of terminals and distributioncentres has taken place along the BaltimorendashPhiladelphiandashNew JerseyndashNew York axis to offera corridor-wide level of freight distributionIn turn this has exacerbated congestionalong major highway axis and next to majorintermodal terminals Among many of thestrategies implemented to address the corridor-wide challenges of freight distribution aprocess of lsquosub-harbourisationrsquo is taking placewithin the corridor in addition to a modalshift from road to rail How well these regionalchallenges will be addressed is of strategicimportance to insure that present and futuredistributional needs of BostWash remains to beanswered The issue of freight corridors logis-tics and distribution certainly deserves furtherinvestigations

Notes

1 The author would like to thank Brian Slack foruseful comments

2 We prefer to use the term lsquoBostWashrsquo instead oflsquoBosWashrsquo as initially introduced by Gottmann(1961) Although it is less phonetically elegant itprovides a clearer reference to Boston and abetter indication that it is a neologism

3 The number of the interstate highway at the coreof the corridor

4 CMSAs are composed of two or more adjoiningmetropolitan areas which have demonstratedsome economic linkage

5 The I-95 Corridor Coalition initiated in 1993 isan attempt to manage this entity by forming aregional partnership of major public and privatetransportation agencies toll authorities andindustry associations serving the Northeasternpart of the United States from Maine to VirginiaIt tries to offer a multi-jurisdictional approach totransportation issues covering multiple stateslthttpwwwi95coalitionorggt

6 A sub-corridor that can be labelled as lsquointermodalalleyrsquo

7 The national average is 44

REFERENCES

Berry

BJL (1967)

Geography of Market Centersand Retail Distribution

Englewood Cliffs NJPrentice-Hall

Cambridge

Systematics

(2001) Freight TrendsIssues and Data Needs presented at the Conferenceon Data Needs in the Changing World of Logisticsand Freight Transportation Saratoga SpringsNY lthttpwwwdotstatenyusttssconferencegrenzebackpdfgt

Cambridge

Systematics

(2002) Mid-Atlantic RailOperations Study lthttpwwwi95coalitionorggt

Chinitz

B (1960)

Freight and the Metropolis The Impactof Americarsquos Transport Revolutions on the New YorkRegion

Cambridge MA Harvard University Press

DeWitt

W amp J

Clinger

(2001) Intermodal FreightTransportation Millennium Paper TRB Committeeon Intermodal Freight Transportation (A1B05)Washington DC National Academy Press lthttpwwwnationalacademiesorgtrbpublicationsmillennium00061pdfgt

FHWA-DOT (2001) National Freight Issues ampPolicy Options Office of Freight Management andOperations lthttpopsfhwadotgovfreightgt

Gottmann

J (1961)

Megalopolis The UrbanizedNortheast Seaboard of the United States

New YorkTwentieth Century Fund

Gottmann

J (1987)

Megalopolis Revisited 25 YearsLater

The University of Maryland Institute forUrban Studies

Hall

P (1995) Towards a General Urban Theory

In

J

Brotchie

M

Batty

E

Blakely

P

Hall

ampP

Newton

eds

Cities in Competition Productiveand Sustainable Cities for the 21st Century

pp 3ndash32Melbourne Longman Australia

Hanson

S (1995)

The Geography of Urban Trans-portation

2nd edn New York Guilford

152

JEAN-PAUL RODRIGUE

copy 2004 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG

common expression of this function of articu-lation (B2) often linked with transshipmentactivities taking place at major terminals (B1)

bull

Freight Convergence (C)

Involves flows offreight bound to another location but goingthrough an articulation point because of itsintermediacy Increased congestion has oftenmade these flows less desirable with modalshift

alternatives being considered

The different scales and functions of articu-lation are linked with different transport ter-minals Major international articulation points arenot dissociated from port and airport terminalswhile regional articulation points tend to belinked with inland transport terminals alonga freight corridor

Freight corridors ndash

A freight corridor is a linearorientation of freight flows supported by anaccumulation of transport infrastructuresand activities servicing these flows Flows can bedivided by mode and by the infrastructuresservicing them Corridors have become theobject of intense modal competition with thegrowth of movements of passengers and freightTraditionally flows in freight corridors tendedto be fragmented and segmented since eachmode tried to exploit its own advantages in termsof cost service reliability and safety In manycases transportation on the roads benefited

taking a significant share of regional freighttransportation More recently as congestionincreased along corridors and as productivityand efficiency improvements were sought withinsupply chains modal complementarity improvedCorridors represent a setting where integratedtransport systems through intermodality areparticularly suitable to improve freight mobility(Figure 3)

As either distance or congestion increasesthe efficiency of road freight distribution alongcorridors is challenged Improvements can beachieved by shifting freight to another modethat is less congested or by using existing modesin a combination where they are respectivelythe most efficient The latter opens opportunitiesof freight diversion where a terminal locatedalong the corridor is used to transfer freight toa mode that lessens congestion inbound oroutbound in a metropolitan area Freight distri-bution centres are increasingly assuming thearticulation of freight distribution in corridors

Freight centres and freight distribution ndash

Thereis a changing geography of distribution withinmega-urban regions as many freight distributionactivities are relocated to suburban areasConventionally many transport terminals anddistribution centres were located close to cen-tral areas mainly as a factor of market and ter-minal proximity A new locational dynamic has

Figure 2 Articulation point and freight distribution

FREIGHT GATEWAYS AND MEGA-URBAN REGIONS

153

copy 2004 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG

emerged with increased economic integrationand specialisation which involved a suburban-isation of distribution centres and terminalsThis process is well documented and revolvesaround factors such as significant land require-ments for logistics (namely warehousing anddistribution centres) access to road transportsystems and regional markets The corridorsignificantly expands the sphere of distributionby providing an axis along which distributioncentres can reliably service many locations alongthe corridor Terminals and freight distributioncentres located in suburban locations have asphere of distribution that includes both the

metropolitan area and the urban region(Figure 4)

Consequently the combination of suburbanlocations of distribution centres and of a trans-port corridor creates an expanded sphere ofregional freight circulation This trend hasbeen underlined by the lsquosub-harbourisationrsquoof many port terminals and the use of satelliteterminals to lessen congestion (Slack 1999)Further terminals located at the periphery ofmetropolitan areas are able to partake in a pro-cess of freight diversion where freight flows areavoiding more congested central areas and usingless congested modes such as rail and barges

Figure 3 Freight corridor and modal integration

Figure 4 Freight distribution centres along a corridor

154

JEAN-PAUL RODRIGUE

copy 2004 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG

The corridors between metropolitan areas arethus prone to the accumulation of a variety ofintermodal activities and distribution centres

THE BOSTWASH FREIGHT CORRIDOR

2

Overview ndash

Many terms have been used todefine the mega-urban region on the North-eastern seaboard of the United States includingthe lsquoMegalopolisrsquo lsquoBosWashrsquo the lsquoEast CoastMetroplexrsquo or the lsquoI-95 Corridorrsquo

3

They all tryto label an extensive urban region where thecore commonality is an orientation along atransport corridor notably an interstate systemThis corridor extends along the seaboard andinland including four major metropolitan areas(Boston New York Baltimore Philadelphiaand Washington) with numerous small urbanareas with indistinct functional boundariesbetween them Overlapping influences of largemetropolitan areas their interrelatedness andtheir relationships with local regional andglobal processes characterises the urbancorridor This regionalisation of urbanisationhas been implicitly acknowledged by differentlevels of government with the consideration of

consolidated metropolitan statistical areas(CMSA

4

) and regional planningcoordinationagencies

5

focusing on freight transportationThe BostWash corridor is part of a national

system of trade areas where freight distributionis coordinated by major articulation points(Figure 5) Their extent is mainly a function ofthe average length of domestic truck freighthaul which was around 550 miles in 2000Like many segments of the US economy andterritory integration processes namely NorthAmerican Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)have impacted on the nature and function ofcontinental production consumption anddistribution (Holmes 2000 Woudsma 1999)About a third of the American trade took placewithin NAFTA in 2000 (US Department ofCommerce 2002)

Land gateways are dominantly servicing animport function expanded under NAFTA tradeand connected to corridors of continentalfreight circulation These include three longi-tudinal and four latitudinal axes One such axislabelled as the NAFTA Corridor links the twolargest land gateways of North America DetroitMichigan and Laredo Texas It dominantly

Source Adapted from Cambridge Systematics (2001)

Figure 5 National trade areas articulation points and major land freight gateways

FREIGHT GATEWAYS AND MEGA-URBAN REGIONS

155

copy 2004 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG

relies upon trucking as about 65 per cent of thevalue of the NAFTA trade is serviced by thismode However it is far from being a continu-ous corridor as northbound flows of Mexicanimports and the southbound flows of Canadianimports dwindle as the distance from theirrespective borders increases The equilibriumpoint is around the TennesseeKentucky rangepast which the respective flows are very smallAbout a third of the volume involves auto-mobile parts produced in Southern Ontario andin the Maquiladoras of Mexico which are usedfor low-cost car manufacturing in the Southeaststates (McCray 1998 Weiler

et al

2001)In this system of continental freight cir-

culation the importance and structure of theBostWash corridor can be preliminary assessed bythe size of its market With a population nearing75 million accounting for about 27 per cent ofthe US population but occupying only 62 percent of its landmass the significance of thecorridor as a sphere of consumption is undis-putable The New York metropolitan statisticalarea alone with its population of 212 million

accounts for 75 per cent of the national popu-lation High population densities over 250persons per square mile on a conterminoussegment of about 400 miles between Bostonand Washington are also observed (Figure 6)This concentration of population facilities andtheir associated circulation makes the corridorthe most congested region in the United States

The corridor thus represents a significantshare of the US economy and generates attractsand transships a large amount of freightthrough its infrastructures distribution centresand terminals It is caught in a wider context ofgrowth and change within national transpor-tation where since 1970 the number of annualpassenger-miles per capita has increased by58 per cent (from 11400 to around 18000) andwhere the annual tonnes-miles of freight havedoubled This trend in freight circulation isderived from growing consumption by individ-uals and enterprises and by production systemsthat are increasingly globally integrated (FHWA-DOT 2001 Lakshmanan and Anderson 2002)which involves

Figure 6 The BostWash corridor

156

JEAN-PAUL RODRIGUE

copy 2004 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG

bull

Changing demand for freight

Linked tonew markets conditions namely a greaterreliance on global supply chains concomitantto a tertiarisation of the US economy as itshifts from manufacturing to services Sincethe mid 1970s the US economy has system-atically produced a negative goods tradebalance This is jointly the result of a growthof national consumption an appreciationof the value of the US dollar making foreignproducts cheaper and a shift of labour-intensive manufacturing activities outside theUnited States While exports of goods haveconsistently grown to reach $7188 billionin 2001 this growth has been outpaced byimports that totalled $13563 billion the sameyear Imbalances in freight distribution havethus resulted and impacted on its geography

bull

Changing supply of freight

Linked to thedevelopment of intermodal transportationsystems and the integration of freight trans-port services namely by third party logisticalproviders This goes on par with a higherlevel of supply chain management

bull

Public policy

In many cases public policy hasnot addressed much freight transportationissues Overall there is a variety of convergingand diverging policies concerning transpor-tation in general and freight transportationin particular Such issues involve investmentzoning security and safety regulation that canimpair or improve the efficiency of freighttransportation A major shift has been froma modal to multi-modal surface transpor-tation policy embedded with increasedenvironmental accountability

Freight terminals ndash

Among the vast number oftransport terminals located along the BostWashcorridor 13 major airports 11 major seaports andmany other intermodal facilities can be found(Figure 7) Each terminal is an element in thecontinuity of global national and regional freightdistribution and contributes to the articulationfunction of their respective metropolitan areasNew York is the traditional gateway of the corri-dor a function that has been developed over thelast two hundred years and which has significantly

Figure 7 Major intermodal terminals BostWash corridor

FREIGHT GATEWAYS AND MEGA-URBAN REGIONS

157

copy 2004 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG

impacted on the structure of the metropolitanarea with large port and rail terminals (Chinitz1960) The development of air transportationand the growing reliance on air freight hasadded a new terminal dynamics as the corridorrsquosmajor airports handled more than 9 milliontonnes of landed freight in 2000 The two majorairports of the New York metropolitan areaalone handled about 28 per cent of this traffic(25 million tonnes) Containerised traffic is alsoan activity relying on a new dynamics of inte-gration between transport terminals and freightdistribution systems As such maritime containerterminals are becoming increasingly linkedwith inland COFCTOFC (container on flat cartrailers on flat car) facilities bound to localregional and national distribution (Figure 7)

From 1991 to 2000 container traffic at theseven major ports (New YorkNew JerseyBaltimore Philadelphia Wilmington BostonRichmond and Portland) increased from27 million to above four million TEUs Threequarters of the growth occurred at the Port ofNew York and New Jersey which in 2000 handledjust over three million TEUs one million morethan just eight years earlier This growth is jointlythe result of regional freight demand and ofglobal distribution chains used by multinationalcorporations Although during the 1980s andearly 1990s the hubbing role of New York waschallenged by traditional rivals such as BaltimorePhiladelphia and Montreal and by new rivalssuch as Halifax and Hampton Roads the begin-ning of the 21st century leaves New York theundisputable maritime container hub of thecorridor This status was confirmed in 1999when Maersk-Sealand the worldrsquos largest con-tainer shipper decided to keep New York as theirEast Coast hub The growth of containerisedtraffic for New YorkNew Jersey during the1990s topped the combined growth of all itscompeting ports of the North Atlantic NewYorkrsquos hubbing role is one of the most pro-nounced in the United States since it receivedthe largest number of containership calls evenif it is the third largest container port Unlikethe Pacific the Atlantic seaboard has muchpotential for coastal freight distribution with anumber of small and medium-sized ports

Freight distribution ndash

The BostWash corridor hasparticularly been impacted by the restructuration

of the US economy For instance recent trendsunderline that about 183 million Americansworked in manufacturing in 2000 a figure simi-lar to the 1950s Concomitantly the workforcein the service sector has growth from 30 millionto 107 million The functions of distributionand consumption have consequently grown muchmore substantially than production a trendreflected by a growth in interregional and inter-national freight flows More than 11 millionpeople worked in the logistics and distributionsector in the five largest metropolitan areas ofthe corridor

The amount of domestic tonne-miles carriedin the United States between 1980 and 2000 hasmore than doubled for road traffic and morethan tripled for air freight Over 136 billiontonnes of freight valued at $9 trillion was carriedin the United States in 1998 Of these figuresthe BostWash corridor accounted for 35 billiontonnes valued at $26 trillion 26 per cent of thecarried tonnes and 28 per cent of the value Thenature of freight circulation implies a higherlevel of flexibility more frequent deliveries andgreater reliance on trucking From freight ter-minals a large quantity of freight flows throughthe corridor Moreover freight circulation hasexpanded with the growth of containerisedtraffic handled at ports but also from the con-tainerised traffic transshipped at West Coast portsand moved through the continental landbridgeto be distributed along the East Coast Muchconventional cargo is also being distributedIn addition the BaltimorendashPhiladelphiandashNewJersey ndash New York corridor

6

(Figure 7) serves asmajor distribution points for high volumes ofintermodal rail to truck transfers of domesti-cally produced automobiles (mixing centres)and also for a wide range of bulk productsThese goods are moved by rail and then trans-ferred to trucks for regional and local distri-bution Regional rail freight handles more than225 million tonnes of containerised and non-containerised cargo originating or bound tothe region An additional 90 million tonnes istransiting through the region

Challenges ndash

The development of transportsystems in the BostWash corridor has createda strong dependency on trucking for regionalfreight distribution With the development ofthe Interstate highway system in the 1960s and

158

JEAN-PAUL RODRIGUE

copy 2004 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG

1970s growing freight circulation was accom-modated by growing road capacities The growthof one was the rationale behind the growthof the other The expansion of road infrastruc-tures has however declined substantially inthe 1980s and 1990s leaving the growth of roadfreight distribution without significant addi-tional capacities As the road transport systemgot increasingly congested including accessto major transport terminals alternatives aresought to improve its capacity Estimates bythe Federal Highway Administration place thegrowth of freight transportation in the corridorto figures around 75 between 2000 and 2020In a tightly integrated distribution systemcongestion involves delays and a disruption oftrade and production The growing integrationbetween the functions of production and trans-portation underline this trend Among the majortransport challenges affecting distribution inthe corridor are (I-95 Coalition 2001)

bull

Road Congestion

Congestion in the corridorinvolves many dimensions ranging from

highways access to terminals and urban cir-culation It has traditionally being perceivedwith the purpose of improving passengermobility as investments going to highwaydevelopment benefited trucking With thespectacular growth of trucking congestion isreducing the effectiveness of distributionsystems over which trucking is particularlyvulnerable Each day 38000 trucks go throughthe New YorkndashNorthern New Jersey regionOf these 10000 trucks are using the I-95accounting between 10 per cent and 20 percent of all vehicles using this highway seg-ment As such trucking may cause between30 per cent to 40 per cent of all highwaycongestion Most of the major highways alongthe corridor are operating around or abovedesign capacity (Figure 8) Congestion is fur-ther exacerbated by the geographical scaleof distribution most of it taking place withinthe corridor and using its major highwaysUntil recently little alternatives to regionaldistribution outside trucking were beingconsidered

Figure 8 Volume to capacity ratio major highways BostWash corridor 1998

FREIGHT GATEWAYS AND MEGA-URBAN REGIONS

159

copy 2004 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG

bull

Circulation bottlenecks

Freight distributionis currently hitting many road rail and portbottlenecks raising questions about thecapacity of the regional transport system toanswer the expected growth of the demandUrban areas and access to major port railand air terminals represent significantbottlenecks impairing trucking A survey ofthe Mid-Atlantic rail corridor identified 25locations having insufficient capacity and90 locations where vertical clearance cannotaccommodate double stacking container railcars (Cambridge Systematics 2002) Improv-ing flows at critical bottlenecks will requirelarge infrastructure upgrades

bull

Intermodal capacity

There is a lack ofefficient intermodal transfers in the corridorparticularly truck-to-rail transfer facilities(TOFC) and rail integration at port terminals(COFC) notably at the Port of New York andNew Jersey Since 85 of containers boundfor the port are carried by 15000 truck-journeys each day

7

local accessibility tomaritime terminals is a fundamental issue Forinstance in 1991 the Port of New York andNew Jersey inaugurated a direct ship-to-railand rail-to-ship transshipment facility a func-tion which grew at a phenomenal rate from43000 containers handled in 1992 to 228000in 2002 It is expected that by 2010 inter-modal rail share would climb to between 25 percentndash30 per cent of transshipped containersresulting in improved economic and environ-mental benefits for the locality (NYMTC 2001)Inland rail terminals could consequently actas satellite terminals and permit freight cir-culation to avoid the congested road systemof the metropolitan area especially near portterminal facilities

bull

Modal shift

A shift of road freight to othermodes remains one of the most importantchallenges for the corridor Attempts atseparating freight and passenger circulationare likely to improve the performance of bothsystems Intermodal transportation is chang-ing the dynamics of regional transportationfrom a situation of modal competition to thedevelopment of modal complementarity Forcontainer transportation a higher usage ofrail and barges for regional circulation couldalso significantly alleviate the road systemespecially over local access to large terminals

Since the corridor is oriented along a coast-line the development of a regional systemof maritime distribution servicing the existinginternational system could provide substan-tial benefits The importance of air transpor-tation for regional short distance movementshas also created an unsustainable situationFor instance 40 per cent of all the flightsfrom Logan airport (Boston) are bound forNew York only 200 miles away The develop-ment of a more efficient and possibly highspeed rail service would free much neededairport capacity in the corridor capacity thatcould easily accommodate the growth ofair freight

bull

Freight diversion

The development of inlandterminals a strategy pursued by many freightforwarders and port authorities is creating aprocess of freight diversion The port inlanddistribution network (PIDN) developed bythe Port Authority of New York and NewJersey and the Virginia inland port are twonotable example of this strategy Through theusage of inland rail and barge terminals afreight diversion effect would prevent trucksentering the congested metropolitan areasand enable the respective ports to capturea wider market area (PANYNJ 2003) Aprocess of lsquosub-harbourisationrsquo is well underway

CONCLUSION

Urbanisation as a regional process resulted inspatial structures that are inherently complexand in which flows of people and freightrequire a high level of regulation In manyurban regions corridors represent a paradigmof urbanisation over which it has been arguedthat freight distribution offers a perspective tounderstand their dynamics They are servicedby complex freight distribution systems linkingglobal national and regional distributionsystems Mega-urban regions as

logisticallyintegrated entities

have adapted differently toa changing geography of production consump-tion and distribution as they are the mainstructures behind the international division oflabour and production This integration issupported by articulation points where anaccumulation and a concentration of terminalsdistribution centres and related activities

160

JEAN-PAUL RODRIGUE

copy 2004 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG

coordinate local regional and global freightdistribution Concomitantly to the special-isation and fragmentation of production aspecialisation of distribution is taking place

Being one of the worldrsquos leading urbanregions BostWash has experienced a qualitativeand quantitative shift in its distribution Firstthe corridor is imbedded in a system of nationalcorridors of freight circulation that haveexpanded since NAFTA was established Secondwhile regional freight movements are increas-ingly been linked with a growth of consumptiontransport terminals have adapted to globallyoriented supply chains where inbound trafficfar exceeds outbound traffic Many distributioncentres have been sub-urbanised to answerthe requirements of additional space to satisfya dependence on trucking and to access theregional market in a timely fashion A notableconcentration of terminals and distributioncentres has taken place along the BaltimorendashPhiladelphiandashNew JerseyndashNew York axis to offera corridor-wide level of freight distributionIn turn this has exacerbated congestionalong major highway axis and next to majorintermodal terminals Among many of thestrategies implemented to address the corridor-wide challenges of freight distribution aprocess of lsquosub-harbourisationrsquo is taking placewithin the corridor in addition to a modalshift from road to rail How well these regionalchallenges will be addressed is of strategicimportance to insure that present and futuredistributional needs of BostWash remains to beanswered The issue of freight corridors logis-tics and distribution certainly deserves furtherinvestigations

Notes

1 The author would like to thank Brian Slack foruseful comments

2 We prefer to use the term lsquoBostWashrsquo instead oflsquoBosWashrsquo as initially introduced by Gottmann(1961) Although it is less phonetically elegant itprovides a clearer reference to Boston and abetter indication that it is a neologism

3 The number of the interstate highway at the coreof the corridor

4 CMSAs are composed of two or more adjoiningmetropolitan areas which have demonstratedsome economic linkage

5 The I-95 Corridor Coalition initiated in 1993 isan attempt to manage this entity by forming aregional partnership of major public and privatetransportation agencies toll authorities andindustry associations serving the Northeasternpart of the United States from Maine to VirginiaIt tries to offer a multi-jurisdictional approach totransportation issues covering multiple stateslthttpwwwi95coalitionorggt

6 A sub-corridor that can be labelled as lsquointermodalalleyrsquo

7 The national average is 44

REFERENCES

Berry

BJL (1967)

Geography of Market Centersand Retail Distribution

Englewood Cliffs NJPrentice-Hall

Cambridge

Systematics

(2001) Freight TrendsIssues and Data Needs presented at the Conferenceon Data Needs in the Changing World of Logisticsand Freight Transportation Saratoga SpringsNY lthttpwwwdotstatenyusttssconferencegrenzebackpdfgt

Cambridge

Systematics

(2002) Mid-Atlantic RailOperations Study lthttpwwwi95coalitionorggt

Chinitz

B (1960)

Freight and the Metropolis The Impactof Americarsquos Transport Revolutions on the New YorkRegion

Cambridge MA Harvard University Press

DeWitt

W amp J

Clinger

(2001) Intermodal FreightTransportation Millennium Paper TRB Committeeon Intermodal Freight Transportation (A1B05)Washington DC National Academy Press lthttpwwwnationalacademiesorgtrbpublicationsmillennium00061pdfgt

FHWA-DOT (2001) National Freight Issues ampPolicy Options Office of Freight Management andOperations lthttpopsfhwadotgovfreightgt

Gottmann

J (1961)

Megalopolis The UrbanizedNortheast Seaboard of the United States

New YorkTwentieth Century Fund

Gottmann

J (1987)

Megalopolis Revisited 25 YearsLater

The University of Maryland Institute forUrban Studies

Hall

P (1995) Towards a General Urban Theory

In

J

Brotchie

M

Batty

E

Blakely

P

Hall

ampP

Newton

eds

Cities in Competition Productiveand Sustainable Cities for the 21st Century

pp 3ndash32Melbourne Longman Australia

Hanson

S (1995)

The Geography of Urban Trans-portation

2nd edn New York Guilford

FREIGHT GATEWAYS AND MEGA-URBAN REGIONS

153

copy 2004 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG

emerged with increased economic integrationand specialisation which involved a suburban-isation of distribution centres and terminalsThis process is well documented and revolvesaround factors such as significant land require-ments for logistics (namely warehousing anddistribution centres) access to road transportsystems and regional markets The corridorsignificantly expands the sphere of distributionby providing an axis along which distributioncentres can reliably service many locations alongthe corridor Terminals and freight distributioncentres located in suburban locations have asphere of distribution that includes both the

metropolitan area and the urban region(Figure 4)

Consequently the combination of suburbanlocations of distribution centres and of a trans-port corridor creates an expanded sphere ofregional freight circulation This trend hasbeen underlined by the lsquosub-harbourisationrsquoof many port terminals and the use of satelliteterminals to lessen congestion (Slack 1999)Further terminals located at the periphery ofmetropolitan areas are able to partake in a pro-cess of freight diversion where freight flows areavoiding more congested central areas and usingless congested modes such as rail and barges

Figure 3 Freight corridor and modal integration

Figure 4 Freight distribution centres along a corridor

154

JEAN-PAUL RODRIGUE

copy 2004 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG

The corridors between metropolitan areas arethus prone to the accumulation of a variety ofintermodal activities and distribution centres

THE BOSTWASH FREIGHT CORRIDOR

2

Overview ndash

Many terms have been used todefine the mega-urban region on the North-eastern seaboard of the United States includingthe lsquoMegalopolisrsquo lsquoBosWashrsquo the lsquoEast CoastMetroplexrsquo or the lsquoI-95 Corridorrsquo

3

They all tryto label an extensive urban region where thecore commonality is an orientation along atransport corridor notably an interstate systemThis corridor extends along the seaboard andinland including four major metropolitan areas(Boston New York Baltimore Philadelphiaand Washington) with numerous small urbanareas with indistinct functional boundariesbetween them Overlapping influences of largemetropolitan areas their interrelatedness andtheir relationships with local regional andglobal processes characterises the urbancorridor This regionalisation of urbanisationhas been implicitly acknowledged by differentlevels of government with the consideration of

consolidated metropolitan statistical areas(CMSA

4

) and regional planningcoordinationagencies

5

focusing on freight transportationThe BostWash corridor is part of a national

system of trade areas where freight distributionis coordinated by major articulation points(Figure 5) Their extent is mainly a function ofthe average length of domestic truck freighthaul which was around 550 miles in 2000Like many segments of the US economy andterritory integration processes namely NorthAmerican Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)have impacted on the nature and function ofcontinental production consumption anddistribution (Holmes 2000 Woudsma 1999)About a third of the American trade took placewithin NAFTA in 2000 (US Department ofCommerce 2002)

Land gateways are dominantly servicing animport function expanded under NAFTA tradeand connected to corridors of continentalfreight circulation These include three longi-tudinal and four latitudinal axes One such axislabelled as the NAFTA Corridor links the twolargest land gateways of North America DetroitMichigan and Laredo Texas It dominantly

Source Adapted from Cambridge Systematics (2001)

Figure 5 National trade areas articulation points and major land freight gateways

FREIGHT GATEWAYS AND MEGA-URBAN REGIONS

155

copy 2004 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG

relies upon trucking as about 65 per cent of thevalue of the NAFTA trade is serviced by thismode However it is far from being a continu-ous corridor as northbound flows of Mexicanimports and the southbound flows of Canadianimports dwindle as the distance from theirrespective borders increases The equilibriumpoint is around the TennesseeKentucky rangepast which the respective flows are very smallAbout a third of the volume involves auto-mobile parts produced in Southern Ontario andin the Maquiladoras of Mexico which are usedfor low-cost car manufacturing in the Southeaststates (McCray 1998 Weiler

et al

2001)In this system of continental freight cir-

culation the importance and structure of theBostWash corridor can be preliminary assessed bythe size of its market With a population nearing75 million accounting for about 27 per cent ofthe US population but occupying only 62 percent of its landmass the significance of thecorridor as a sphere of consumption is undis-putable The New York metropolitan statisticalarea alone with its population of 212 million

accounts for 75 per cent of the national popu-lation High population densities over 250persons per square mile on a conterminoussegment of about 400 miles between Bostonand Washington are also observed (Figure 6)This concentration of population facilities andtheir associated circulation makes the corridorthe most congested region in the United States

The corridor thus represents a significantshare of the US economy and generates attractsand transships a large amount of freightthrough its infrastructures distribution centresand terminals It is caught in a wider context ofgrowth and change within national transpor-tation where since 1970 the number of annualpassenger-miles per capita has increased by58 per cent (from 11400 to around 18000) andwhere the annual tonnes-miles of freight havedoubled This trend in freight circulation isderived from growing consumption by individ-uals and enterprises and by production systemsthat are increasingly globally integrated (FHWA-DOT 2001 Lakshmanan and Anderson 2002)which involves

Figure 6 The BostWash corridor

156

JEAN-PAUL RODRIGUE

copy 2004 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG

bull

Changing demand for freight

Linked tonew markets conditions namely a greaterreliance on global supply chains concomitantto a tertiarisation of the US economy as itshifts from manufacturing to services Sincethe mid 1970s the US economy has system-atically produced a negative goods tradebalance This is jointly the result of a growthof national consumption an appreciationof the value of the US dollar making foreignproducts cheaper and a shift of labour-intensive manufacturing activities outside theUnited States While exports of goods haveconsistently grown to reach $7188 billionin 2001 this growth has been outpaced byimports that totalled $13563 billion the sameyear Imbalances in freight distribution havethus resulted and impacted on its geography

bull

Changing supply of freight

Linked to thedevelopment of intermodal transportationsystems and the integration of freight trans-port services namely by third party logisticalproviders This goes on par with a higherlevel of supply chain management

bull

Public policy

In many cases public policy hasnot addressed much freight transportationissues Overall there is a variety of convergingand diverging policies concerning transpor-tation in general and freight transportationin particular Such issues involve investmentzoning security and safety regulation that canimpair or improve the efficiency of freighttransportation A major shift has been froma modal to multi-modal surface transpor-tation policy embedded with increasedenvironmental accountability

Freight terminals ndash

Among the vast number oftransport terminals located along the BostWashcorridor 13 major airports 11 major seaports andmany other intermodal facilities can be found(Figure 7) Each terminal is an element in thecontinuity of global national and regional freightdistribution and contributes to the articulationfunction of their respective metropolitan areasNew York is the traditional gateway of the corri-dor a function that has been developed over thelast two hundred years and which has significantly

Figure 7 Major intermodal terminals BostWash corridor

FREIGHT GATEWAYS AND MEGA-URBAN REGIONS

157

copy 2004 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG

impacted on the structure of the metropolitanarea with large port and rail terminals (Chinitz1960) The development of air transportationand the growing reliance on air freight hasadded a new terminal dynamics as the corridorrsquosmajor airports handled more than 9 milliontonnes of landed freight in 2000 The two majorairports of the New York metropolitan areaalone handled about 28 per cent of this traffic(25 million tonnes) Containerised traffic is alsoan activity relying on a new dynamics of inte-gration between transport terminals and freightdistribution systems As such maritime containerterminals are becoming increasingly linkedwith inland COFCTOFC (container on flat cartrailers on flat car) facilities bound to localregional and national distribution (Figure 7)

From 1991 to 2000 container traffic at theseven major ports (New YorkNew JerseyBaltimore Philadelphia Wilmington BostonRichmond and Portland) increased from27 million to above four million TEUs Threequarters of the growth occurred at the Port ofNew York and New Jersey which in 2000 handledjust over three million TEUs one million morethan just eight years earlier This growth is jointlythe result of regional freight demand and ofglobal distribution chains used by multinationalcorporations Although during the 1980s andearly 1990s the hubbing role of New York waschallenged by traditional rivals such as BaltimorePhiladelphia and Montreal and by new rivalssuch as Halifax and Hampton Roads the begin-ning of the 21st century leaves New York theundisputable maritime container hub of thecorridor This status was confirmed in 1999when Maersk-Sealand the worldrsquos largest con-tainer shipper decided to keep New York as theirEast Coast hub The growth of containerisedtraffic for New YorkNew Jersey during the1990s topped the combined growth of all itscompeting ports of the North Atlantic NewYorkrsquos hubbing role is one of the most pro-nounced in the United States since it receivedthe largest number of containership calls evenif it is the third largest container port Unlikethe Pacific the Atlantic seaboard has muchpotential for coastal freight distribution with anumber of small and medium-sized ports

Freight distribution ndash

The BostWash corridor hasparticularly been impacted by the restructuration

of the US economy For instance recent trendsunderline that about 183 million Americansworked in manufacturing in 2000 a figure simi-lar to the 1950s Concomitantly the workforcein the service sector has growth from 30 millionto 107 million The functions of distributionand consumption have consequently grown muchmore substantially than production a trendreflected by a growth in interregional and inter-national freight flows More than 11 millionpeople worked in the logistics and distributionsector in the five largest metropolitan areas ofthe corridor

The amount of domestic tonne-miles carriedin the United States between 1980 and 2000 hasmore than doubled for road traffic and morethan tripled for air freight Over 136 billiontonnes of freight valued at $9 trillion was carriedin the United States in 1998 Of these figuresthe BostWash corridor accounted for 35 billiontonnes valued at $26 trillion 26 per cent of thecarried tonnes and 28 per cent of the value Thenature of freight circulation implies a higherlevel of flexibility more frequent deliveries andgreater reliance on trucking From freight ter-minals a large quantity of freight flows throughthe corridor Moreover freight circulation hasexpanded with the growth of containerisedtraffic handled at ports but also from the con-tainerised traffic transshipped at West Coast portsand moved through the continental landbridgeto be distributed along the East Coast Muchconventional cargo is also being distributedIn addition the BaltimorendashPhiladelphiandashNewJersey ndash New York corridor

6

(Figure 7) serves asmajor distribution points for high volumes ofintermodal rail to truck transfers of domesti-cally produced automobiles (mixing centres)and also for a wide range of bulk productsThese goods are moved by rail and then trans-ferred to trucks for regional and local distri-bution Regional rail freight handles more than225 million tonnes of containerised and non-containerised cargo originating or bound tothe region An additional 90 million tonnes istransiting through the region

Challenges ndash

The development of transportsystems in the BostWash corridor has createda strong dependency on trucking for regionalfreight distribution With the development ofthe Interstate highway system in the 1960s and

158

JEAN-PAUL RODRIGUE

copy 2004 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG

1970s growing freight circulation was accom-modated by growing road capacities The growthof one was the rationale behind the growthof the other The expansion of road infrastruc-tures has however declined substantially inthe 1980s and 1990s leaving the growth of roadfreight distribution without significant addi-tional capacities As the road transport systemgot increasingly congested including accessto major transport terminals alternatives aresought to improve its capacity Estimates bythe Federal Highway Administration place thegrowth of freight transportation in the corridorto figures around 75 between 2000 and 2020In a tightly integrated distribution systemcongestion involves delays and a disruption oftrade and production The growing integrationbetween the functions of production and trans-portation underline this trend Among the majortransport challenges affecting distribution inthe corridor are (I-95 Coalition 2001)

bull

Road Congestion

Congestion in the corridorinvolves many dimensions ranging from

highways access to terminals and urban cir-culation It has traditionally being perceivedwith the purpose of improving passengermobility as investments going to highwaydevelopment benefited trucking With thespectacular growth of trucking congestion isreducing the effectiveness of distributionsystems over which trucking is particularlyvulnerable Each day 38000 trucks go throughthe New YorkndashNorthern New Jersey regionOf these 10000 trucks are using the I-95accounting between 10 per cent and 20 percent of all vehicles using this highway seg-ment As such trucking may cause between30 per cent to 40 per cent of all highwaycongestion Most of the major highways alongthe corridor are operating around or abovedesign capacity (Figure 8) Congestion is fur-ther exacerbated by the geographical scaleof distribution most of it taking place withinthe corridor and using its major highwaysUntil recently little alternatives to regionaldistribution outside trucking were beingconsidered

Figure 8 Volume to capacity ratio major highways BostWash corridor 1998

FREIGHT GATEWAYS AND MEGA-URBAN REGIONS

159

copy 2004 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG

bull

Circulation bottlenecks

Freight distributionis currently hitting many road rail and portbottlenecks raising questions about thecapacity of the regional transport system toanswer the expected growth of the demandUrban areas and access to major port railand air terminals represent significantbottlenecks impairing trucking A survey ofthe Mid-Atlantic rail corridor identified 25locations having insufficient capacity and90 locations where vertical clearance cannotaccommodate double stacking container railcars (Cambridge Systematics 2002) Improv-ing flows at critical bottlenecks will requirelarge infrastructure upgrades

bull

Intermodal capacity

There is a lack ofefficient intermodal transfers in the corridorparticularly truck-to-rail transfer facilities(TOFC) and rail integration at port terminals(COFC) notably at the Port of New York andNew Jersey Since 85 of containers boundfor the port are carried by 15000 truck-journeys each day

7

local accessibility tomaritime terminals is a fundamental issue Forinstance in 1991 the Port of New York andNew Jersey inaugurated a direct ship-to-railand rail-to-ship transshipment facility a func-tion which grew at a phenomenal rate from43000 containers handled in 1992 to 228000in 2002 It is expected that by 2010 inter-modal rail share would climb to between 25 percentndash30 per cent of transshipped containersresulting in improved economic and environ-mental benefits for the locality (NYMTC 2001)Inland rail terminals could consequently actas satellite terminals and permit freight cir-culation to avoid the congested road systemof the metropolitan area especially near portterminal facilities

bull

Modal shift

A shift of road freight to othermodes remains one of the most importantchallenges for the corridor Attempts atseparating freight and passenger circulationare likely to improve the performance of bothsystems Intermodal transportation is chang-ing the dynamics of regional transportationfrom a situation of modal competition to thedevelopment of modal complementarity Forcontainer transportation a higher usage ofrail and barges for regional circulation couldalso significantly alleviate the road systemespecially over local access to large terminals

Since the corridor is oriented along a coast-line the development of a regional systemof maritime distribution servicing the existinginternational system could provide substan-tial benefits The importance of air transpor-tation for regional short distance movementshas also created an unsustainable situationFor instance 40 per cent of all the flightsfrom Logan airport (Boston) are bound forNew York only 200 miles away The develop-ment of a more efficient and possibly highspeed rail service would free much neededairport capacity in the corridor capacity thatcould easily accommodate the growth ofair freight

bull

Freight diversion

The development of inlandterminals a strategy pursued by many freightforwarders and port authorities is creating aprocess of freight diversion The port inlanddistribution network (PIDN) developed bythe Port Authority of New York and NewJersey and the Virginia inland port are twonotable example of this strategy Through theusage of inland rail and barge terminals afreight diversion effect would prevent trucksentering the congested metropolitan areasand enable the respective ports to capturea wider market area (PANYNJ 2003) Aprocess of lsquosub-harbourisationrsquo is well underway

CONCLUSION

Urbanisation as a regional process resulted inspatial structures that are inherently complexand in which flows of people and freightrequire a high level of regulation In manyurban regions corridors represent a paradigmof urbanisation over which it has been arguedthat freight distribution offers a perspective tounderstand their dynamics They are servicedby complex freight distribution systems linkingglobal national and regional distributionsystems Mega-urban regions as

logisticallyintegrated entities

have adapted differently toa changing geography of production consump-tion and distribution as they are the mainstructures behind the international division oflabour and production This integration issupported by articulation points where anaccumulation and a concentration of terminalsdistribution centres and related activities

160

JEAN-PAUL RODRIGUE

copy 2004 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG

coordinate local regional and global freightdistribution Concomitantly to the special-isation and fragmentation of production aspecialisation of distribution is taking place

Being one of the worldrsquos leading urbanregions BostWash has experienced a qualitativeand quantitative shift in its distribution Firstthe corridor is imbedded in a system of nationalcorridors of freight circulation that haveexpanded since NAFTA was established Secondwhile regional freight movements are increas-ingly been linked with a growth of consumptiontransport terminals have adapted to globallyoriented supply chains where inbound trafficfar exceeds outbound traffic Many distributioncentres have been sub-urbanised to answerthe requirements of additional space to satisfya dependence on trucking and to access theregional market in a timely fashion A notableconcentration of terminals and distributioncentres has taken place along the BaltimorendashPhiladelphiandashNew JerseyndashNew York axis to offera corridor-wide level of freight distributionIn turn this has exacerbated congestionalong major highway axis and next to majorintermodal terminals Among many of thestrategies implemented to address the corridor-wide challenges of freight distribution aprocess of lsquosub-harbourisationrsquo is taking placewithin the corridor in addition to a modalshift from road to rail How well these regionalchallenges will be addressed is of strategicimportance to insure that present and futuredistributional needs of BostWash remains to beanswered The issue of freight corridors logis-tics and distribution certainly deserves furtherinvestigations

Notes

1 The author would like to thank Brian Slack foruseful comments

2 We prefer to use the term lsquoBostWashrsquo instead oflsquoBosWashrsquo as initially introduced by Gottmann(1961) Although it is less phonetically elegant itprovides a clearer reference to Boston and abetter indication that it is a neologism

3 The number of the interstate highway at the coreof the corridor

4 CMSAs are composed of two or more adjoiningmetropolitan areas which have demonstratedsome economic linkage

5 The I-95 Corridor Coalition initiated in 1993 isan attempt to manage this entity by forming aregional partnership of major public and privatetransportation agencies toll authorities andindustry associations serving the Northeasternpart of the United States from Maine to VirginiaIt tries to offer a multi-jurisdictional approach totransportation issues covering multiple stateslthttpwwwi95coalitionorggt

6 A sub-corridor that can be labelled as lsquointermodalalleyrsquo

7 The national average is 44

REFERENCES

Berry

BJL (1967)

Geography of Market Centersand Retail Distribution

Englewood Cliffs NJPrentice-Hall

Cambridge

Systematics

(2001) Freight TrendsIssues and Data Needs presented at the Conferenceon Data Needs in the Changing World of Logisticsand Freight Transportation Saratoga SpringsNY lthttpwwwdotstatenyusttssconferencegrenzebackpdfgt

Cambridge

Systematics

(2002) Mid-Atlantic RailOperations Study lthttpwwwi95coalitionorggt

Chinitz

B (1960)

Freight and the Metropolis The Impactof Americarsquos Transport Revolutions on the New YorkRegion

Cambridge MA Harvard University Press

DeWitt

W amp J

Clinger

(2001) Intermodal FreightTransportation Millennium Paper TRB Committeeon Intermodal Freight Transportation (A1B05)Washington DC National Academy Press lthttpwwwnationalacademiesorgtrbpublicationsmillennium00061pdfgt

FHWA-DOT (2001) National Freight Issues ampPolicy Options Office of Freight Management andOperations lthttpopsfhwadotgovfreightgt

Gottmann

J (1961)

Megalopolis The UrbanizedNortheast Seaboard of the United States

New YorkTwentieth Century Fund

Gottmann

J (1987)

Megalopolis Revisited 25 YearsLater

The University of Maryland Institute forUrban Studies

Hall

P (1995) Towards a General Urban Theory

In

J

Brotchie

M

Batty

E

Blakely

P

Hall

ampP

Newton

eds

Cities in Competition Productiveand Sustainable Cities for the 21st Century

pp 3ndash32Melbourne Longman Australia

Hanson

S (1995)

The Geography of Urban Trans-portation

2nd edn New York Guilford

154

JEAN-PAUL RODRIGUE

copy 2004 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG

The corridors between metropolitan areas arethus prone to the accumulation of a variety ofintermodal activities and distribution centres

THE BOSTWASH FREIGHT CORRIDOR

2

Overview ndash

Many terms have been used todefine the mega-urban region on the North-eastern seaboard of the United States includingthe lsquoMegalopolisrsquo lsquoBosWashrsquo the lsquoEast CoastMetroplexrsquo or the lsquoI-95 Corridorrsquo

3

They all tryto label an extensive urban region where thecore commonality is an orientation along atransport corridor notably an interstate systemThis corridor extends along the seaboard andinland including four major metropolitan areas(Boston New York Baltimore Philadelphiaand Washington) with numerous small urbanareas with indistinct functional boundariesbetween them Overlapping influences of largemetropolitan areas their interrelatedness andtheir relationships with local regional andglobal processes characterises the urbancorridor This regionalisation of urbanisationhas been implicitly acknowledged by differentlevels of government with the consideration of

consolidated metropolitan statistical areas(CMSA

4

) and regional planningcoordinationagencies

5

focusing on freight transportationThe BostWash corridor is part of a national

system of trade areas where freight distributionis coordinated by major articulation points(Figure 5) Their extent is mainly a function ofthe average length of domestic truck freighthaul which was around 550 miles in 2000Like many segments of the US economy andterritory integration processes namely NorthAmerican Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)have impacted on the nature and function ofcontinental production consumption anddistribution (Holmes 2000 Woudsma 1999)About a third of the American trade took placewithin NAFTA in 2000 (US Department ofCommerce 2002)

Land gateways are dominantly servicing animport function expanded under NAFTA tradeand connected to corridors of continentalfreight circulation These include three longi-tudinal and four latitudinal axes One such axislabelled as the NAFTA Corridor links the twolargest land gateways of North America DetroitMichigan and Laredo Texas It dominantly

Source Adapted from Cambridge Systematics (2001)

Figure 5 National trade areas articulation points and major land freight gateways

FREIGHT GATEWAYS AND MEGA-URBAN REGIONS

155

copy 2004 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG

relies upon trucking as about 65 per cent of thevalue of the NAFTA trade is serviced by thismode However it is far from being a continu-ous corridor as northbound flows of Mexicanimports and the southbound flows of Canadianimports dwindle as the distance from theirrespective borders increases The equilibriumpoint is around the TennesseeKentucky rangepast which the respective flows are very smallAbout a third of the volume involves auto-mobile parts produced in Southern Ontario andin the Maquiladoras of Mexico which are usedfor low-cost car manufacturing in the Southeaststates (McCray 1998 Weiler

et al

2001)In this system of continental freight cir-

culation the importance and structure of theBostWash corridor can be preliminary assessed bythe size of its market With a population nearing75 million accounting for about 27 per cent ofthe US population but occupying only 62 percent of its landmass the significance of thecorridor as a sphere of consumption is undis-putable The New York metropolitan statisticalarea alone with its population of 212 million

accounts for 75 per cent of the national popu-lation High population densities over 250persons per square mile on a conterminoussegment of about 400 miles between Bostonand Washington are also observed (Figure 6)This concentration of population facilities andtheir associated circulation makes the corridorthe most congested region in the United States

The corridor thus represents a significantshare of the US economy and generates attractsand transships a large amount of freightthrough its infrastructures distribution centresand terminals It is caught in a wider context ofgrowth and change within national transpor-tation where since 1970 the number of annualpassenger-miles per capita has increased by58 per cent (from 11400 to around 18000) andwhere the annual tonnes-miles of freight havedoubled This trend in freight circulation isderived from growing consumption by individ-uals and enterprises and by production systemsthat are increasingly globally integrated (FHWA-DOT 2001 Lakshmanan and Anderson 2002)which involves

Figure 6 The BostWash corridor

156

JEAN-PAUL RODRIGUE

copy 2004 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG

bull

Changing demand for freight

Linked tonew markets conditions namely a greaterreliance on global supply chains concomitantto a tertiarisation of the US economy as itshifts from manufacturing to services Sincethe mid 1970s the US economy has system-atically produced a negative goods tradebalance This is jointly the result of a growthof national consumption an appreciationof the value of the US dollar making foreignproducts cheaper and a shift of labour-intensive manufacturing activities outside theUnited States While exports of goods haveconsistently grown to reach $7188 billionin 2001 this growth has been outpaced byimports that totalled $13563 billion the sameyear Imbalances in freight distribution havethus resulted and impacted on its geography

bull

Changing supply of freight

Linked to thedevelopment of intermodal transportationsystems and the integration of freight trans-port services namely by third party logisticalproviders This goes on par with a higherlevel of supply chain management

bull

Public policy

In many cases public policy hasnot addressed much freight transportationissues Overall there is a variety of convergingand diverging policies concerning transpor-tation in general and freight transportationin particular Such issues involve investmentzoning security and safety regulation that canimpair or improve the efficiency of freighttransportation A major shift has been froma modal to multi-modal surface transpor-tation policy embedded with increasedenvironmental accountability

Freight terminals ndash

Among the vast number oftransport terminals located along the BostWashcorridor 13 major airports 11 major seaports andmany other intermodal facilities can be found(Figure 7) Each terminal is an element in thecontinuity of global national and regional freightdistribution and contributes to the articulationfunction of their respective metropolitan areasNew York is the traditional gateway of the corri-dor a function that has been developed over thelast two hundred years and which has significantly

Figure 7 Major intermodal terminals BostWash corridor

FREIGHT GATEWAYS AND MEGA-URBAN REGIONS

157

copy 2004 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG

impacted on the structure of the metropolitanarea with large port and rail terminals (Chinitz1960) The development of air transportationand the growing reliance on air freight hasadded a new terminal dynamics as the corridorrsquosmajor airports handled more than 9 milliontonnes of landed freight in 2000 The two majorairports of the New York metropolitan areaalone handled about 28 per cent of this traffic(25 million tonnes) Containerised traffic is alsoan activity relying on a new dynamics of inte-gration between transport terminals and freightdistribution systems As such maritime containerterminals are becoming increasingly linkedwith inland COFCTOFC (container on flat cartrailers on flat car) facilities bound to localregional and national distribution (Figure 7)

From 1991 to 2000 container traffic at theseven major ports (New YorkNew JerseyBaltimore Philadelphia Wilmington BostonRichmond and Portland) increased from27 million to above four million TEUs Threequarters of the growth occurred at the Port ofNew York and New Jersey which in 2000 handledjust over three million TEUs one million morethan just eight years earlier This growth is jointlythe result of regional freight demand and ofglobal distribution chains used by multinationalcorporations Although during the 1980s andearly 1990s the hubbing role of New York waschallenged by traditional rivals such as BaltimorePhiladelphia and Montreal and by new rivalssuch as Halifax and Hampton Roads the begin-ning of the 21st century leaves New York theundisputable maritime container hub of thecorridor This status was confirmed in 1999when Maersk-Sealand the worldrsquos largest con-tainer shipper decided to keep New York as theirEast Coast hub The growth of containerisedtraffic for New YorkNew Jersey during the1990s topped the combined growth of all itscompeting ports of the North Atlantic NewYorkrsquos hubbing role is one of the most pro-nounced in the United States since it receivedthe largest number of containership calls evenif it is the third largest container port Unlikethe Pacific the Atlantic seaboard has muchpotential for coastal freight distribution with anumber of small and medium-sized ports

Freight distribution ndash

The BostWash corridor hasparticularly been impacted by the restructuration

of the US economy For instance recent trendsunderline that about 183 million Americansworked in manufacturing in 2000 a figure simi-lar to the 1950s Concomitantly the workforcein the service sector has growth from 30 millionto 107 million The functions of distributionand consumption have consequently grown muchmore substantially than production a trendreflected by a growth in interregional and inter-national freight flows More than 11 millionpeople worked in the logistics and distributionsector in the five largest metropolitan areas ofthe corridor

The amount of domestic tonne-miles carriedin the United States between 1980 and 2000 hasmore than doubled for road traffic and morethan tripled for air freight Over 136 billiontonnes of freight valued at $9 trillion was carriedin the United States in 1998 Of these figuresthe BostWash corridor accounted for 35 billiontonnes valued at $26 trillion 26 per cent of thecarried tonnes and 28 per cent of the value Thenature of freight circulation implies a higherlevel of flexibility more frequent deliveries andgreater reliance on trucking From freight ter-minals a large quantity of freight flows throughthe corridor Moreover freight circulation hasexpanded with the growth of containerisedtraffic handled at ports but also from the con-tainerised traffic transshipped at West Coast portsand moved through the continental landbridgeto be distributed along the East Coast Muchconventional cargo is also being distributedIn addition the BaltimorendashPhiladelphiandashNewJersey ndash New York corridor

6

(Figure 7) serves asmajor distribution points for high volumes ofintermodal rail to truck transfers of domesti-cally produced automobiles (mixing centres)and also for a wide range of bulk productsThese goods are moved by rail and then trans-ferred to trucks for regional and local distri-bution Regional rail freight handles more than225 million tonnes of containerised and non-containerised cargo originating or bound tothe region An additional 90 million tonnes istransiting through the region

Challenges ndash

The development of transportsystems in the BostWash corridor has createda strong dependency on trucking for regionalfreight distribution With the development ofthe Interstate highway system in the 1960s and

158

JEAN-PAUL RODRIGUE

copy 2004 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG

1970s growing freight circulation was accom-modated by growing road capacities The growthof one was the rationale behind the growthof the other The expansion of road infrastruc-tures has however declined substantially inthe 1980s and 1990s leaving the growth of roadfreight distribution without significant addi-tional capacities As the road transport systemgot increasingly congested including accessto major transport terminals alternatives aresought to improve its capacity Estimates bythe Federal Highway Administration place thegrowth of freight transportation in the corridorto figures around 75 between 2000 and 2020In a tightly integrated distribution systemcongestion involves delays and a disruption oftrade and production The growing integrationbetween the functions of production and trans-portation underline this trend Among the majortransport challenges affecting distribution inthe corridor are (I-95 Coalition 2001)

bull

Road Congestion

Congestion in the corridorinvolves many dimensions ranging from

highways access to terminals and urban cir-culation It has traditionally being perceivedwith the purpose of improving passengermobility as investments going to highwaydevelopment benefited trucking With thespectacular growth of trucking congestion isreducing the effectiveness of distributionsystems over which trucking is particularlyvulnerable Each day 38000 trucks go throughthe New YorkndashNorthern New Jersey regionOf these 10000 trucks are using the I-95accounting between 10 per cent and 20 percent of all vehicles using this highway seg-ment As such trucking may cause between30 per cent to 40 per cent of all highwaycongestion Most of the major highways alongthe corridor are operating around or abovedesign capacity (Figure 8) Congestion is fur-ther exacerbated by the geographical scaleof distribution most of it taking place withinthe corridor and using its major highwaysUntil recently little alternatives to regionaldistribution outside trucking were beingconsidered

Figure 8 Volume to capacity ratio major highways BostWash corridor 1998

FREIGHT GATEWAYS AND MEGA-URBAN REGIONS

159

copy 2004 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG

bull

Circulation bottlenecks

Freight distributionis currently hitting many road rail and portbottlenecks raising questions about thecapacity of the regional transport system toanswer the expected growth of the demandUrban areas and access to major port railand air terminals represent significantbottlenecks impairing trucking A survey ofthe Mid-Atlantic rail corridor identified 25locations having insufficient capacity and90 locations where vertical clearance cannotaccommodate double stacking container railcars (Cambridge Systematics 2002) Improv-ing flows at critical bottlenecks will requirelarge infrastructure upgrades

bull

Intermodal capacity

There is a lack ofefficient intermodal transfers in the corridorparticularly truck-to-rail transfer facilities(TOFC) and rail integration at port terminals(COFC) notably at the Port of New York andNew Jersey Since 85 of containers boundfor the port are carried by 15000 truck-journeys each day

7

local accessibility tomaritime terminals is a fundamental issue Forinstance in 1991 the Port of New York andNew Jersey inaugurated a direct ship-to-railand rail-to-ship transshipment facility a func-tion which grew at a phenomenal rate from43000 containers handled in 1992 to 228000in 2002 It is expected that by 2010 inter-modal rail share would climb to between 25 percentndash30 per cent of transshipped containersresulting in improved economic and environ-mental benefits for the locality (NYMTC 2001)Inland rail terminals could consequently actas satellite terminals and permit freight cir-culation to avoid the congested road systemof the metropolitan area especially near portterminal facilities

bull

Modal shift

A shift of road freight to othermodes remains one of the most importantchallenges for the corridor Attempts atseparating freight and passenger circulationare likely to improve the performance of bothsystems Intermodal transportation is chang-ing the dynamics of regional transportationfrom a situation of modal competition to thedevelopment of modal complementarity Forcontainer transportation a higher usage ofrail and barges for regional circulation couldalso significantly alleviate the road systemespecially over local access to large terminals

Since the corridor is oriented along a coast-line the development of a regional systemof maritime distribution servicing the existinginternational system could provide substan-tial benefits The importance of air transpor-tation for regional short distance movementshas also created an unsustainable situationFor instance 40 per cent of all the flightsfrom Logan airport (Boston) are bound forNew York only 200 miles away The develop-ment of a more efficient and possibly highspeed rail service would free much neededairport capacity in the corridor capacity thatcould easily accommodate the growth ofair freight

bull

Freight diversion

The development of inlandterminals a strategy pursued by many freightforwarders and port authorities is creating aprocess of freight diversion The port inlanddistribution network (PIDN) developed bythe Port Authority of New York and NewJersey and the Virginia inland port are twonotable example of this strategy Through theusage of inland rail and barge terminals afreight diversion effect would prevent trucksentering the congested metropolitan areasand enable the respective ports to capturea wider market area (PANYNJ 2003) Aprocess of lsquosub-harbourisationrsquo is well underway

CONCLUSION

Urbanisation as a regional process resulted inspatial structures that are inherently complexand in which flows of people and freightrequire a high level of regulation In manyurban regions corridors represent a paradigmof urbanisation over which it has been arguedthat freight distribution offers a perspective tounderstand their dynamics They are servicedby complex freight distribution systems linkingglobal national and regional distributionsystems Mega-urban regions as

logisticallyintegrated entities

have adapted differently toa changing geography of production consump-tion and distribution as they are the mainstructures behind the international division oflabour and production This integration issupported by articulation points where anaccumulation and a concentration of terminalsdistribution centres and related activities

160

JEAN-PAUL RODRIGUE

copy 2004 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG

coordinate local regional and global freightdistribution Concomitantly to the special-isation and fragmentation of production aspecialisation of distribution is taking place

Being one of the worldrsquos leading urbanregions BostWash has experienced a qualitativeand quantitative shift in its distribution Firstthe corridor is imbedded in a system of nationalcorridors of freight circulation that haveexpanded since NAFTA was established Secondwhile regional freight movements are increas-ingly been linked with a growth of consumptiontransport terminals have adapted to globallyoriented supply chains where inbound trafficfar exceeds outbound traffic Many distributioncentres have been sub-urbanised to answerthe requirements of additional space to satisfya dependence on trucking and to access theregional market in a timely fashion A notableconcentration of terminals and distributioncentres has taken place along the BaltimorendashPhiladelphiandashNew JerseyndashNew York axis to offera corridor-wide level of freight distributionIn turn this has exacerbated congestionalong major highway axis and next to majorintermodal terminals Among many of thestrategies implemented to address the corridor-wide challenges of freight distribution aprocess of lsquosub-harbourisationrsquo is taking placewithin the corridor in addition to a modalshift from road to rail How well these regionalchallenges will be addressed is of strategicimportance to insure that present and futuredistributional needs of BostWash remains to beanswered The issue of freight corridors logis-tics and distribution certainly deserves furtherinvestigations

Notes

1 The author would like to thank Brian Slack foruseful comments

2 We prefer to use the term lsquoBostWashrsquo instead oflsquoBosWashrsquo as initially introduced by Gottmann(1961) Although it is less phonetically elegant itprovides a clearer reference to Boston and abetter indication that it is a neologism

3 The number of the interstate highway at the coreof the corridor

4 CMSAs are composed of two or more adjoiningmetropolitan areas which have demonstratedsome economic linkage

5 The I-95 Corridor Coalition initiated in 1993 isan attempt to manage this entity by forming aregional partnership of major public and privatetransportation agencies toll authorities andindustry associations serving the Northeasternpart of the United States from Maine to VirginiaIt tries to offer a multi-jurisdictional approach totransportation issues covering multiple stateslthttpwwwi95coalitionorggt

6 A sub-corridor that can be labelled as lsquointermodalalleyrsquo

7 The national average is 44

REFERENCES

Berry

BJL (1967)

Geography of Market Centersand Retail Distribution

Englewood Cliffs NJPrentice-Hall

Cambridge

Systematics

(2001) Freight TrendsIssues and Data Needs presented at the Conferenceon Data Needs in the Changing World of Logisticsand Freight Transportation Saratoga SpringsNY lthttpwwwdotstatenyusttssconferencegrenzebackpdfgt

Cambridge

Systematics

(2002) Mid-Atlantic RailOperations Study lthttpwwwi95coalitionorggt

Chinitz

B (1960)

Freight and the Metropolis The Impactof Americarsquos Transport Revolutions on the New YorkRegion

Cambridge MA Harvard University Press

DeWitt

W amp J

Clinger

(2001) Intermodal FreightTransportation Millennium Paper TRB Committeeon Intermodal Freight Transportation (A1B05)Washington DC National Academy Press lthttpwwwnationalacademiesorgtrbpublicationsmillennium00061pdfgt

FHWA-DOT (2001) National Freight Issues ampPolicy Options Office of Freight Management andOperations lthttpopsfhwadotgovfreightgt

Gottmann

J (1961)

Megalopolis The UrbanizedNortheast Seaboard of the United States

New YorkTwentieth Century Fund

Gottmann

J (1987)

Megalopolis Revisited 25 YearsLater

The University of Maryland Institute forUrban Studies

Hall

P (1995) Towards a General Urban Theory

In

J

Brotchie

M

Batty

E

Blakely

P

Hall

ampP

Newton

eds

Cities in Competition Productiveand Sustainable Cities for the 21st Century

pp 3ndash32Melbourne Longman Australia

Hanson

S (1995)

The Geography of Urban Trans-portation

2nd edn New York Guilford

FREIGHT GATEWAYS AND MEGA-URBAN REGIONS

155

copy 2004 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG

relies upon trucking as about 65 per cent of thevalue of the NAFTA trade is serviced by thismode However it is far from being a continu-ous corridor as northbound flows of Mexicanimports and the southbound flows of Canadianimports dwindle as the distance from theirrespective borders increases The equilibriumpoint is around the TennesseeKentucky rangepast which the respective flows are very smallAbout a third of the volume involves auto-mobile parts produced in Southern Ontario andin the Maquiladoras of Mexico which are usedfor low-cost car manufacturing in the Southeaststates (McCray 1998 Weiler

et al

2001)In this system of continental freight cir-

culation the importance and structure of theBostWash corridor can be preliminary assessed bythe size of its market With a population nearing75 million accounting for about 27 per cent ofthe US population but occupying only 62 percent of its landmass the significance of thecorridor as a sphere of consumption is undis-putable The New York metropolitan statisticalarea alone with its population of 212 million

accounts for 75 per cent of the national popu-lation High population densities over 250persons per square mile on a conterminoussegment of about 400 miles between Bostonand Washington are also observed (Figure 6)This concentration of population facilities andtheir associated circulation makes the corridorthe most congested region in the United States

The corridor thus represents a significantshare of the US economy and generates attractsand transships a large amount of freightthrough its infrastructures distribution centresand terminals It is caught in a wider context ofgrowth and change within national transpor-tation where since 1970 the number of annualpassenger-miles per capita has increased by58 per cent (from 11400 to around 18000) andwhere the annual tonnes-miles of freight havedoubled This trend in freight circulation isderived from growing consumption by individ-uals and enterprises and by production systemsthat are increasingly globally integrated (FHWA-DOT 2001 Lakshmanan and Anderson 2002)which involves

Figure 6 The BostWash corridor

156

JEAN-PAUL RODRIGUE

copy 2004 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG

bull

Changing demand for freight

Linked tonew markets conditions namely a greaterreliance on global supply chains concomitantto a tertiarisation of the US economy as itshifts from manufacturing to services Sincethe mid 1970s the US economy has system-atically produced a negative goods tradebalance This is jointly the result of a growthof national consumption an appreciationof the value of the US dollar making foreignproducts cheaper and a shift of labour-intensive manufacturing activities outside theUnited States While exports of goods haveconsistently grown to reach $7188 billionin 2001 this growth has been outpaced byimports that totalled $13563 billion the sameyear Imbalances in freight distribution havethus resulted and impacted on its geography

bull

Changing supply of freight

Linked to thedevelopment of intermodal transportationsystems and the integration of freight trans-port services namely by third party logisticalproviders This goes on par with a higherlevel of supply chain management

bull

Public policy

In many cases public policy hasnot addressed much freight transportationissues Overall there is a variety of convergingand diverging policies concerning transpor-tation in general and freight transportationin particular Such issues involve investmentzoning security and safety regulation that canimpair or improve the efficiency of freighttransportation A major shift has been froma modal to multi-modal surface transpor-tation policy embedded with increasedenvironmental accountability

Freight terminals ndash

Among the vast number oftransport terminals located along the BostWashcorridor 13 major airports 11 major seaports andmany other intermodal facilities can be found(Figure 7) Each terminal is an element in thecontinuity of global national and regional freightdistribution and contributes to the articulationfunction of their respective metropolitan areasNew York is the traditional gateway of the corri-dor a function that has been developed over thelast two hundred years and which has significantly

Figure 7 Major intermodal terminals BostWash corridor

FREIGHT GATEWAYS AND MEGA-URBAN REGIONS

157

copy 2004 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG

impacted on the structure of the metropolitanarea with large port and rail terminals (Chinitz1960) The development of air transportationand the growing reliance on air freight hasadded a new terminal dynamics as the corridorrsquosmajor airports handled more than 9 milliontonnes of landed freight in 2000 The two majorairports of the New York metropolitan areaalone handled about 28 per cent of this traffic(25 million tonnes) Containerised traffic is alsoan activity relying on a new dynamics of inte-gration between transport terminals and freightdistribution systems As such maritime containerterminals are becoming increasingly linkedwith inland COFCTOFC (container on flat cartrailers on flat car) facilities bound to localregional and national distribution (Figure 7)

From 1991 to 2000 container traffic at theseven major ports (New YorkNew JerseyBaltimore Philadelphia Wilmington BostonRichmond and Portland) increased from27 million to above four million TEUs Threequarters of the growth occurred at the Port ofNew York and New Jersey which in 2000 handledjust over three million TEUs one million morethan just eight years earlier This growth is jointlythe result of regional freight demand and ofglobal distribution chains used by multinationalcorporations Although during the 1980s andearly 1990s the hubbing role of New York waschallenged by traditional rivals such as BaltimorePhiladelphia and Montreal and by new rivalssuch as Halifax and Hampton Roads the begin-ning of the 21st century leaves New York theundisputable maritime container hub of thecorridor This status was confirmed in 1999when Maersk-Sealand the worldrsquos largest con-tainer shipper decided to keep New York as theirEast Coast hub The growth of containerisedtraffic for New YorkNew Jersey during the1990s topped the combined growth of all itscompeting ports of the North Atlantic NewYorkrsquos hubbing role is one of the most pro-nounced in the United States since it receivedthe largest number of containership calls evenif it is the third largest container port Unlikethe Pacific the Atlantic seaboard has muchpotential for coastal freight distribution with anumber of small and medium-sized ports

Freight distribution ndash

The BostWash corridor hasparticularly been impacted by the restructuration

of the US economy For instance recent trendsunderline that about 183 million Americansworked in manufacturing in 2000 a figure simi-lar to the 1950s Concomitantly the workforcein the service sector has growth from 30 millionto 107 million The functions of distributionand consumption have consequently grown muchmore substantially than production a trendreflected by a growth in interregional and inter-national freight flows More than 11 millionpeople worked in the logistics and distributionsector in the five largest metropolitan areas ofthe corridor

The amount of domestic tonne-miles carriedin the United States between 1980 and 2000 hasmore than doubled for road traffic and morethan tripled for air freight Over 136 billiontonnes of freight valued at $9 trillion was carriedin the United States in 1998 Of these figuresthe BostWash corridor accounted for 35 billiontonnes valued at $26 trillion 26 per cent of thecarried tonnes and 28 per cent of the value Thenature of freight circulation implies a higherlevel of flexibility more frequent deliveries andgreater reliance on trucking From freight ter-minals a large quantity of freight flows throughthe corridor Moreover freight circulation hasexpanded with the growth of containerisedtraffic handled at ports but also from the con-tainerised traffic transshipped at West Coast portsand moved through the continental landbridgeto be distributed along the East Coast Muchconventional cargo is also being distributedIn addition the BaltimorendashPhiladelphiandashNewJersey ndash New York corridor

6

(Figure 7) serves asmajor distribution points for high volumes ofintermodal rail to truck transfers of domesti-cally produced automobiles (mixing centres)and also for a wide range of bulk productsThese goods are moved by rail and then trans-ferred to trucks for regional and local distri-bution Regional rail freight handles more than225 million tonnes of containerised and non-containerised cargo originating or bound tothe region An additional 90 million tonnes istransiting through the region

Challenges ndash

The development of transportsystems in the BostWash corridor has createda strong dependency on trucking for regionalfreight distribution With the development ofthe Interstate highway system in the 1960s and

158

JEAN-PAUL RODRIGUE

copy 2004 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG

1970s growing freight circulation was accom-modated by growing road capacities The growthof one was the rationale behind the growthof the other The expansion of road infrastruc-tures has however declined substantially inthe 1980s and 1990s leaving the growth of roadfreight distribution without significant addi-tional capacities As the road transport systemgot increasingly congested including accessto major transport terminals alternatives aresought to improve its capacity Estimates bythe Federal Highway Administration place thegrowth of freight transportation in the corridorto figures around 75 between 2000 and 2020In a tightly integrated distribution systemcongestion involves delays and a disruption oftrade and production The growing integrationbetween the functions of production and trans-portation underline this trend Among the majortransport challenges affecting distribution inthe corridor are (I-95 Coalition 2001)

bull

Road Congestion

Congestion in the corridorinvolves many dimensions ranging from

highways access to terminals and urban cir-culation It has traditionally being perceivedwith the purpose of improving passengermobility as investments going to highwaydevelopment benefited trucking With thespectacular growth of trucking congestion isreducing the effectiveness of distributionsystems over which trucking is particularlyvulnerable Each day 38000 trucks go throughthe New YorkndashNorthern New Jersey regionOf these 10000 trucks are using the I-95accounting between 10 per cent and 20 percent of all vehicles using this highway seg-ment As such trucking may cause between30 per cent to 40 per cent of all highwaycongestion Most of the major highways alongthe corridor are operating around or abovedesign capacity (Figure 8) Congestion is fur-ther exacerbated by the geographical scaleof distribution most of it taking place withinthe corridor and using its major highwaysUntil recently little alternatives to regionaldistribution outside trucking were beingconsidered

Figure 8 Volume to capacity ratio major highways BostWash corridor 1998

FREIGHT GATEWAYS AND MEGA-URBAN REGIONS

159

copy 2004 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG

bull

Circulation bottlenecks

Freight distributionis currently hitting many road rail and portbottlenecks raising questions about thecapacity of the regional transport system toanswer the expected growth of the demandUrban areas and access to major port railand air terminals represent significantbottlenecks impairing trucking A survey ofthe Mid-Atlantic rail corridor identified 25locations having insufficient capacity and90 locations where vertical clearance cannotaccommodate double stacking container railcars (Cambridge Systematics 2002) Improv-ing flows at critical bottlenecks will requirelarge infrastructure upgrades

bull

Intermodal capacity

There is a lack ofefficient intermodal transfers in the corridorparticularly truck-to-rail transfer facilities(TOFC) and rail integration at port terminals(COFC) notably at the Port of New York andNew Jersey Since 85 of containers boundfor the port are carried by 15000 truck-journeys each day

7

local accessibility tomaritime terminals is a fundamental issue Forinstance in 1991 the Port of New York andNew Jersey inaugurated a direct ship-to-railand rail-to-ship transshipment facility a func-tion which grew at a phenomenal rate from43000 containers handled in 1992 to 228000in 2002 It is expected that by 2010 inter-modal rail share would climb to between 25 percentndash30 per cent of transshipped containersresulting in improved economic and environ-mental benefits for the locality (NYMTC 2001)Inland rail terminals could consequently actas satellite terminals and permit freight cir-culation to avoid the congested road systemof the metropolitan area especially near portterminal facilities

bull

Modal shift

A shift of road freight to othermodes remains one of the most importantchallenges for the corridor Attempts atseparating freight and passenger circulationare likely to improve the performance of bothsystems Intermodal transportation is chang-ing the dynamics of regional transportationfrom a situation of modal competition to thedevelopment of modal complementarity Forcontainer transportation a higher usage ofrail and barges for regional circulation couldalso significantly alleviate the road systemespecially over local access to large terminals

Since the corridor is oriented along a coast-line the development of a regional systemof maritime distribution servicing the existinginternational system could provide substan-tial benefits The importance of air transpor-tation for regional short distance movementshas also created an unsustainable situationFor instance 40 per cent of all the flightsfrom Logan airport (Boston) are bound forNew York only 200 miles away The develop-ment of a more efficient and possibly highspeed rail service would free much neededairport capacity in the corridor capacity thatcould easily accommodate the growth ofair freight

bull

Freight diversion

The development of inlandterminals a strategy pursued by many freightforwarders and port authorities is creating aprocess of freight diversion The port inlanddistribution network (PIDN) developed bythe Port Authority of New York and NewJersey and the Virginia inland port are twonotable example of this strategy Through theusage of inland rail and barge terminals afreight diversion effect would prevent trucksentering the congested metropolitan areasand enable the respective ports to capturea wider market area (PANYNJ 2003) Aprocess of lsquosub-harbourisationrsquo is well underway

CONCLUSION

Urbanisation as a regional process resulted inspatial structures that are inherently complexand in which flows of people and freightrequire a high level of regulation In manyurban regions corridors represent a paradigmof urbanisation over which it has been arguedthat freight distribution offers a perspective tounderstand their dynamics They are servicedby complex freight distribution systems linkingglobal national and regional distributionsystems Mega-urban regions as

logisticallyintegrated entities

have adapted differently toa changing geography of production consump-tion and distribution as they are the mainstructures behind the international division oflabour and production This integration issupported by articulation points where anaccumulation and a concentration of terminalsdistribution centres and related activities

160

JEAN-PAUL RODRIGUE

copy 2004 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG

coordinate local regional and global freightdistribution Concomitantly to the special-isation and fragmentation of production aspecialisation of distribution is taking place

Being one of the worldrsquos leading urbanregions BostWash has experienced a qualitativeand quantitative shift in its distribution Firstthe corridor is imbedded in a system of nationalcorridors of freight circulation that haveexpanded since NAFTA was established Secondwhile regional freight movements are increas-ingly been linked with a growth of consumptiontransport terminals have adapted to globallyoriented supply chains where inbound trafficfar exceeds outbound traffic Many distributioncentres have been sub-urbanised to answerthe requirements of additional space to satisfya dependence on trucking and to access theregional market in a timely fashion A notableconcentration of terminals and distributioncentres has taken place along the BaltimorendashPhiladelphiandashNew JerseyndashNew York axis to offera corridor-wide level of freight distributionIn turn this has exacerbated congestionalong major highway axis and next to majorintermodal terminals Among many of thestrategies implemented to address the corridor-wide challenges of freight distribution aprocess of lsquosub-harbourisationrsquo is taking placewithin the corridor in addition to a modalshift from road to rail How well these regionalchallenges will be addressed is of strategicimportance to insure that present and futuredistributional needs of BostWash remains to beanswered The issue of freight corridors logis-tics and distribution certainly deserves furtherinvestigations

Notes

1 The author would like to thank Brian Slack foruseful comments

2 We prefer to use the term lsquoBostWashrsquo instead oflsquoBosWashrsquo as initially introduced by Gottmann(1961) Although it is less phonetically elegant itprovides a clearer reference to Boston and abetter indication that it is a neologism

3 The number of the interstate highway at the coreof the corridor

4 CMSAs are composed of two or more adjoiningmetropolitan areas which have demonstratedsome economic linkage

5 The I-95 Corridor Coalition initiated in 1993 isan attempt to manage this entity by forming aregional partnership of major public and privatetransportation agencies toll authorities andindustry associations serving the Northeasternpart of the United States from Maine to VirginiaIt tries to offer a multi-jurisdictional approach totransportation issues covering multiple stateslthttpwwwi95coalitionorggt

6 A sub-corridor that can be labelled as lsquointermodalalleyrsquo

7 The national average is 44

REFERENCES

Berry

BJL (1967)

Geography of Market Centersand Retail Distribution

Englewood Cliffs NJPrentice-Hall

Cambridge

Systematics

(2001) Freight TrendsIssues and Data Needs presented at the Conferenceon Data Needs in the Changing World of Logisticsand Freight Transportation Saratoga SpringsNY lthttpwwwdotstatenyusttssconferencegrenzebackpdfgt

Cambridge

Systematics

(2002) Mid-Atlantic RailOperations Study lthttpwwwi95coalitionorggt

Chinitz

B (1960)

Freight and the Metropolis The Impactof Americarsquos Transport Revolutions on the New YorkRegion

Cambridge MA Harvard University Press

DeWitt

W amp J

Clinger

(2001) Intermodal FreightTransportation Millennium Paper TRB Committeeon Intermodal Freight Transportation (A1B05)Washington DC National Academy Press lthttpwwwnationalacademiesorgtrbpublicationsmillennium00061pdfgt

FHWA-DOT (2001) National Freight Issues ampPolicy Options Office of Freight Management andOperations lthttpopsfhwadotgovfreightgt

Gottmann

J (1961)

Megalopolis The UrbanizedNortheast Seaboard of the United States

New YorkTwentieth Century Fund

Gottmann

J (1987)

Megalopolis Revisited 25 YearsLater

The University of Maryland Institute forUrban Studies

Hall

P (1995) Towards a General Urban Theory

In

J

Brotchie

M

Batty

E

Blakely

P

Hall

ampP

Newton

eds

Cities in Competition Productiveand Sustainable Cities for the 21st Century

pp 3ndash32Melbourne Longman Australia

Hanson

S (1995)

The Geography of Urban Trans-portation

2nd edn New York Guilford

156

JEAN-PAUL RODRIGUE

copy 2004 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG

bull

Changing demand for freight

Linked tonew markets conditions namely a greaterreliance on global supply chains concomitantto a tertiarisation of the US economy as itshifts from manufacturing to services Sincethe mid 1970s the US economy has system-atically produced a negative goods tradebalance This is jointly the result of a growthof national consumption an appreciationof the value of the US dollar making foreignproducts cheaper and a shift of labour-intensive manufacturing activities outside theUnited States While exports of goods haveconsistently grown to reach $7188 billionin 2001 this growth has been outpaced byimports that totalled $13563 billion the sameyear Imbalances in freight distribution havethus resulted and impacted on its geography

bull

Changing supply of freight

Linked to thedevelopment of intermodal transportationsystems and the integration of freight trans-port services namely by third party logisticalproviders This goes on par with a higherlevel of supply chain management

bull

Public policy

In many cases public policy hasnot addressed much freight transportationissues Overall there is a variety of convergingand diverging policies concerning transpor-tation in general and freight transportationin particular Such issues involve investmentzoning security and safety regulation that canimpair or improve the efficiency of freighttransportation A major shift has been froma modal to multi-modal surface transpor-tation policy embedded with increasedenvironmental accountability

Freight terminals ndash

Among the vast number oftransport terminals located along the BostWashcorridor 13 major airports 11 major seaports andmany other intermodal facilities can be found(Figure 7) Each terminal is an element in thecontinuity of global national and regional freightdistribution and contributes to the articulationfunction of their respective metropolitan areasNew York is the traditional gateway of the corri-dor a function that has been developed over thelast two hundred years and which has significantly

Figure 7 Major intermodal terminals BostWash corridor

FREIGHT GATEWAYS AND MEGA-URBAN REGIONS

157

copy 2004 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG

impacted on the structure of the metropolitanarea with large port and rail terminals (Chinitz1960) The development of air transportationand the growing reliance on air freight hasadded a new terminal dynamics as the corridorrsquosmajor airports handled more than 9 milliontonnes of landed freight in 2000 The two majorairports of the New York metropolitan areaalone handled about 28 per cent of this traffic(25 million tonnes) Containerised traffic is alsoan activity relying on a new dynamics of inte-gration between transport terminals and freightdistribution systems As such maritime containerterminals are becoming increasingly linkedwith inland COFCTOFC (container on flat cartrailers on flat car) facilities bound to localregional and national distribution (Figure 7)

From 1991 to 2000 container traffic at theseven major ports (New YorkNew JerseyBaltimore Philadelphia Wilmington BostonRichmond and Portland) increased from27 million to above four million TEUs Threequarters of the growth occurred at the Port ofNew York and New Jersey which in 2000 handledjust over three million TEUs one million morethan just eight years earlier This growth is jointlythe result of regional freight demand and ofglobal distribution chains used by multinationalcorporations Although during the 1980s andearly 1990s the hubbing role of New York waschallenged by traditional rivals such as BaltimorePhiladelphia and Montreal and by new rivalssuch as Halifax and Hampton Roads the begin-ning of the 21st century leaves New York theundisputable maritime container hub of thecorridor This status was confirmed in 1999when Maersk-Sealand the worldrsquos largest con-tainer shipper decided to keep New York as theirEast Coast hub The growth of containerisedtraffic for New YorkNew Jersey during the1990s topped the combined growth of all itscompeting ports of the North Atlantic NewYorkrsquos hubbing role is one of the most pro-nounced in the United States since it receivedthe largest number of containership calls evenif it is the third largest container port Unlikethe Pacific the Atlantic seaboard has muchpotential for coastal freight distribution with anumber of small and medium-sized ports

Freight distribution ndash

The BostWash corridor hasparticularly been impacted by the restructuration

of the US economy For instance recent trendsunderline that about 183 million Americansworked in manufacturing in 2000 a figure simi-lar to the 1950s Concomitantly the workforcein the service sector has growth from 30 millionto 107 million The functions of distributionand consumption have consequently grown muchmore substantially than production a trendreflected by a growth in interregional and inter-national freight flows More than 11 millionpeople worked in the logistics and distributionsector in the five largest metropolitan areas ofthe corridor

The amount of domestic tonne-miles carriedin the United States between 1980 and 2000 hasmore than doubled for road traffic and morethan tripled for air freight Over 136 billiontonnes of freight valued at $9 trillion was carriedin the United States in 1998 Of these figuresthe BostWash corridor accounted for 35 billiontonnes valued at $26 trillion 26 per cent of thecarried tonnes and 28 per cent of the value Thenature of freight circulation implies a higherlevel of flexibility more frequent deliveries andgreater reliance on trucking From freight ter-minals a large quantity of freight flows throughthe corridor Moreover freight circulation hasexpanded with the growth of containerisedtraffic handled at ports but also from the con-tainerised traffic transshipped at West Coast portsand moved through the continental landbridgeto be distributed along the East Coast Muchconventional cargo is also being distributedIn addition the BaltimorendashPhiladelphiandashNewJersey ndash New York corridor

6

(Figure 7) serves asmajor distribution points for high volumes ofintermodal rail to truck transfers of domesti-cally produced automobiles (mixing centres)and also for a wide range of bulk productsThese goods are moved by rail and then trans-ferred to trucks for regional and local distri-bution Regional rail freight handles more than225 million tonnes of containerised and non-containerised cargo originating or bound tothe region An additional 90 million tonnes istransiting through the region

Challenges ndash

The development of transportsystems in the BostWash corridor has createda strong dependency on trucking for regionalfreight distribution With the development ofthe Interstate highway system in the 1960s and

158

JEAN-PAUL RODRIGUE

copy 2004 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG

1970s growing freight circulation was accom-modated by growing road capacities The growthof one was the rationale behind the growthof the other The expansion of road infrastruc-tures has however declined substantially inthe 1980s and 1990s leaving the growth of roadfreight distribution without significant addi-tional capacities As the road transport systemgot increasingly congested including accessto major transport terminals alternatives aresought to improve its capacity Estimates bythe Federal Highway Administration place thegrowth of freight transportation in the corridorto figures around 75 between 2000 and 2020In a tightly integrated distribution systemcongestion involves delays and a disruption oftrade and production The growing integrationbetween the functions of production and trans-portation underline this trend Among the majortransport challenges affecting distribution inthe corridor are (I-95 Coalition 2001)

bull

Road Congestion

Congestion in the corridorinvolves many dimensions ranging from

highways access to terminals and urban cir-culation It has traditionally being perceivedwith the purpose of improving passengermobility as investments going to highwaydevelopment benefited trucking With thespectacular growth of trucking congestion isreducing the effectiveness of distributionsystems over which trucking is particularlyvulnerable Each day 38000 trucks go throughthe New YorkndashNorthern New Jersey regionOf these 10000 trucks are using the I-95accounting between 10 per cent and 20 percent of all vehicles using this highway seg-ment As such trucking may cause between30 per cent to 40 per cent of all highwaycongestion Most of the major highways alongthe corridor are operating around or abovedesign capacity (Figure 8) Congestion is fur-ther exacerbated by the geographical scaleof distribution most of it taking place withinthe corridor and using its major highwaysUntil recently little alternatives to regionaldistribution outside trucking were beingconsidered

Figure 8 Volume to capacity ratio major highways BostWash corridor 1998

FREIGHT GATEWAYS AND MEGA-URBAN REGIONS

159

copy 2004 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG

bull

Circulation bottlenecks

Freight distributionis currently hitting many road rail and portbottlenecks raising questions about thecapacity of the regional transport system toanswer the expected growth of the demandUrban areas and access to major port railand air terminals represent significantbottlenecks impairing trucking A survey ofthe Mid-Atlantic rail corridor identified 25locations having insufficient capacity and90 locations where vertical clearance cannotaccommodate double stacking container railcars (Cambridge Systematics 2002) Improv-ing flows at critical bottlenecks will requirelarge infrastructure upgrades

bull

Intermodal capacity

There is a lack ofefficient intermodal transfers in the corridorparticularly truck-to-rail transfer facilities(TOFC) and rail integration at port terminals(COFC) notably at the Port of New York andNew Jersey Since 85 of containers boundfor the port are carried by 15000 truck-journeys each day

7

local accessibility tomaritime terminals is a fundamental issue Forinstance in 1991 the Port of New York andNew Jersey inaugurated a direct ship-to-railand rail-to-ship transshipment facility a func-tion which grew at a phenomenal rate from43000 containers handled in 1992 to 228000in 2002 It is expected that by 2010 inter-modal rail share would climb to between 25 percentndash30 per cent of transshipped containersresulting in improved economic and environ-mental benefits for the locality (NYMTC 2001)Inland rail terminals could consequently actas satellite terminals and permit freight cir-culation to avoid the congested road systemof the metropolitan area especially near portterminal facilities

bull

Modal shift

A shift of road freight to othermodes remains one of the most importantchallenges for the corridor Attempts atseparating freight and passenger circulationare likely to improve the performance of bothsystems Intermodal transportation is chang-ing the dynamics of regional transportationfrom a situation of modal competition to thedevelopment of modal complementarity Forcontainer transportation a higher usage ofrail and barges for regional circulation couldalso significantly alleviate the road systemespecially over local access to large terminals

Since the corridor is oriented along a coast-line the development of a regional systemof maritime distribution servicing the existinginternational system could provide substan-tial benefits The importance of air transpor-tation for regional short distance movementshas also created an unsustainable situationFor instance 40 per cent of all the flightsfrom Logan airport (Boston) are bound forNew York only 200 miles away The develop-ment of a more efficient and possibly highspeed rail service would free much neededairport capacity in the corridor capacity thatcould easily accommodate the growth ofair freight

bull

Freight diversion

The development of inlandterminals a strategy pursued by many freightforwarders and port authorities is creating aprocess of freight diversion The port inlanddistribution network (PIDN) developed bythe Port Authority of New York and NewJersey and the Virginia inland port are twonotable example of this strategy Through theusage of inland rail and barge terminals afreight diversion effect would prevent trucksentering the congested metropolitan areasand enable the respective ports to capturea wider market area (PANYNJ 2003) Aprocess of lsquosub-harbourisationrsquo is well underway

CONCLUSION

Urbanisation as a regional process resulted inspatial structures that are inherently complexand in which flows of people and freightrequire a high level of regulation In manyurban regions corridors represent a paradigmof urbanisation over which it has been arguedthat freight distribution offers a perspective tounderstand their dynamics They are servicedby complex freight distribution systems linkingglobal national and regional distributionsystems Mega-urban regions as

logisticallyintegrated entities

have adapted differently toa changing geography of production consump-tion and distribution as they are the mainstructures behind the international division oflabour and production This integration issupported by articulation points where anaccumulation and a concentration of terminalsdistribution centres and related activities

160

JEAN-PAUL RODRIGUE

copy 2004 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG

coordinate local regional and global freightdistribution Concomitantly to the special-isation and fragmentation of production aspecialisation of distribution is taking place

Being one of the worldrsquos leading urbanregions BostWash has experienced a qualitativeand quantitative shift in its distribution Firstthe corridor is imbedded in a system of nationalcorridors of freight circulation that haveexpanded since NAFTA was established Secondwhile regional freight movements are increas-ingly been linked with a growth of consumptiontransport terminals have adapted to globallyoriented supply chains where inbound trafficfar exceeds outbound traffic Many distributioncentres have been sub-urbanised to answerthe requirements of additional space to satisfya dependence on trucking and to access theregional market in a timely fashion A notableconcentration of terminals and distributioncentres has taken place along the BaltimorendashPhiladelphiandashNew JerseyndashNew York axis to offera corridor-wide level of freight distributionIn turn this has exacerbated congestionalong major highway axis and next to majorintermodal terminals Among many of thestrategies implemented to address the corridor-wide challenges of freight distribution aprocess of lsquosub-harbourisationrsquo is taking placewithin the corridor in addition to a modalshift from road to rail How well these regionalchallenges will be addressed is of strategicimportance to insure that present and futuredistributional needs of BostWash remains to beanswered The issue of freight corridors logis-tics and distribution certainly deserves furtherinvestigations

Notes

1 The author would like to thank Brian Slack foruseful comments

2 We prefer to use the term lsquoBostWashrsquo instead oflsquoBosWashrsquo as initially introduced by Gottmann(1961) Although it is less phonetically elegant itprovides a clearer reference to Boston and abetter indication that it is a neologism

3 The number of the interstate highway at the coreof the corridor

4 CMSAs are composed of two or more adjoiningmetropolitan areas which have demonstratedsome economic linkage

5 The I-95 Corridor Coalition initiated in 1993 isan attempt to manage this entity by forming aregional partnership of major public and privatetransportation agencies toll authorities andindustry associations serving the Northeasternpart of the United States from Maine to VirginiaIt tries to offer a multi-jurisdictional approach totransportation issues covering multiple stateslthttpwwwi95coalitionorggt

6 A sub-corridor that can be labelled as lsquointermodalalleyrsquo

7 The national average is 44

REFERENCES

Berry

BJL (1967)

Geography of Market Centersand Retail Distribution

Englewood Cliffs NJPrentice-Hall

Cambridge

Systematics

(2001) Freight TrendsIssues and Data Needs presented at the Conferenceon Data Needs in the Changing World of Logisticsand Freight Transportation Saratoga SpringsNY lthttpwwwdotstatenyusttssconferencegrenzebackpdfgt

Cambridge

Systematics

(2002) Mid-Atlantic RailOperations Study lthttpwwwi95coalitionorggt

Chinitz

B (1960)

Freight and the Metropolis The Impactof Americarsquos Transport Revolutions on the New YorkRegion

Cambridge MA Harvard University Press

DeWitt

W amp J

Clinger

(2001) Intermodal FreightTransportation Millennium Paper TRB Committeeon Intermodal Freight Transportation (A1B05)Washington DC National Academy Press lthttpwwwnationalacademiesorgtrbpublicationsmillennium00061pdfgt

FHWA-DOT (2001) National Freight Issues ampPolicy Options Office of Freight Management andOperations lthttpopsfhwadotgovfreightgt

Gottmann

J (1961)

Megalopolis The UrbanizedNortheast Seaboard of the United States

New YorkTwentieth Century Fund

Gottmann

J (1987)

Megalopolis Revisited 25 YearsLater

The University of Maryland Institute forUrban Studies

Hall

P (1995) Towards a General Urban Theory

In

J

Brotchie

M

Batty

E

Blakely

P

Hall

ampP

Newton

eds

Cities in Competition Productiveand Sustainable Cities for the 21st Century

pp 3ndash32Melbourne Longman Australia

Hanson

S (1995)

The Geography of Urban Trans-portation

2nd edn New York Guilford

FREIGHT GATEWAYS AND MEGA-URBAN REGIONS

157

copy 2004 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG

impacted on the structure of the metropolitanarea with large port and rail terminals (Chinitz1960) The development of air transportationand the growing reliance on air freight hasadded a new terminal dynamics as the corridorrsquosmajor airports handled more than 9 milliontonnes of landed freight in 2000 The two majorairports of the New York metropolitan areaalone handled about 28 per cent of this traffic(25 million tonnes) Containerised traffic is alsoan activity relying on a new dynamics of inte-gration between transport terminals and freightdistribution systems As such maritime containerterminals are becoming increasingly linkedwith inland COFCTOFC (container on flat cartrailers on flat car) facilities bound to localregional and national distribution (Figure 7)

From 1991 to 2000 container traffic at theseven major ports (New YorkNew JerseyBaltimore Philadelphia Wilmington BostonRichmond and Portland) increased from27 million to above four million TEUs Threequarters of the growth occurred at the Port ofNew York and New Jersey which in 2000 handledjust over three million TEUs one million morethan just eight years earlier This growth is jointlythe result of regional freight demand and ofglobal distribution chains used by multinationalcorporations Although during the 1980s andearly 1990s the hubbing role of New York waschallenged by traditional rivals such as BaltimorePhiladelphia and Montreal and by new rivalssuch as Halifax and Hampton Roads the begin-ning of the 21st century leaves New York theundisputable maritime container hub of thecorridor This status was confirmed in 1999when Maersk-Sealand the worldrsquos largest con-tainer shipper decided to keep New York as theirEast Coast hub The growth of containerisedtraffic for New YorkNew Jersey during the1990s topped the combined growth of all itscompeting ports of the North Atlantic NewYorkrsquos hubbing role is one of the most pro-nounced in the United States since it receivedthe largest number of containership calls evenif it is the third largest container port Unlikethe Pacific the Atlantic seaboard has muchpotential for coastal freight distribution with anumber of small and medium-sized ports

Freight distribution ndash

The BostWash corridor hasparticularly been impacted by the restructuration

of the US economy For instance recent trendsunderline that about 183 million Americansworked in manufacturing in 2000 a figure simi-lar to the 1950s Concomitantly the workforcein the service sector has growth from 30 millionto 107 million The functions of distributionand consumption have consequently grown muchmore substantially than production a trendreflected by a growth in interregional and inter-national freight flows More than 11 millionpeople worked in the logistics and distributionsector in the five largest metropolitan areas ofthe corridor

The amount of domestic tonne-miles carriedin the United States between 1980 and 2000 hasmore than doubled for road traffic and morethan tripled for air freight Over 136 billiontonnes of freight valued at $9 trillion was carriedin the United States in 1998 Of these figuresthe BostWash corridor accounted for 35 billiontonnes valued at $26 trillion 26 per cent of thecarried tonnes and 28 per cent of the value Thenature of freight circulation implies a higherlevel of flexibility more frequent deliveries andgreater reliance on trucking From freight ter-minals a large quantity of freight flows throughthe corridor Moreover freight circulation hasexpanded with the growth of containerisedtraffic handled at ports but also from the con-tainerised traffic transshipped at West Coast portsand moved through the continental landbridgeto be distributed along the East Coast Muchconventional cargo is also being distributedIn addition the BaltimorendashPhiladelphiandashNewJersey ndash New York corridor

6

(Figure 7) serves asmajor distribution points for high volumes ofintermodal rail to truck transfers of domesti-cally produced automobiles (mixing centres)and also for a wide range of bulk productsThese goods are moved by rail and then trans-ferred to trucks for regional and local distri-bution Regional rail freight handles more than225 million tonnes of containerised and non-containerised cargo originating or bound tothe region An additional 90 million tonnes istransiting through the region

Challenges ndash

The development of transportsystems in the BostWash corridor has createda strong dependency on trucking for regionalfreight distribution With the development ofthe Interstate highway system in the 1960s and

158

JEAN-PAUL RODRIGUE

copy 2004 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG

1970s growing freight circulation was accom-modated by growing road capacities The growthof one was the rationale behind the growthof the other The expansion of road infrastruc-tures has however declined substantially inthe 1980s and 1990s leaving the growth of roadfreight distribution without significant addi-tional capacities As the road transport systemgot increasingly congested including accessto major transport terminals alternatives aresought to improve its capacity Estimates bythe Federal Highway Administration place thegrowth of freight transportation in the corridorto figures around 75 between 2000 and 2020In a tightly integrated distribution systemcongestion involves delays and a disruption oftrade and production The growing integrationbetween the functions of production and trans-portation underline this trend Among the majortransport challenges affecting distribution inthe corridor are (I-95 Coalition 2001)

bull

Road Congestion

Congestion in the corridorinvolves many dimensions ranging from

highways access to terminals and urban cir-culation It has traditionally being perceivedwith the purpose of improving passengermobility as investments going to highwaydevelopment benefited trucking With thespectacular growth of trucking congestion isreducing the effectiveness of distributionsystems over which trucking is particularlyvulnerable Each day 38000 trucks go throughthe New YorkndashNorthern New Jersey regionOf these 10000 trucks are using the I-95accounting between 10 per cent and 20 percent of all vehicles using this highway seg-ment As such trucking may cause between30 per cent to 40 per cent of all highwaycongestion Most of the major highways alongthe corridor are operating around or abovedesign capacity (Figure 8) Congestion is fur-ther exacerbated by the geographical scaleof distribution most of it taking place withinthe corridor and using its major highwaysUntil recently little alternatives to regionaldistribution outside trucking were beingconsidered

Figure 8 Volume to capacity ratio major highways BostWash corridor 1998

FREIGHT GATEWAYS AND MEGA-URBAN REGIONS

159

copy 2004 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG

bull

Circulation bottlenecks

Freight distributionis currently hitting many road rail and portbottlenecks raising questions about thecapacity of the regional transport system toanswer the expected growth of the demandUrban areas and access to major port railand air terminals represent significantbottlenecks impairing trucking A survey ofthe Mid-Atlantic rail corridor identified 25locations having insufficient capacity and90 locations where vertical clearance cannotaccommodate double stacking container railcars (Cambridge Systematics 2002) Improv-ing flows at critical bottlenecks will requirelarge infrastructure upgrades

bull

Intermodal capacity

There is a lack ofefficient intermodal transfers in the corridorparticularly truck-to-rail transfer facilities(TOFC) and rail integration at port terminals(COFC) notably at the Port of New York andNew Jersey Since 85 of containers boundfor the port are carried by 15000 truck-journeys each day

7

local accessibility tomaritime terminals is a fundamental issue Forinstance in 1991 the Port of New York andNew Jersey inaugurated a direct ship-to-railand rail-to-ship transshipment facility a func-tion which grew at a phenomenal rate from43000 containers handled in 1992 to 228000in 2002 It is expected that by 2010 inter-modal rail share would climb to between 25 percentndash30 per cent of transshipped containersresulting in improved economic and environ-mental benefits for the locality (NYMTC 2001)Inland rail terminals could consequently actas satellite terminals and permit freight cir-culation to avoid the congested road systemof the metropolitan area especially near portterminal facilities

bull

Modal shift

A shift of road freight to othermodes remains one of the most importantchallenges for the corridor Attempts atseparating freight and passenger circulationare likely to improve the performance of bothsystems Intermodal transportation is chang-ing the dynamics of regional transportationfrom a situation of modal competition to thedevelopment of modal complementarity Forcontainer transportation a higher usage ofrail and barges for regional circulation couldalso significantly alleviate the road systemespecially over local access to large terminals

Since the corridor is oriented along a coast-line the development of a regional systemof maritime distribution servicing the existinginternational system could provide substan-tial benefits The importance of air transpor-tation for regional short distance movementshas also created an unsustainable situationFor instance 40 per cent of all the flightsfrom Logan airport (Boston) are bound forNew York only 200 miles away The develop-ment of a more efficient and possibly highspeed rail service would free much neededairport capacity in the corridor capacity thatcould easily accommodate the growth ofair freight

bull

Freight diversion

The development of inlandterminals a strategy pursued by many freightforwarders and port authorities is creating aprocess of freight diversion The port inlanddistribution network (PIDN) developed bythe Port Authority of New York and NewJersey and the Virginia inland port are twonotable example of this strategy Through theusage of inland rail and barge terminals afreight diversion effect would prevent trucksentering the congested metropolitan areasand enable the respective ports to capturea wider market area (PANYNJ 2003) Aprocess of lsquosub-harbourisationrsquo is well underway

CONCLUSION

Urbanisation as a regional process resulted inspatial structures that are inherently complexand in which flows of people and freightrequire a high level of regulation In manyurban regions corridors represent a paradigmof urbanisation over which it has been arguedthat freight distribution offers a perspective tounderstand their dynamics They are servicedby complex freight distribution systems linkingglobal national and regional distributionsystems Mega-urban regions as

logisticallyintegrated entities

have adapted differently toa changing geography of production consump-tion and distribution as they are the mainstructures behind the international division oflabour and production This integration issupported by articulation points where anaccumulation and a concentration of terminalsdistribution centres and related activities

160

JEAN-PAUL RODRIGUE

copy 2004 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG

coordinate local regional and global freightdistribution Concomitantly to the special-isation and fragmentation of production aspecialisation of distribution is taking place

Being one of the worldrsquos leading urbanregions BostWash has experienced a qualitativeand quantitative shift in its distribution Firstthe corridor is imbedded in a system of nationalcorridors of freight circulation that haveexpanded since NAFTA was established Secondwhile regional freight movements are increas-ingly been linked with a growth of consumptiontransport terminals have adapted to globallyoriented supply chains where inbound trafficfar exceeds outbound traffic Many distributioncentres have been sub-urbanised to answerthe requirements of additional space to satisfya dependence on trucking and to access theregional market in a timely fashion A notableconcentration of terminals and distributioncentres has taken place along the BaltimorendashPhiladelphiandashNew JerseyndashNew York axis to offera corridor-wide level of freight distributionIn turn this has exacerbated congestionalong major highway axis and next to majorintermodal terminals Among many of thestrategies implemented to address the corridor-wide challenges of freight distribution aprocess of lsquosub-harbourisationrsquo is taking placewithin the corridor in addition to a modalshift from road to rail How well these regionalchallenges will be addressed is of strategicimportance to insure that present and futuredistributional needs of BostWash remains to beanswered The issue of freight corridors logis-tics and distribution certainly deserves furtherinvestigations

Notes

1 The author would like to thank Brian Slack foruseful comments

2 We prefer to use the term lsquoBostWashrsquo instead oflsquoBosWashrsquo as initially introduced by Gottmann(1961) Although it is less phonetically elegant itprovides a clearer reference to Boston and abetter indication that it is a neologism

3 The number of the interstate highway at the coreof the corridor

4 CMSAs are composed of two or more adjoiningmetropolitan areas which have demonstratedsome economic linkage

5 The I-95 Corridor Coalition initiated in 1993 isan attempt to manage this entity by forming aregional partnership of major public and privatetransportation agencies toll authorities andindustry associations serving the Northeasternpart of the United States from Maine to VirginiaIt tries to offer a multi-jurisdictional approach totransportation issues covering multiple stateslthttpwwwi95coalitionorggt

6 A sub-corridor that can be labelled as lsquointermodalalleyrsquo

7 The national average is 44

REFERENCES

Berry

BJL (1967)

Geography of Market Centersand Retail Distribution

Englewood Cliffs NJPrentice-Hall

Cambridge

Systematics

(2001) Freight TrendsIssues and Data Needs presented at the Conferenceon Data Needs in the Changing World of Logisticsand Freight Transportation Saratoga SpringsNY lthttpwwwdotstatenyusttssconferencegrenzebackpdfgt

Cambridge

Systematics

(2002) Mid-Atlantic RailOperations Study lthttpwwwi95coalitionorggt

Chinitz

B (1960)

Freight and the Metropolis The Impactof Americarsquos Transport Revolutions on the New YorkRegion

Cambridge MA Harvard University Press

DeWitt

W amp J

Clinger

(2001) Intermodal FreightTransportation Millennium Paper TRB Committeeon Intermodal Freight Transportation (A1B05)Washington DC National Academy Press lthttpwwwnationalacademiesorgtrbpublicationsmillennium00061pdfgt

FHWA-DOT (2001) National Freight Issues ampPolicy Options Office of Freight Management andOperations lthttpopsfhwadotgovfreightgt

Gottmann

J (1961)

Megalopolis The UrbanizedNortheast Seaboard of the United States

New YorkTwentieth Century Fund

Gottmann

J (1987)

Megalopolis Revisited 25 YearsLater

The University of Maryland Institute forUrban Studies

Hall

P (1995) Towards a General Urban Theory

In

J

Brotchie

M

Batty

E

Blakely

P

Hall

ampP

Newton

eds

Cities in Competition Productiveand Sustainable Cities for the 21st Century

pp 3ndash32Melbourne Longman Australia

Hanson

S (1995)

The Geography of Urban Trans-portation

2nd edn New York Guilford

158

JEAN-PAUL RODRIGUE

copy 2004 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG

1970s growing freight circulation was accom-modated by growing road capacities The growthof one was the rationale behind the growthof the other The expansion of road infrastruc-tures has however declined substantially inthe 1980s and 1990s leaving the growth of roadfreight distribution without significant addi-tional capacities As the road transport systemgot increasingly congested including accessto major transport terminals alternatives aresought to improve its capacity Estimates bythe Federal Highway Administration place thegrowth of freight transportation in the corridorto figures around 75 between 2000 and 2020In a tightly integrated distribution systemcongestion involves delays and a disruption oftrade and production The growing integrationbetween the functions of production and trans-portation underline this trend Among the majortransport challenges affecting distribution inthe corridor are (I-95 Coalition 2001)

bull

Road Congestion

Congestion in the corridorinvolves many dimensions ranging from

highways access to terminals and urban cir-culation It has traditionally being perceivedwith the purpose of improving passengermobility as investments going to highwaydevelopment benefited trucking With thespectacular growth of trucking congestion isreducing the effectiveness of distributionsystems over which trucking is particularlyvulnerable Each day 38000 trucks go throughthe New YorkndashNorthern New Jersey regionOf these 10000 trucks are using the I-95accounting between 10 per cent and 20 percent of all vehicles using this highway seg-ment As such trucking may cause between30 per cent to 40 per cent of all highwaycongestion Most of the major highways alongthe corridor are operating around or abovedesign capacity (Figure 8) Congestion is fur-ther exacerbated by the geographical scaleof distribution most of it taking place withinthe corridor and using its major highwaysUntil recently little alternatives to regionaldistribution outside trucking were beingconsidered

Figure 8 Volume to capacity ratio major highways BostWash corridor 1998

FREIGHT GATEWAYS AND MEGA-URBAN REGIONS

159

copy 2004 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG

bull

Circulation bottlenecks

Freight distributionis currently hitting many road rail and portbottlenecks raising questions about thecapacity of the regional transport system toanswer the expected growth of the demandUrban areas and access to major port railand air terminals represent significantbottlenecks impairing trucking A survey ofthe Mid-Atlantic rail corridor identified 25locations having insufficient capacity and90 locations where vertical clearance cannotaccommodate double stacking container railcars (Cambridge Systematics 2002) Improv-ing flows at critical bottlenecks will requirelarge infrastructure upgrades

bull

Intermodal capacity

There is a lack ofefficient intermodal transfers in the corridorparticularly truck-to-rail transfer facilities(TOFC) and rail integration at port terminals(COFC) notably at the Port of New York andNew Jersey Since 85 of containers boundfor the port are carried by 15000 truck-journeys each day

7

local accessibility tomaritime terminals is a fundamental issue Forinstance in 1991 the Port of New York andNew Jersey inaugurated a direct ship-to-railand rail-to-ship transshipment facility a func-tion which grew at a phenomenal rate from43000 containers handled in 1992 to 228000in 2002 It is expected that by 2010 inter-modal rail share would climb to between 25 percentndash30 per cent of transshipped containersresulting in improved economic and environ-mental benefits for the locality (NYMTC 2001)Inland rail terminals could consequently actas satellite terminals and permit freight cir-culation to avoid the congested road systemof the metropolitan area especially near portterminal facilities

bull

Modal shift

A shift of road freight to othermodes remains one of the most importantchallenges for the corridor Attempts atseparating freight and passenger circulationare likely to improve the performance of bothsystems Intermodal transportation is chang-ing the dynamics of regional transportationfrom a situation of modal competition to thedevelopment of modal complementarity Forcontainer transportation a higher usage ofrail and barges for regional circulation couldalso significantly alleviate the road systemespecially over local access to large terminals

Since the corridor is oriented along a coast-line the development of a regional systemof maritime distribution servicing the existinginternational system could provide substan-tial benefits The importance of air transpor-tation for regional short distance movementshas also created an unsustainable situationFor instance 40 per cent of all the flightsfrom Logan airport (Boston) are bound forNew York only 200 miles away The develop-ment of a more efficient and possibly highspeed rail service would free much neededairport capacity in the corridor capacity thatcould easily accommodate the growth ofair freight

bull

Freight diversion

The development of inlandterminals a strategy pursued by many freightforwarders and port authorities is creating aprocess of freight diversion The port inlanddistribution network (PIDN) developed bythe Port Authority of New York and NewJersey and the Virginia inland port are twonotable example of this strategy Through theusage of inland rail and barge terminals afreight diversion effect would prevent trucksentering the congested metropolitan areasand enable the respective ports to capturea wider market area (PANYNJ 2003) Aprocess of lsquosub-harbourisationrsquo is well underway

CONCLUSION

Urbanisation as a regional process resulted inspatial structures that are inherently complexand in which flows of people and freightrequire a high level of regulation In manyurban regions corridors represent a paradigmof urbanisation over which it has been arguedthat freight distribution offers a perspective tounderstand their dynamics They are servicedby complex freight distribution systems linkingglobal national and regional distributionsystems Mega-urban regions as

logisticallyintegrated entities

have adapted differently toa changing geography of production consump-tion and distribution as they are the mainstructures behind the international division oflabour and production This integration issupported by articulation points where anaccumulation and a concentration of terminalsdistribution centres and related activities

160

JEAN-PAUL RODRIGUE

copy 2004 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG

coordinate local regional and global freightdistribution Concomitantly to the special-isation and fragmentation of production aspecialisation of distribution is taking place

Being one of the worldrsquos leading urbanregions BostWash has experienced a qualitativeand quantitative shift in its distribution Firstthe corridor is imbedded in a system of nationalcorridors of freight circulation that haveexpanded since NAFTA was established Secondwhile regional freight movements are increas-ingly been linked with a growth of consumptiontransport terminals have adapted to globallyoriented supply chains where inbound trafficfar exceeds outbound traffic Many distributioncentres have been sub-urbanised to answerthe requirements of additional space to satisfya dependence on trucking and to access theregional market in a timely fashion A notableconcentration of terminals and distributioncentres has taken place along the BaltimorendashPhiladelphiandashNew JerseyndashNew York axis to offera corridor-wide level of freight distributionIn turn this has exacerbated congestionalong major highway axis and next to majorintermodal terminals Among many of thestrategies implemented to address the corridor-wide challenges of freight distribution aprocess of lsquosub-harbourisationrsquo is taking placewithin the corridor in addition to a modalshift from road to rail How well these regionalchallenges will be addressed is of strategicimportance to insure that present and futuredistributional needs of BostWash remains to beanswered The issue of freight corridors logis-tics and distribution certainly deserves furtherinvestigations

Notes

1 The author would like to thank Brian Slack foruseful comments

2 We prefer to use the term lsquoBostWashrsquo instead oflsquoBosWashrsquo as initially introduced by Gottmann(1961) Although it is less phonetically elegant itprovides a clearer reference to Boston and abetter indication that it is a neologism

3 The number of the interstate highway at the coreof the corridor

4 CMSAs are composed of two or more adjoiningmetropolitan areas which have demonstratedsome economic linkage

5 The I-95 Corridor Coalition initiated in 1993 isan attempt to manage this entity by forming aregional partnership of major public and privatetransportation agencies toll authorities andindustry associations serving the Northeasternpart of the United States from Maine to VirginiaIt tries to offer a multi-jurisdictional approach totransportation issues covering multiple stateslthttpwwwi95coalitionorggt

6 A sub-corridor that can be labelled as lsquointermodalalleyrsquo

7 The national average is 44

REFERENCES

Berry

BJL (1967)

Geography of Market Centersand Retail Distribution

Englewood Cliffs NJPrentice-Hall

Cambridge

Systematics

(2001) Freight TrendsIssues and Data Needs presented at the Conferenceon Data Needs in the Changing World of Logisticsand Freight Transportation Saratoga SpringsNY lthttpwwwdotstatenyusttssconferencegrenzebackpdfgt

Cambridge

Systematics

(2002) Mid-Atlantic RailOperations Study lthttpwwwi95coalitionorggt

Chinitz

B (1960)

Freight and the Metropolis The Impactof Americarsquos Transport Revolutions on the New YorkRegion

Cambridge MA Harvard University Press

DeWitt

W amp J

Clinger

(2001) Intermodal FreightTransportation Millennium Paper TRB Committeeon Intermodal Freight Transportation (A1B05)Washington DC National Academy Press lthttpwwwnationalacademiesorgtrbpublicationsmillennium00061pdfgt

FHWA-DOT (2001) National Freight Issues ampPolicy Options Office of Freight Management andOperations lthttpopsfhwadotgovfreightgt

Gottmann

J (1961)

Megalopolis The UrbanizedNortheast Seaboard of the United States

New YorkTwentieth Century Fund

Gottmann

J (1987)

Megalopolis Revisited 25 YearsLater

The University of Maryland Institute forUrban Studies

Hall

P (1995) Towards a General Urban Theory

In

J

Brotchie

M

Batty

E

Blakely

P

Hall

ampP

Newton

eds

Cities in Competition Productiveand Sustainable Cities for the 21st Century

pp 3ndash32Melbourne Longman Australia

Hanson

S (1995)

The Geography of Urban Trans-portation

2nd edn New York Guilford

FREIGHT GATEWAYS AND MEGA-URBAN REGIONS

159

copy 2004 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG

bull

Circulation bottlenecks

Freight distributionis currently hitting many road rail and portbottlenecks raising questions about thecapacity of the regional transport system toanswer the expected growth of the demandUrban areas and access to major port railand air terminals represent significantbottlenecks impairing trucking A survey ofthe Mid-Atlantic rail corridor identified 25locations having insufficient capacity and90 locations where vertical clearance cannotaccommodate double stacking container railcars (Cambridge Systematics 2002) Improv-ing flows at critical bottlenecks will requirelarge infrastructure upgrades

bull

Intermodal capacity

There is a lack ofefficient intermodal transfers in the corridorparticularly truck-to-rail transfer facilities(TOFC) and rail integration at port terminals(COFC) notably at the Port of New York andNew Jersey Since 85 of containers boundfor the port are carried by 15000 truck-journeys each day

7

local accessibility tomaritime terminals is a fundamental issue Forinstance in 1991 the Port of New York andNew Jersey inaugurated a direct ship-to-railand rail-to-ship transshipment facility a func-tion which grew at a phenomenal rate from43000 containers handled in 1992 to 228000in 2002 It is expected that by 2010 inter-modal rail share would climb to between 25 percentndash30 per cent of transshipped containersresulting in improved economic and environ-mental benefits for the locality (NYMTC 2001)Inland rail terminals could consequently actas satellite terminals and permit freight cir-culation to avoid the congested road systemof the metropolitan area especially near portterminal facilities

bull

Modal shift

A shift of road freight to othermodes remains one of the most importantchallenges for the corridor Attempts atseparating freight and passenger circulationare likely to improve the performance of bothsystems Intermodal transportation is chang-ing the dynamics of regional transportationfrom a situation of modal competition to thedevelopment of modal complementarity Forcontainer transportation a higher usage ofrail and barges for regional circulation couldalso significantly alleviate the road systemespecially over local access to large terminals

Since the corridor is oriented along a coast-line the development of a regional systemof maritime distribution servicing the existinginternational system could provide substan-tial benefits The importance of air transpor-tation for regional short distance movementshas also created an unsustainable situationFor instance 40 per cent of all the flightsfrom Logan airport (Boston) are bound forNew York only 200 miles away The develop-ment of a more efficient and possibly highspeed rail service would free much neededairport capacity in the corridor capacity thatcould easily accommodate the growth ofair freight

bull

Freight diversion

The development of inlandterminals a strategy pursued by many freightforwarders and port authorities is creating aprocess of freight diversion The port inlanddistribution network (PIDN) developed bythe Port Authority of New York and NewJersey and the Virginia inland port are twonotable example of this strategy Through theusage of inland rail and barge terminals afreight diversion effect would prevent trucksentering the congested metropolitan areasand enable the respective ports to capturea wider market area (PANYNJ 2003) Aprocess of lsquosub-harbourisationrsquo is well underway

CONCLUSION

Urbanisation as a regional process resulted inspatial structures that are inherently complexand in which flows of people and freightrequire a high level of regulation In manyurban regions corridors represent a paradigmof urbanisation over which it has been arguedthat freight distribution offers a perspective tounderstand their dynamics They are servicedby complex freight distribution systems linkingglobal national and regional distributionsystems Mega-urban regions as

logisticallyintegrated entities

have adapted differently toa changing geography of production consump-tion and distribution as they are the mainstructures behind the international division oflabour and production This integration issupported by articulation points where anaccumulation and a concentration of terminalsdistribution centres and related activities

160

JEAN-PAUL RODRIGUE

copy 2004 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG

coordinate local regional and global freightdistribution Concomitantly to the special-isation and fragmentation of production aspecialisation of distribution is taking place

Being one of the worldrsquos leading urbanregions BostWash has experienced a qualitativeand quantitative shift in its distribution Firstthe corridor is imbedded in a system of nationalcorridors of freight circulation that haveexpanded since NAFTA was established Secondwhile regional freight movements are increas-ingly been linked with a growth of consumptiontransport terminals have adapted to globallyoriented supply chains where inbound trafficfar exceeds outbound traffic Many distributioncentres have been sub-urbanised to answerthe requirements of additional space to satisfya dependence on trucking and to access theregional market in a timely fashion A notableconcentration of terminals and distributioncentres has taken place along the BaltimorendashPhiladelphiandashNew JerseyndashNew York axis to offera corridor-wide level of freight distributionIn turn this has exacerbated congestionalong major highway axis and next to majorintermodal terminals Among many of thestrategies implemented to address the corridor-wide challenges of freight distribution aprocess of lsquosub-harbourisationrsquo is taking placewithin the corridor in addition to a modalshift from road to rail How well these regionalchallenges will be addressed is of strategicimportance to insure that present and futuredistributional needs of BostWash remains to beanswered The issue of freight corridors logis-tics and distribution certainly deserves furtherinvestigations

Notes

1 The author would like to thank Brian Slack foruseful comments

2 We prefer to use the term lsquoBostWashrsquo instead oflsquoBosWashrsquo as initially introduced by Gottmann(1961) Although it is less phonetically elegant itprovides a clearer reference to Boston and abetter indication that it is a neologism

3 The number of the interstate highway at the coreof the corridor

4 CMSAs are composed of two or more adjoiningmetropolitan areas which have demonstratedsome economic linkage

5 The I-95 Corridor Coalition initiated in 1993 isan attempt to manage this entity by forming aregional partnership of major public and privatetransportation agencies toll authorities andindustry associations serving the Northeasternpart of the United States from Maine to VirginiaIt tries to offer a multi-jurisdictional approach totransportation issues covering multiple stateslthttpwwwi95coalitionorggt

6 A sub-corridor that can be labelled as lsquointermodalalleyrsquo

7 The national average is 44

REFERENCES

Berry

BJL (1967)

Geography of Market Centersand Retail Distribution

Englewood Cliffs NJPrentice-Hall

Cambridge

Systematics

(2001) Freight TrendsIssues and Data Needs presented at the Conferenceon Data Needs in the Changing World of Logisticsand Freight Transportation Saratoga SpringsNY lthttpwwwdotstatenyusttssconferencegrenzebackpdfgt

Cambridge

Systematics

(2002) Mid-Atlantic RailOperations Study lthttpwwwi95coalitionorggt

Chinitz

B (1960)

Freight and the Metropolis The Impactof Americarsquos Transport Revolutions on the New YorkRegion

Cambridge MA Harvard University Press

DeWitt

W amp J

Clinger

(2001) Intermodal FreightTransportation Millennium Paper TRB Committeeon Intermodal Freight Transportation (A1B05)Washington DC National Academy Press lthttpwwwnationalacademiesorgtrbpublicationsmillennium00061pdfgt

FHWA-DOT (2001) National Freight Issues ampPolicy Options Office of Freight Management andOperations lthttpopsfhwadotgovfreightgt

Gottmann

J (1961)

Megalopolis The UrbanizedNortheast Seaboard of the United States

New YorkTwentieth Century Fund

Gottmann

J (1987)

Megalopolis Revisited 25 YearsLater

The University of Maryland Institute forUrban Studies

Hall

P (1995) Towards a General Urban Theory

In

J

Brotchie

M

Batty

E

Blakely

P

Hall

ampP

Newton

eds

Cities in Competition Productiveand Sustainable Cities for the 21st Century

pp 3ndash32Melbourne Longman Australia

Hanson

S (1995)

The Geography of Urban Trans-portation

2nd edn New York Guilford

160

JEAN-PAUL RODRIGUE

copy 2004 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG

coordinate local regional and global freightdistribution Concomitantly to the special-isation and fragmentation of production aspecialisation of distribution is taking place

Being one of the worldrsquos leading urbanregions BostWash has experienced a qualitativeand quantitative shift in its distribution Firstthe corridor is imbedded in a system of nationalcorridors of freight circulation that haveexpanded since NAFTA was established Secondwhile regional freight movements are increas-ingly been linked with a growth of consumptiontransport terminals have adapted to globallyoriented supply chains where inbound trafficfar exceeds outbound traffic Many distributioncentres have been sub-urbanised to answerthe requirements of additional space to satisfya dependence on trucking and to access theregional market in a timely fashion A notableconcentration of terminals and distributioncentres has taken place along the BaltimorendashPhiladelphiandashNew JerseyndashNew York axis to offera corridor-wide level of freight distributionIn turn this has exacerbated congestionalong major highway axis and next to majorintermodal terminals Among many of thestrategies implemented to address the corridor-wide challenges of freight distribution aprocess of lsquosub-harbourisationrsquo is taking placewithin the corridor in addition to a modalshift from road to rail How well these regionalchallenges will be addressed is of strategicimportance to insure that present and futuredistributional needs of BostWash remains to beanswered The issue of freight corridors logis-tics and distribution certainly deserves furtherinvestigations

Notes

1 The author would like to thank Brian Slack foruseful comments

2 We prefer to use the term lsquoBostWashrsquo instead oflsquoBosWashrsquo as initially introduced by Gottmann(1961) Although it is less phonetically elegant itprovides a clearer reference to Boston and abetter indication that it is a neologism

3 The number of the interstate highway at the coreof the corridor

4 CMSAs are composed of two or more adjoiningmetropolitan areas which have demonstratedsome economic linkage

5 The I-95 Corridor Coalition initiated in 1993 isan attempt to manage this entity by forming aregional partnership of major public and privatetransportation agencies toll authorities andindustry associations serving the Northeasternpart of the United States from Maine to VirginiaIt tries to offer a multi-jurisdictional approach totransportation issues covering multiple stateslthttpwwwi95coalitionorggt

6 A sub-corridor that can be labelled as lsquointermodalalleyrsquo

7 The national average is 44

REFERENCES

Berry

BJL (1967)

Geography of Market Centersand Retail Distribution

Englewood Cliffs NJPrentice-Hall

Cambridge

Systematics

(2001) Freight TrendsIssues and Data Needs presented at the Conferenceon Data Needs in the Changing World of Logisticsand Freight Transportation Saratoga SpringsNY lthttpwwwdotstatenyusttssconferencegrenzebackpdfgt

Cambridge

Systematics

(2002) Mid-Atlantic RailOperations Study lthttpwwwi95coalitionorggt

Chinitz

B (1960)

Freight and the Metropolis The Impactof Americarsquos Transport Revolutions on the New YorkRegion

Cambridge MA Harvard University Press

DeWitt

W amp J

Clinger

(2001) Intermodal FreightTransportation Millennium Paper TRB Committeeon Intermodal Freight Transportation (A1B05)Washington DC National Academy Press lthttpwwwnationalacademiesorgtrbpublicationsmillennium00061pdfgt

FHWA-DOT (2001) National Freight Issues ampPolicy Options Office of Freight Management andOperations lthttpopsfhwadotgovfreightgt

Gottmann

J (1961)

Megalopolis The UrbanizedNortheast Seaboard of the United States

New YorkTwentieth Century Fund

Gottmann

J (1987)

Megalopolis Revisited 25 YearsLater

The University of Maryland Institute forUrban Studies

Hall

P (1995) Towards a General Urban Theory

In

J

Brotchie

M

Batty

E

Blakely

P

Hall

ampP

Newton

eds

Cities in Competition Productiveand Sustainable Cities for the 21st Century

pp 3ndash32Melbourne Longman Australia

Hanson

S (1995)

The Geography of Urban Trans-portation

2nd edn New York Guilford

FREIGHT GATEWAYS AND MEGA-URBAN REGIONS

161

copy 2004 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG

Hesse M amp J-P Rodrigue (2004) The TransportGeography of Logistics and Freight DistributionIn press Journal of Transport Geography

Holmes J (2000) Regional Economic Integrationin North America In G Clark M Feldman ampM Gertler eds The Oxford Handbook of EconomicGeography pp 649ndash670 Oxford Oxford UniversityPress

I-95 Corridor Coalition (2001) IntermodalStrategic Plan lthttpwwwi95coalitionorggt

ICF Consulting amp HLB Decision-Economics (2002)Economic Effects of Transportation The FreightStory lthttpwwwopsfhwadotgovfreightgt

Lakshmanan TR amp WP Anderson (2002) Trans-portation Infrastructure Freight Services Sectorand Economic Growth White Paper prepared forThe US Department of Transportation FederalHighway Administration Boston University Centerfor Transportation Studies

Lo F-C amp Y-M Yeung eds (1996) Emerging worldcities in Pacific Asia New York United NationsUniversity Press lthttpwwwunueduunupressunupbooksuu11eeuu11ee00htmgt

McCray J (1998) North American Free TradeAgreement Truck Highway Corridors USndashMexican Truck Rivers of Trade TransportationResearch Record 1613 pp 71ndash78

New York Metropolitan TransportationCouncil (2001) NYMTC Regional Freight PlanTask 2 ndash Description of Freight Transportation Systemin the Region Cambridge Systematics Inc lthttpwebservicescamsyscomnymtcfreightdocumentsnymtc_task2_completepdfgt

Port Authority of New York and New Jersey(2003) PortViews 2 pp 1 7

Pred A (1977) City Systems in Advanced EconomiesPast Growth Present Processes and Future DevelopmentOptions New York Wiley

Rimmer PJ (1996) International Transport andCommunications Interactions Between PacificAsiarsquos Emerging World Cities In F-C Lo ampY-M Yeung eds Emerging World Cities in PacificAsia New York United Nations University Press

Rodrigue J-P (1999) Globalization and theSynchronization of Transport Terminals Journal ofTransport Geography 7 pp 255ndash261

Slack B (1998) Intermodal Transportation InB Hoyle amp R Knowles eds Modern TransportGeography 2nd Edition pp 263ndash289 LondonWiley

Slack B (1999) Satellite Terminals A LocalSolution to Hub Congestion Journal of TransportGeography 7 pp 241ndash246

UNCRD (1973) Japan Study Part I Case Study onthe Tokaido Corridor Research Project 501Role of Cities in Attaining a Desirable PopulationDistribution in the Context of Rapid UrbanizationNagoya Japan United Nations Centre for RegionalDevelopment

US Department of Commerce (2002) US ForeignTrade Highlights lthttpwwwitadocgovtdindustryoteausfthgt

van der Woude AD J de Vries amp A Hayami eds(1990) Urbanization in History A Process of DynamicInteractions Oxford Clarendon Press

van Klink H amp G van den Berg (1998) Gatewaysand intermodalism Journal of Transport Geography 6pp 11ndash19

Weiler S E Thompson amp T Ozawa (2001) TheEvolution Of A New Industrial District TheAutomobile Industry In The American SoutheastPlanning and Markets 4 lthttpwww-pamusceduvolume4v4i1a1s1htmlgt

Woudsma C (1999) NAFTA and Canada-US Cross-border Freight Transportation Journal of TransportGeography 7 pp 105ndash119