(Source: The Boston Globe)

(Source: AP via Forbes.com)

An older idea is experiencing a rebirth thanks to the truck traffic that increasingly chokes America’s highways: shift more of U.S. freight burden to boats that can traverse rivers, lakes, canals and coastal waters.

Increased concerns about fuel prices and global warming in recent years have revived interest in marine highways from the Erie Canal to the Chesapeake Bay to the coastal waters off Oregon, Massachusetts and Texas.

Proponents envision further expansion of the country’s 25,000 miles (40,230 kilometers) of navigational waterways by making greater use of the coasts and inland routes, such as the St. Lawrence Seaway (other-otc: STLS.PK – news –people ), the Great Lakes and the Mississippi and Ohio rivers.

A significant expansion of the marine highway system faces several obstacles:

Many locks haven’t been updated in decades to accommodate increased freight traffic. Replacing America’s lock system would cost an estimated $125 billion.

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(Source:  EnterpriseNews.com)

For more than a year, Gov. Deval Patrick has been promising a response to the state’s ever-worsening transportation woes. Friday he delivered a proposal that includes most of what the situation requires.

Patrick starts with reform, as he should. His plan would finally put the much-despised Mass. Turnpike Authority out of business, merging it, along with the MBTA, MassPort and the Registry of Motor Vehicles, into a single, more accountable, transportation agency.

Patrick also vows to do away with the administrative redundancy and unjustifiable perks that have grown over the decades in these transportation fiefdoms. The MBTA contract, for instance, allows union workers to retire after just 23 years on the job and immediately begin collecting healthy pensions, with the state providing health insurance for the rest of their lives. With the “T” burdened by more than $5 billion in debt, such excesses are inexcusable.