On the Ports-to-Plains, Truckers’ tradeoffs: Better roads, but higher fuel prices

September 26, 2006
By Bill Sontag
Feature Writer

Long-haul driver Richard Smith, taking a break in a Lubbock, Texas, truck stop, boasted that motor freight services are nearly indispensable to the country, and that there’s never been a nationwide truckers’ strike.

But rising fuel prices have truckers both scared and angry. According to a Sept. 18 WorldNetDaily article, teamsters are indeed talking “Strike,” if only to remind congress and consumers that truckers are struggling to make a go of it when they pay $150 each time they top off their tanks.

Members of the Ports-To-Plains Coalition, strung out along 1,300 miles of highways from U.S./Mexico ports-of-entry at Laredo, Eagle Pass and Del Rio, know how important truckers are to the economies of southwestern towns and cities. So, the 19-year-old incorporated Coalition pushes hard and fast to improve highways that will attract truckers seeking better and more efficient routes of travel.

From Laredo to Del Rio, through San Angelo, Lubbock, Amarillo and Dumas, drivers see efforts to improve road surfaces, but the organizers want to see the Ports-To-Plain Corridor finished out with a four-lane divided highway from Laredo to Denver, Colorado.

U.S. Highway 287, north of Amarillo, greets travelers with smooth, four-lane divided asphalt roadway. This is vast, rolling, short-grass and mixed-grass prairie – ranching country with appreciably fewer row crops than more southern stretches of the corridor.

At Dumas, in the Texas Panhandle, 18 miles of quality asphalt re-surfacing is underway, contracted to Amarillo Road Company. Merchants and traveler services are briefly interrupted by the work, but work keeps two lanes open so truckers are minimally inconvenienced. In Dumas and many other communities along the Ports-To-Plains Corridor, commerce seems healthy, buoyed by road improvements and increased traffic.

Terri George, director of Dumas’ Windows On The Plains Museum, complains about her parking lot, not large enough for the big rigs. But, despite a sign there – “No trucks allowed” – she says they never chase the drivers out who want to stop for a look at this uniquely diverse and interesting community cultural center. George is intensely proud of the museum’s well-curated collections, and wants travelers and locals to know about the history – and think about the future – of Dumas.

Through Stratford, Texas, U.S. Highway 287 narrows to two-lane undivided roadway, but in good condition with wide shoulders. Beyond the right-of-ways are hundreds of acres of feedlots, the final step in beef production before the slaughterhouses, meat packers, and shipping industry take over, all relying on efficient shipping lanes such as this stretch of 287.

But at the Oklahoma state line, the highway abruptly changes to poorly maintained road surface. Though four-lane divided roadway transects the slim 40-mile width of the Oklahoma panhandle, surfaces are rough, and a single rest stop is old and of marginal use to truckers.

However, Coalition officials say that recent congressional appropriations affirm that Oklahoma will get $36 million in federal funds for that stretch from Boise City, across the Cimarron River and to the Colorado line.

As travelers enter Colorado, U.S. Highway 287 is bracketed by the undulating prairies of the Comanche National Grasslands, protected by the U.S. Forest Service. Clocks and watches are spun back an hour here to Mountain Standard Time. The highway is only two lanes, but it is a marked change in quality from the Oklahoma stretch.

Colorado’s improvements include recent cement pavement (lower maintenance than asphalt), incised with longitudinal grooves in the roadbed to aid sideways traction, and latitudinal grooves at shoulder’s edge to audibly warn straying motorists. It’s called the “Super Two,” by Colorado highway officials, known for its wide (12 – 14 feet) shoulders.

But the improvements are spotty. Twenty miles south of Lamar, Colo., the road is two-lane, undivided asphalt, and fairly rough. But a first-time traveler’s attention is taken from the road to the skies. Surrounding both sides of the highway, south of Lamar, are fields of electric energy-generating windmills.

Not the slow, squat Spanish windmills at which Don Quixote tilted, but tall graceful, snowy white sculptures of steel. Soaring 260 feet high, with 111-foot rotors, many are quite close to the highway, making a low whoosh-whoosh sound as rotors pass closest to the ground. Lamar Light and Power Company and the Arkansas River Power Authority teamed up to build the field in 2001.

Along the corridor north of Lamar is an aromatic landmark called Colorado Beef, a feed lot with a capacity of 59,000 cattle. On Sept. 11, the yards were filled with expansive herds of Holsteins, but the parent company, Five Rivers Cattle Feeding, Loveland, Colo., accepts all breeds of feeder cattle to “finish out” before slaughter.

From Lamar, through Kit Carson, and on to Limon, Colo., 287 is “Super Two,” and gently rises and falls through undulating ranch country, often decorated in late summer with fields of yellow sunflowers of the wild variety, though some fields are planted up to the tall marketable species for oil, birdseed and human snacks.

At Limon, Colo., the Ports-To-Plains Corridor is a junction of U.S. Highway 287 and Interstate 70, seen occasionally on national news when white-out blizzards close down all traffic for miles on eastern Colorado’s plains. Joe Kiely is town administrator of Limon, and part-time vice president to the Ports-To-Plains Coalition. His town is inundated by truckers seeking food and shelter from those freak blizzards on the Interstate.

“Transportation is the basic economy here in Limon, along with farming and [employment at] a nearby state prison. We are truck stops, fast foods and hotels -- 400 rooms. It’s a good place to stop if you’re coming into the front range and can’t quite make it,” said Kiely, Sept. 15.

“We just announced two weeks ago that, while Flying J has a small truck stop here, they are now going to build a full-blown travel center right here in Limon. We’ll have two major travel centers here in a town of 2,200,” enthused Kiely.

Before Ports-To-Plains contracted with the City of Limon for part of Kiely’s time, he served on the Coalition’s board of directors. “I’ve been involved with it since it was created, and I always thought that the subjective value of it was that international trade is going to grow. But it’s already happening,” said Kiely.

“The growth of north-south corridors like this one is being forced by the lack of port capacity on the east and west coasts of the United States. They’ve got nowhere to grow, but the overseas trade continues to grow, and the growth is taking place in Mexico."

Kiely explained that 83.9 percent of all Colorado’s trade with Mexico comes and goes through the ports-of-entry at Del Rio, Eagle Pass and Laredo. Asked about the future of trade in Colorado with Mexican goods, Kiely warmed to the topic.

“When you compare Colorado’s trade with Mexico in 2004 and 2005 – through Laredo, Eagle Pass and Del Rio – that truck traffic here increased 22.3 percent in one year, or about $203 million.” He added that truck traffic on the Ports-To-Plains Corridor increased 6.72 percent overall in that same year.

Ports-To-Plains projects in Colorado in the next year, under Kiely’s watchful eyes, include two major projects: A $10 million bridge replacement at Kit Carson, Colo., and $15 million to replace the asphalt segment between Springfield and Lamar in the southeast corner of the state.

Closing thoughts on the Ports-To-Plains Corridor

Just as the brutally competitive railroad industry of the late 19th- and early 20th century drove many small towns into oblivion, shunned from rail access, Interstate highways have repeated the neglect of struggling small towns and villages across the nation, leaving many shriveled or dead, barely a name on old maps.

In the process, some Interstates have become overcrowded strips of traffic, often populated by tourists, commuters and truckers jockeying for room to rumble.

But revitalized, alternative pathways of commerce – such as the Ports-To-Plains Corridor – may, in turn, resuscitate and embellish rural areas, such as Limon, Colo., Clayton, N.M., Sonora, San Angelo, and Dumas, Texas, and 20 more that have chosen to become partners in well-planned efforts offering relief from Interstate strip madness and congested traffic.

Alternative routes are already providing better direct access to intermediate and long-distance destinations, lacking only consistency in quality of roads, bridges and freedom of movement within or around congested traditional routes. The Ports-To-Plains Coalition strives to accomplish such improvements, and jobs and economic strength will surely follow.

 

The Ports-to-Plains Series

1. Laredo, Texas to San Angelo, Texas:
   Ports-To-Plains may save rural Southwest
2. San Angelo to Lubbock:
   Ports-To-Plains connects Mexican manufacturers, consumers with U.S. markets
3. On to Denver, Colorado:
   On the Ports-to-Plains, Truckers’ tradeoffs: Better roads, but higher fuel prices
4. The New Mexico to Texas Spur
   Ports to Plains connects Texas and New Mexico
   

Next: Ports to Plains connects Texas and New Mexico