Strategy for the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence River Maritime Transportation System

The State Freight Plan (SFP) provides a vision for multimodal freight transportation and positions the state to remain competitive in the global marketplace.

The Poe Locks, connecting Lakes Huron and Superior, are a potential single point of failure in the iron mining - steel production - manufacturing supply chain. 

This report provides a realistic assessment of the contributions made by the Great Lakes-Seaway system to the state, provincial, regional and national economies. This analysis estimates the combined U.S. and Canadian economic impacts of all marine cargo moving on the bi-national Great Lakes-Seaway system, including domestic cargo moving between U.S. ports; domestic cargo moving between Canadian ports; cross-lake cargo moving between the U.S. and Canada; and international cargo moving between system ports and overseas ports. 

The Ohio Department of Transportation (ODOT) developed this plan as a guide to inform and support future infrastructure investments on Ohio’s multi-modal freight network and to retain and attract jobs and commerce.

Ohio’s freight delivery system is made up of many types of infrastructure including roads, waterways and ports, railroads and air freight. They are interconnected, and together form multimodal corridors that cross the state, country and world.

This report lays the groundwork for coordinating land use planning and freight mobility planning in Ontario.

This report identifies a number of opportunities and challenges for the Illinois freight transportation system.

Freight hubs are essential to Illinois’ position in the
business logistics system. Originally because of its
waterways, and then because industry and modal networks developed on similar patterns, Illinois is a national freight crossroads, bearing goods traffic from all directions.