The Transportation and Infrastructure Committee met on Monday this week to discuss various bills with the purpose of quickening the process for freight transporting along commercial corridors. One such bill was the Truck Parking Safety Improvement Act. The Committee has decided to move forward with this act, and it now awaits voting in the entire House of Representatives Chamber. The voting day for this act has not yet been scheduled.
Representatives from Illinois and Minnesota are the main backers of the bill.
Representatives Mike Bost of Illinois and Angie Craig of Minnesota claim that the bill would allow for $755 million through the fiscal year of 2026 to be dedicated to expanding commercial vehicle parking access. The Federal government would work with individual state agencies that would be responsible for adding parking to existing lots and helping with building new ones.
Bost grew up in a family that owned a trucking business, so he is very familiar with trucking and its dangers. He has spoken before about his understanding of how hard it is for trucks to find safe and secure parking, so he feels very personally passionate about the law.
Representative Bost has said, “By expanding access to parking options for truckers, we are making our roads safer for all commuters and ensuring that goods and supplies are shipped to market in the most efficient way possible.” He speaks with great pride with regard to this act as he feels the Truck Parking Safety Improvement Act is not something that will just benefit truckers, but also greatly bolster public safety.
In the Senate room, Senators Cynthia Lummis and Mark Kelly are working to push another bill to gain traction that will stand as a companion to the Truck Parking Safety Improvement Act.
This act is also personal to Senator Lummis as she is from Wyoming, which is home to three major interstates. It is all too common for truckers on these three interstates to park in risky ways, so expanding the parking available to them will vastly make a difference in truck driver and car driver safety.
Pete Buttigieg, the sitting Transportation Secretary has talked about this issue before and spoke of how frequently he has heard of this complaint from truck drivers he has spoken to. He has said that his team under the Biden-Harris administration is “going to continue supporting the creation of more truck parking.”
