moose
Veteran Expediter
Hi all. this is a first draft of my letter to members in M.N, and to truckers that serve the metro area.
your comments will be greatly appreciated, so i can finalized it by late morning.
.
.
.
A Minnesota call to action.
This letter is in preparation to a meeting in the Minnesota of ‘the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency’
To read more please enter this link BEFORE proceeding.
Grants/Financial Assistance for Clean Diesel Projects - Minnesota Pollution Control Agency
An extract:
” The RFP targets public and private on-road and off-road diesel fleets older than 2007 and operating in Minnesota with preference given to those operating the Twin Cities 7-county Metro area”
First observation: national.
While small business truckers make for the vast majority of transportation service providers. This is not the case with local metro PU/Del.
Local work in any large metro is largely provided by drivers that do not own the vehicle they drive.
The grants applications requirement for the truck to service the metro area, place the small business truck owner in a great disadvantage.
2nd observation: the recent California experience.
Every driver that drove the LA bison area up to early 2008 knows the symptom so very well. Stuck in traffic amongst older drayage trucks. Many of those trucks serve the LA/LB port. Most of those trucks owned by small family business owners. Same goe’s to the local trash service, construction, and dump trucks.
Something had to give. And it did. Grants made available for retrofits and upgrading the fleets of trucks. It went really well. If you drive the LA ports areas now days, you will see way less truck traffic, and the vast majority of those trucks are new models. Some works on natural’s gas, and many SCR motors. Recent report by the clean truck program claim over 10,000 trucks retrofits or replaced.
Perfect.
Or does it?
How many of those new/retrofitted trucks owned by small family operating business?
NONE!
Heck, if your carrier does not have employee drivers, at least 30 trucks, and probably a drivers union, you are most likely not even be allowed into the port area.
A recent statement made by the California dump truck association show a reduction in paying members from almost 1,900 in early 2008 to lass then 540 now days. Same goes for the California trash trucks owners association.
Those are tens of thousand of small business truckers that looked for other places to find freight, or flat out, went out of business.
In recent years southern California is flooded with good quality truckers looking to haul the freight.
Those truckers are very experienced. They know how to cost operate a load, and how to move the freight for less.
By their thousands, it’s simply not a fair competition for carriers who rely on a fleet of Owner operators, nor is it a match for the small business truckers who leased their transportations services to a carrier.
It is NOT about the quality of service, nor about the price. Shippers and freight brokers are simply bombardier with truckers knocking on the door, whiling to haul the freight at cost.
No wonder there are pending court actions questioning the grants distributions.
What we can learn from the California experience.
What will happen in Minnesota, if grants will be available primarily for large carriers?
Simply.
The same.
There are a few questions members of this comity MUST ask themselves.
1) What is the real purpose of those federal funds?
Are they to be used to clean the metro air? Or are they to be used to allow Minnesota base truckers to upgrade aging trucks?
2) If we do not use those funds to pay for small business owners, are they going to used the same trucks in other regional markets?
3) Why it is, that every single time, a clean air incentive comes to place, it is always the small truckers that are the only ones expected to pick up the bill?
4) Are we willing to place so many O/O out of business, to accommodate for metro new trucks?
5) What is the alternative?
What we are asking is simply use common séance, and distribute those grants equally among resident truck owners. The requirement of servicing the metro area MUST go away, so we can keep local business owners in business.
Afterall they are the back bone of our economy.
We are here by calling to action everyone that can make their voice herd on this matter.
Let your family, friends and coworkers know about this important matter.
Please contact:
Martina Cameron
Email: [email protected]
Phone: 651-757-2259
Call, send an email. And make them understand that they can still do the right thing.
If all possible please attend the meeting:
At 10:30 a.m. on November 30, 2011
520 Lafayette Road, St. Paul, MN 55155.
Thanks.
your comments will be greatly appreciated, so i can finalized it by late morning.
.
.
.
A Minnesota call to action.
This letter is in preparation to a meeting in the Minnesota of ‘the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency’
To read more please enter this link BEFORE proceeding.
Grants/Financial Assistance for Clean Diesel Projects - Minnesota Pollution Control Agency
An extract:
” The RFP targets public and private on-road and off-road diesel fleets older than 2007 and operating in Minnesota with preference given to those operating the Twin Cities 7-county Metro area”
First observation: national.
While small business truckers make for the vast majority of transportation service providers. This is not the case with local metro PU/Del.
Local work in any large metro is largely provided by drivers that do not own the vehicle they drive.
The grants applications requirement for the truck to service the metro area, place the small business truck owner in a great disadvantage.
2nd observation: the recent California experience.
Every driver that drove the LA bison area up to early 2008 knows the symptom so very well. Stuck in traffic amongst older drayage trucks. Many of those trucks serve the LA/LB port. Most of those trucks owned by small family business owners. Same goe’s to the local trash service, construction, and dump trucks.
Something had to give. And it did. Grants made available for retrofits and upgrading the fleets of trucks. It went really well. If you drive the LA ports areas now days, you will see way less truck traffic, and the vast majority of those trucks are new models. Some works on natural’s gas, and many SCR motors. Recent report by the clean truck program claim over 10,000 trucks retrofits or replaced.
Perfect.
Or does it?
How many of those new/retrofitted trucks owned by small family operating business?
NONE!
Heck, if your carrier does not have employee drivers, at least 30 trucks, and probably a drivers union, you are most likely not even be allowed into the port area.
A recent statement made by the California dump truck association show a reduction in paying members from almost 1,900 in early 2008 to lass then 540 now days. Same goes for the California trash trucks owners association.
Those are tens of thousand of small business truckers that looked for other places to find freight, or flat out, went out of business.
In recent years southern California is flooded with good quality truckers looking to haul the freight.
Those truckers are very experienced. They know how to cost operate a load, and how to move the freight for less.
By their thousands, it’s simply not a fair competition for carriers who rely on a fleet of Owner operators, nor is it a match for the small business truckers who leased their transportations services to a carrier.
It is NOT about the quality of service, nor about the price. Shippers and freight brokers are simply bombardier with truckers knocking on the door, whiling to haul the freight at cost.
No wonder there are pending court actions questioning the grants distributions.
What we can learn from the California experience.
What will happen in Minnesota, if grants will be available primarily for large carriers?
Simply.
The same.
There are a few questions members of this comity MUST ask themselves.
1) What is the real purpose of those federal funds?
Are they to be used to clean the metro air? Or are they to be used to allow Minnesota base truckers to upgrade aging trucks?
2) If we do not use those funds to pay for small business owners, are they going to used the same trucks in other regional markets?
3) Why it is, that every single time, a clean air incentive comes to place, it is always the small truckers that are the only ones expected to pick up the bill?
4) Are we willing to place so many O/O out of business, to accommodate for metro new trucks?
5) What is the alternative?
What we are asking is simply use common séance, and distribute those grants equally among resident truck owners. The requirement of servicing the metro area MUST go away, so we can keep local business owners in business.
Afterall they are the back bone of our economy.
We are here by calling to action everyone that can make their voice herd on this matter.
Let your family, friends and coworkers know about this important matter.
Please contact:
Martina Cameron
Email: [email protected]
Phone: 651-757-2259
Call, send an email. And make them understand that they can still do the right thing.
If all possible please attend the meeting:
At 10:30 a.m. on November 30, 2011
520 Lafayette Road, St. Paul, MN 55155.
Thanks.
