(C) Daily Montanan This story was originally published by Daily Montanan and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . State pushes forward on 2026 Freight Plan [1] ['Jordan Hansen', 'More From Author', 'October', '.Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus-Coauthors.Is-Layout-Flow', 'Class', 'Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus', 'Display Inline', '.Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus-Avatar', 'Where Img', 'Height Auto Max-Width'] Date: 2025-10-03 The Montana Department of Transportation is beginning a federally-mandated process of updating its freight plan, a report that includes transportation statistics and looks at shipping problem areas. It’s a good resource for understanding the goals and strategies the state has in place to address freight issues, said Heather Kuklo, a planner with MDT who works on the report. “It outlines general trends in goods movements and how those goods are moved at the state level,” Kuklo wrote. “It allows an opportunity to formally engage with external freight stakeholders to hear about concerns and challenges that they may face, or on the other side, what they think works well.” The 2026 Freight Plan will update the 2022 plan to comply with federal regulations — it also opens up the state to more federal funding through the National Highway Freight Program. Montana was projected to receive more than $15 million through that program in fiscal year 2025, according to the Federal Highway Administration. Projects eligible for that funding include construction and operational improvements on interstate highways running through Montana. Trucks, trains and pipelines move nearly all the freight in Montana, with air freight adding a small percentage by volume. By weight, the state’s biggest export is coal, and the most lucrative is “basic chemicals,” according to the 2022 report. State exports were valued at $1.8 billion in 2017. Montana has nearly 75,000 miles of roads, with about 13,000 of that maintained by the state. Additionally, the state has about 3,000 miles of rail, nearly all of which is owned by Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway. Freight moved by air is also covered in the report, with major intermodal facilities in Great Falls, Billings, Missoula and Bozeman. Most freight in Montana, though, is shipped by trucks. “Everything touches a truck at one point or another, whether it’s your groceries, whether it’s a parking lot getting paved, whatever, it all touches a truck,” said Duane Williams, CEO of the Montana Trucking Association. “And so they’re the backbone of our industry.” According to the trucking association, there are 8,240 trucking companies located in Montana, and in-state wages topped $1.4 billion in 2023. In fact, according to the advocacy group, 1 in 17 jobs in Montana is a trucking job. Daily, trucks transport more than 31,000 tons of goods and materials in the state. Safety is a major organizational concern, and the truckers association is addressing that issue several ways. The trucking association has a program, Share the Road, where they set up a semi-truck at high schools and give students the perspective of a truck driver. “When the students get up in the truck, they see what a driver can’t see,” Williams said. “And it’s all the blind spots.” The freight plan is one way industry safety concerns get addressed, he added. “It kind of helps identify places on the interstate system that may help improve freight. But through the discussions, there’s quite a few things that can help with safety, and so we do talk about quite a few of those,” Williams said. “The more we can educate folks on being safe around trucks, the better off it’ll be.” Last session the organization supported legislation around roundabouts, brought by Sen. Theresa Manzella, R-Hamilton. Senate Bill 433 makes it legal for towing vehicles to deviate from their lane while moving through a multi-lane roundabout. Roundabouts can pose an issue of safety for trucks, and the bill tried to address crowding that can happen around a vehicle moving through a traffic circle. Williams said the public needs to become aware of this new law. “That’s the way (those roundabouts) are designed, but it was never really in law,” Williams said. “You have a truck going through there, they need to take up both lanes. But now the law is, yes, the truck has a right of way in there.” A draft freight plan is expected to be available to the public in late summer or early fall of next year, according to the state. The process is currently in an information gathering phase, with drafting expected to begin late this year or early 2026. Goals for the plan include safety, reliability, resiliency and environmental stewardship according to a kickoff presentation for the freight plan. Other concerns expected to be addressed include outdated bridges, reliability, crashes, driver qualifications, regulatory challenges, autonomous vehicles and artificial intelligence among other topics. [END] --- [1] Url: https://dailymontanan.com/2025/10/03/state-pushes-forward-on-2026-freight-plan/ Published and (C) by Daily Montanan Content appears here under this condition or license: Creative Commons CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/montanan/