Description
Freight transportation plays a critical role in supporting economic activity and everyday consumption across metropolitan regions, but growing freight demand continues to increase congestion, infrastructure strain, greenhouse gas emissions, air pollution, and safety risks. These impacts often disproportionately affect low-income and environmentally burdened communities. This report examines how metropolitan regions across the United States are planning for sustainable freight transportation through content analysis of freight and goods movement plans and interviews with freight planning professionals. The study analyzes plans from eight major metropolitan regions to identify common freight planning strategies, implementation approaches, opportunities, and barriers related to sustainability, resilience, and equity. The findings show that metropolitan planning organizations increasingly prioritize multimodal connectivity, freight corridor planning, congestion reduction, and economic competitiveness, while more recent actions demonstrate growing attention to climate resilience and zero-emission technologies. However, equity and environmental justice considerations often remain underdeveloped, and practitioners continue to face major barriers related to freight data, funding, and institutional coordination. The report argues that sustainable freight planning requires a more integrated approach that balances economic vitality with climate resilience, public health, safety, and equity objectives. By synthesizing lessons from diverse metropolitan regions, this research provides practical insights to help local and regional agencies strengthen freight planning, improve system performance, and reduce environmental impacts while supporting long-term resilience.
Publication Date
7-2026
Publication Type
Report
Topic
Planning and Policy, Sustainable Transportation and Land Use
Digital Object Identifier
10.31979/mti.2026.2419
MTI Project
2419
Mineta Transportation Institute URL
https://transweb.sjsu.edu/research/2419-Sustainable-Goods-Movement-Freight-System
Keywords
High Speed Rail, Rail transit, Planning, Political science, Social science
Disciplines
Public Policy | Transportation | Urban Studies
Recommended Citation
Serena E. Alexander and Avante Grady. "Routes to Sustainable Goods Movement: How Local and Regional Governmental Agencies Can Plan for the Sustainable Freight System of the Future" Mineta Transportation Institute (2026). https://doi.org/10.31979/mti.2026.2419
Research Brief
Included in
Public Policy Commons, Transportation Commons, Urban Studies Commons
