Freight
View the Plan Here
The Colorado Department of Transportation is developing the state’s first comprehensive Multimodal Freight Plan to better understand the complex systems and networks that Colorado businesses and consumers rely on. This plan is required under the Fixing America’s Surface Transportation Act in order for Colorado to invest its share of apportioned federal freight funds.
Colorado’s Multimodal Freight Plan will:
- Define a vision and goals for the freight transportation system;
- Illustrate and analyze freight’s role in Colorado’s economy;
- Assess current conditions and identify needs and issues;
- Examine future trends and scenarios and their impact on goods movement in Colorado;
- Prioritize potential projects and create a short-term Freight Investment Plan;
- Identify short and long-term strategies to ensure freight concerns are considered in future funding decisions and planning efforts; and
- Develop performance measures that will monitor system conditions and an implementation plan to help keep Colorado moving.
Colorado’s freight system has a significant impact on our state economy.
- 1 in 6 jobs in the Colorado economy rely on safe, efficient, and reliable freight transportation.
- 1 export-oriented manufacturing job supports 3 other jobs in Colorado.
- $155.8 billion or 1/3 of Colorado's economy is generated by freight and freight-reliant industries.
- Colorado businesses produce $7.98 billion in manufactured international exports and $1.7 billion in agricultural exports.
- Transportation ranks as the 2nd most important factor in business location decisions.
In July 2015, CDOT finalized the Colorado State Highway Freight Plan, which was subsequently approved for MAP-21 compliance by FHWA. The Multimodal Freight Plan will be an update to the existing State Highway Freight Plan in order to consider all of Colorado's transportation infrastructure - truck, rail, and air cargo. Please note that the update to the Colorado's Multimodal Freight Plan is being developed concurrently with the State Freight and Passenger Rail Plan.