The U.S. Maritime Administration is accepting applications until Sept. 30, 2016 for future marine highway projects.
“Eligible projects should establish new or enhance existing marine highway services that reduce land-side congestion and increase the use of domestic marine transportation,” said MarAd, but do not have to parallel land-side routes,
MarAd noted that’s a change since it last called for marine highway proposals back in 2010.
Previously, the program only included waterways that paralleled land-side transportation
routes, and thus, excluded routes between the mainland and
non-contiguous ports. The expanded scope comes from Section 405 of the 2012 Coast Guard and Marine Transportation Act and MarAd said projects between all U.S. ports, including
U.S. ports with no contiguous land-side connection, as well as between
U.S. ports and ports in Canada located in the Great Lakes Saint Lawrence
Seaway System will be considered.
Additional information can be found here.