MEDFORD

PROVIDENCE’S waterfront stands at a crossroads. Too often, we have to choose between jobs and open markets, or between jobs and the environment. Domestic maritime freight, known as short sea shipping, is ready to expand, particularly between New York and Boston. This change will ease highway congestion, shrink the region’s greenhouse-gas emissions and create jobs. Providence should reject proposed changes to the industrial zone, and keep private residences a safe distance from the port. Providence needs a working waterfront to become a leader in U.S. short sea shipping.

Freight growth threatens to choke our highways. Federal projections indicate that most sections of the interstate between Washington, D.C., and Boston will carry more than 20,000 trucks per day by 2035, which would cause hours of daily delays with current infrastructure. Just maintaining the national road system as it exists costs $75 billion a year. The cost to fix the all bridges as bad as the Minnesota bridge that collapsed last year, or worse? Nearly $200 billion.

Expanding the highway system would take hundreds of billions of dollars, at a time when state and federal governments are groaning under unprecedented debt. It is beyond dispute that, even today, billions of dollars’ worth of time and fuel are wasted when commuters, truckers and freight sit idle in traffic. Businesses pay for late deliveries, padded schedules and idle engines. Engines idling in traffic release vast quantities of pollutants.

Short sea shipping offers a durable way to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions. Ships are more carbon-efficient than the hundreds of trucks they replace. The latest maritime technology can reduce air pollution by 85-97 percent. The newest ships run on natural gas and fuel cells, a far cry from the bunker fuel of 50 years ago. America has some of the strongest maritime-pollution laws in the world, and soon all domestic freight will, at a minimum, run on ultra low-sulfur diesel fuel. Corporations with a serious commitment to the environment are already getting in line to have their cargo on ships as soon as service is available.

New ships don’t require cranes or special containers to take cargo up and down the coast. Truckers simply park trailers at the dock, where they are driven onto ships, and then back onto the highway at another port. Truckers make short-haul routes to and from the ports, meaning they can spend time with their families at night instead of sleeping in their cabs at rest stops. Providence could win those trucking jobs as early as two years from now, provided there is space enough to park the freight, and an industrial port where dock hands can work at first light.

Shifting truck traffic onto the water saves time and money for ordinary taxpayers and commuters. Because trucks are larger than cars, trucks cause more highway congestion, cause roads to wear out faster, and cause much more serious highway accidents. Once state and federal governments find the money to improve the highway system, commuters deserve to enjoy the full value of that investment.

Providence has a deep-water harbor with industrially zoned waterfront. The industrial zones with deep water berths are huge public assets. The existing infrastructure represents millions of dollars’ worth of sunk investment in capital equipment, harbor maintenance and environmental studies and permits. Though the port keeps a low profile in city politics, it punches above its weight in the New England economy. This winter, for example, with road salt scarce, trucks have come from as far as Montreal to buy from Providence port’s stockpile.

Providence’s long history of maritime industry creates synergies for short sea shipping. The port offers ship repair, a fuel terminal, a supply of skilled maritime labor, and enough land to park hundreds of trailers by the docks. Providence has excellent rail and road access to eastern Massachusetts, including both Worcester and Cape Cod. Providence offers truckers the chance to leapfrog around congestion in New York and Boston.

Private real-estate developers are looking for an outsize windfall: waterfront property for luxury condominiums in the heart of the city’s industrial zone, and at fire-sale prices. Make no mistake, enormous real-estate empires have been built during downturns. But with recession, housing prices falling, and 750 empty houses in Providence, do condominium developers need a windfall at public expense?

A decision to re-zone the industrial waterfront would force tractor trailers to compete for space on the highways with commuters. It would turn local truckers’ jobs into NAFTA jobs, and scuttle the port’s plans for growth. Instead, Providence should leverage its maritime resources and make Providence the first port of call for short sea shipping.

Ben Mazzotta is a doctoral candidate in the Maritime Studies Program at Tufts University’s Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy.