Rural Transportation Website Now Available on Internet
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Contact |
BTS 10-00
Carole Zok
DOT
202-366-5694
Susan McEvoy
USDA
202-720-4623
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Monday, July 24, 2000 -- The U.S. Department of Transportation and the U.S. Department
of Agriculture today announced the launching of a joint
Internet website, Rural and Agricultural Transportation: Data and
Information Resources, http://www.bts.gov/ntl/ruraltransport, providing direct access through
more than 600 links to agricultural and rural transportation
information and data.
"This joint effort is part of President Clintons
1998 action plan to strengthen rural communities for the 21st
century through improved transportation," said U.S.
Transportation Secretary Rodney E. Slater. "Rural
transportation planners and other rural citizens throughout the
nation can use the website to tap a vast reservoir of information
to enable rural areas and small communities to share fully in the
economic and social benefits which the transportation system can
provide.
"Agriculture is a major user of freight transportation
services in the country," said U.S. Agriculture Secretary
Dan Glickman. "This website provides producers and shippers
of agricultural products easy access to USDAs up-to-date
information on freight rates for grain and other commodities, the
result of agricultural transportation research studies, the
logistical challenges presented by biotechnology and the
increasing demand for identity-preservation, and export
information necessary to keep our farmers globally
competitive."
The website provides links to information about freight,
passenger travel and tourism, safety, economic and community
development, the environment, energy usage, rural air service,
intelligent transportation systems and transportation on public
and tribal lands.
Visitors to the new website can access major bibliographic
databases on transportation and agriculture. The National
Transportation Library, and TRIS (Transportation Research
Information Services) Online provide more than 450,000 records,
technical reports, journals, and notices of research in progress
in transportation. Agricola (Agricultural OnLine Access) and its
companion database CRIS (Current Research Information System)
provide similarly extensive coverage of agricultural literature
and research.
The website project resulted from President Clintons
July 1998 announcement of a Strengthening Rural America
initiative, which called for a long-term agricultural
transportation strategy implemented through the USDA and the DOT.
At the USDAs Agricultural Transportation Summit in Kansas
City in 1998, Secretary Slater and Secretary Glickman signed a
Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) forming the USDA-USDOT Rural
Transportation Task Force to work on issues concerning rural
mobility and transportation services. The task force created Rural
and Agricultural Transportation: Data and Information Resources,
the new website.
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