[digdugdirk]

It would be interesting, for sure. Unfortunately, decades of waterway infrastructure neglect would leave a massive gap between where things stand now, and where they would need to be in order to utilize waterway transportation outside of existing facilities. For example - it would enable higher volume transport of commodities (that are currently shipped by river) along rivers, but we don't really have any river-based shipping container ports in existence now. The expansion/creation/upgrades to existing facilities would take time and money, and as the article points out... The trucking industry has managed to externalize those infrastructure costs onto the taxpayer - why would a shipping company lay down that uncertain investment when they have to compete with an industry that doesn't have to do any of that?