Guide to Inland Distribution & Warehousing

Special Report

US logistics hub network gets federal funding boost

By Bill Mongelluzzo

The US federal government is investing more than $ 16 million in a public-private partnership to connect logistics hubs through a national multimodal network, helping to fund infrastructure development in hubs beginning near the Southern California ports.

The grants awarded by the US Department of Transportation( DOT) to the TradePort Corridor System will go toward infrastructure development at projects in the hubs. Three of the 36 planned for the network will connect with the Los Angeles-Long Beach port complex, beginning in Barstow, California, and extending to Wilmington, North Carolina, along the I-40 corridor.

TradePort Corridor System, created in 2023, brings together local and state governments, private investors, third-party logistics providers( 3PLs), warehouse operators and freight transportation providers in a network spanning the US. The DOT investment announced on July 22 represents a fraction of what will be predominantly private investment in what is likely to be a 10-year development program.

There’ s already $ 800 million committed to the network already, with the total network estimated to cost billions of dollars. The first three hubs are in Kingman and Winslow and Mohave County, Arizona; Bernalillo and Sandoval counties, the Village of Los Lunas and Albuquerque, New Mexico; and the Will Rogers International Airport and City of Oklahoma.

The federal investment is crucial because it signals to private sector investors, local and state governments and logistics operators that the projects are important to national policy, said Adam Wasserman, managing partner in GLDPartners / TradePort Development Corp.

“ It reinforces their confidence that these projects are real. It de-risks the projects; it gives them credibility,” Wasserman told the Journal of Commerce on the day after the announcement. The federal government has been a partner in planning the TradePort Corridor System for the past seven years, he said.

Taking shape

The I-40 corridor is the“ spine” of the network, and it will be connected to TradePort hubs featuring logistics, manufacturing, warehouse and distribution functions. When completed, the network will include land and in some case air freight distribution at inland ports such as Memphis, Chicago, metropolitan New York( eastern Pennsylvania) and Atlanta, Wasserman said.

Simultaneously with the physical infrastructure development, TradePort is developing a cargo data management technology platform that will notify transportation and service providers and 3PLs at each hub when shipments are scheduled to arrive, as well as related conditions such as when the loading dock is ready for operations, traffic conditions in the region, etc.

Three of TradePort’ s hubs will connect LA-Long Beach with Wilmington, NC, along I-40( pictured). Shutterstock. com

20 Journal of Commerce | September 7, 2026 www. joc. com