Page 18: of Marine News Magazine (November 2026)

17 19

Insider Insights

WCI

Looking Beyond the Bene? t-to-Cost Ratio:

Why America’s Inland Waterways

Deserve a Broader Measure of Value

By Jen Armstrong, Waterways Council, Inc. Vice President, Government Relations

Every year, the President’s budget proposes investments

What is a Bene? t-to-Cost Ratio?

in infrastructure projects across the country. For naviga-

The Corps calculates a BCR by comparing the expected tion projects on America’s inland waterways, one of the economic bene? ts of a project to the cost of construct- most important factors in? uencing whether a lock and ing it. For inland navigation projects, the quanti? ed ben- dam modernization project advances in the annual budget e? ts are limited to cost savings- an estimate of how much process is its bene? t-to-cost ratio (BCR). money shippers will save by moving freight by barge versus

On its surface, the concept sounds simple and sensible. another mode of transportation like truck or rail which

A project’s bene? ts should exceed its costs. The higher the automatically assumes there is capacity to accommodate ratio, the stronger the justi? cation for federal investment. the volumes currently transported by barge.

But when it comes to inland waterways infrastructure,

The inland waterways system moves hundreds of mil- the formula used by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers lions of tons of cargo annually, including grain, fertil- captures only a fraction of the value these projects pro- izer, coal, petroleum products, aggregates, chemicals, and vide to the Nation. As a result, some projects that are other bulk commodities. Even small improvements in ef- critically important to the economy, national security, ? ciency can generate signi? cant economic bene? ts. The and energy supply may appear less bene? cial on paper problem is not what the BCR measures; the problem is than they truly are in practice. what it does not measure. © Randy Runtsch/AdobeStock 18 | MN November 2026