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New Jersey plans to close bathrooms at two more highway rest stops due to budget cutbacks this year, a move that has renewed calls to allow states to lease rest areas to private truck stop operators.

Trucking has a seat on a newly-created transition team that is supposed to set the future course of the Illinois Tollway but higher tolls are not in trucking’s future, the industry representative said.

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration released the 2010 fees for the Unified Carrier Registration program Monday, more than doubling the levy across the board but setting it slightly lower than the agency had proposed last year.

CINCINNATI — Concern about driver safety compliance is pushing the purchase of new technology to help fleet managers to see and respond to data on driver performance, manufacturers of the equipment said.

The good news continued to pour in last week, as a string of trucking-related companies reported improving bottom-line results during the year’s first quarter.

The economic recovery and understanding how of government regulations will affect business will be key themes of the National Tank Truck Carriers’ annual conference, scheduled for May 10-12 in Chicago. 

CINCINNATI — A strengthening freight market is leading to higher freight rates, and more loads are going unclaimed, attendees at the National Private Truck Council’s annual management conference said. 

The future of the new, publicly owned bridge at Windsor-Detroit rests with the Michigan Legislature. By June 1, we will know whether the Detroit River International Crossing — or the Gordie Howe Bridge as I call it — will be built, or whether it will be shelved and, perhaps never constructed, or at least not in the lifetime of most of us. 

Forward Air Corp. reported a first-quarter profit of $3.4 million, or 12 cents per share, compared with a loss of $3.1 million, or 11 cents, a year ago.

Backers of a proposed new bridge between Detroit and Windsor, Ontario, are pressing Michigan state legislators to act on measures that could move the project into the design and construction phase as early as this year.