🎣 Chicago Takes the Crown

Happy Friday. Chicago stole Fort Lee's crown as America's worst truck bottleneck. In today's feature, we break down 2026's worst trucking bottlenecks in the nation.

Plus:

• Brokers Stream Back In
• Hormuz Chokepoint Spikes Rates
• LTL Grinds Through Another Tough Year

🍳 What's Cookin' In Freight

↗️ Rates Rise & Brokers Pile Back In. Truckload spot rates hit $2.01/mile in February, up from $1.65 in November; four straight months of gains. Contract volumes fell 22.1% YoY, meaning carriers aren’t moving more; they’re charging more. Meanwhile, 151 new broker MCs entered in March, according to data compiled by Brush Pass Research & Carrier Details, the biggest jump since October 2022. That's 151 new competitors entering a market that has shed 6,335 active broker MCs over the last 42 months. The spot-contract gap has narrowed to $0.11/mile, leaving less buffer. Rates are rising. Competition is too.

💸 The Hormuz Closure is Taxing Your Freight. Five weeks into Iran's closure of the Strait of Hormuz, following the U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran in late February, Far East–to–U.S. West Coast ocean spot rates are up 29% since late February, per Xeneta. European lanes are running even hotter at 30–31%. The closure has jammed Asian transshipment hubs, including Singapore, Port Klang, and Tanjung Pelepas. Fuel in Singapore is running at roughly double pre-crisis prices. Maersk is already pushing the Federal Maritime Commission to waive the 30-day waiting period for emergency fuel surcharges, meaning more pain is on the way.

🫠 LTL Had a Very Tough 2025. The latest Top 25 LTL rankings (by revenue) confirm a tough year: 16 of 25 carriers saw declines, marking the third straight year of contraction, points out Joe Sudar of Sudar Consulting. The top 10 held steady and still control 76% of the market, but growth was scarce outside of M&A-driven gains. Despite weaker demand, carriers expanded terminals, leaving 20–30% excess capacity across the network. The message: pricing held, but volume didn’t. Now the industry waits for a rebound.

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Top 100 Truck Bottlenecks 2026

The list is back, and we're taking a closer look at ATRI's Top 100 Truck Bottlenecks for 2026.

No surprise, the same pressure points are still clogging up freight flows across the U.S.

With a new but familiar location taking first place, what does it mean for your freight?

Chicago Takes the Crown

For the first time in ATRI's 15-year history tracking truck congestion, the interchange of I-294 and I-290/I-88 in Chicago has dethroned Fort Lee, New Jersey as the nation's worst freight bottleneck.

And unlike Fort Lee's gradual decline thanks to targeted infrastructure investment, Chicago's ascent signals something bigger: the Midwest's freight arteries are buckling under the weight of a market that hasn't built fast enough.

No surprise here:

• Chicago remains the most critical freight hub in the country
• Dense infrastructure + aging roads = constant friction
• Rail, intermodal, and truck traffic all collide in one place

The Usual Suspects Stick Around

Atlanta showing up four times in the top 10 alone tells you where southern freight is getting choked. Georgia highways locked down four of the top 10 spots.

Nashville, Cincinnati, and two Houston interchanges round out the list.

The $109 billion annual figure ATRI puts on congestion's supply chain impact is easy to dismiss as a macro number. But to put that into freight terms: congestion delays across these 100 locations are the equivalent of 436,000 drivers sitting idle for an entire year.

So what for brokers?

• First: Use the list. ATRI publishes the full Top 100 with lane-level congestion data. If you're running freight through Chicago, Atlanta, or Houston and not padding transit times, you're setting yourself up for misses.
• Second: Capacity isn’t just about trucks; it’s about usable hours. Congestion already eats into driver productivity, and policy shifts like CDL crackdowns can further tighten the effective supply. It’s not a shortage of drivers, but it’s a constraint on how much freight they can realistically move.
• Third: There’s a win buried in the data. Chicago’s Jane Byrne Interchange — once the worst bottleneck in the country — is no longer in the top 25 after major investment. Proof that infrastructure fixes work. With federal funding debates ahead, that’s a message the industry should be reinforcing.

For now, though, Chicago has the crown. Plan your freight accordingly.

Presented by GoodShip

Market insights 🤝 real-world perspective. Join GoodShip on April 8 for a live Freight Market Update hosted by Nick Boston, featuring Chris Pickett (CCO, Flock Freight) and Marisa Dempsey (Schreiber Foods).

We’ll break down what’s happening across the freight market and how transportation teams are responding in real time.

You’ll walk away with a clearer view of:

• Key market signals
• Truckload rate trends
• Macroeconomic forces shaping what’s next

Plus, see how leading transportation teams are moving faster and driving better outcomes with the right partners at the table.

 🌎 Around the Freight Web

⚖️ Non-Dom Rule Challenge. Attorneys are pushing the D.C. Circuit to fast-track a challenge to FMCSA's non-domiciled CDL rule. The rule hit in March, with 8,000 CDLs going dark every month it stands.

🛠️ Tariff Shift Targets Finished Goods. A proposed rewrite would keep 50% tariffs on raw metals but apply duties to the full value of finished goods, raising costs across U.S.–Mexico supply chains.

🚫 Not Allowed to Hire Women? The EEOC just sued Warren, MI-based Central Transport, alleging the company turned away qualified female drivers nationwide from 2016 to present.

⛽ House Bill Targets EPA Diesel Emissions Mandates. House Republicans introduce the Diesel Truck Liberation Act, aiming to block EPA enforcement on emissions tampering and protect truckers modifying their own equipment.

🏗️ CEVA Just Got a Lot Heavier. CEVA Logistics closed its acquisition of Italian heavy-haul firm Fagioli, adding 450 employees and world-record-level lifting capacity to its project logistics network.

🎣 The FreightCaviar Corner

Issue 002 of FreightCaviar Print is almost here.

80 pages on the history of Freight Alley.

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Freight Humor

Freight Conferences We Are Attending

• Transportation Intermediaries Association: Capital Ideas in Phoenix, AZ. April 15th through the 18th.
• Broker-Carrier Summit in Kansas City April 27th and the 28th.
• Registration for Manifest: The Future of Supply Chain & Logistics 2027 is now open! Join 7500+ supply chain and logistics leaders, innovators, and investors for 3 days of unmatched networking and learning at a special rate of just $1495 - that's $1400 off the retail price! Don't wait, register before prices increase: ManifestVegas.com/FreightCaviar