Panama Canal delays give local ports time to work on strategies

[unhappycamper]

http://www.thenewstribune.com/2014/01/19/3001390/panama-canal-delays-give-local.html

Panama Canal delays give local ports time to work on strategies
January 19, 2014

The Panama Canal’s expansion to accommodate larger ships has been a brick-loaded safe suspended by a fraying thread over Puget Sound regional ports, threatening to flatten whatever growth prospects Tacoma or Seattle might believe they have.

It’s also been a handy cudgel for reinforcing arguments about what to do with or for the local ports once the widening project is complete. Depending on what side you’re on, the canal’s ability to accommodate larger ships is an argument for more investment in the ports of Tacoma and Seattle to keep them competitive with East Coast ports, or else an argument to give up and stop pouring money into them, since ships won’t be calling here when they can sail directly to Atlantic and Gulf destinations.

Those arguments spill over into other regional issues. For example: Want to keep the two big container ports competitive? Then we need to extend state Routes 167 and 509 to Interstate 5 so the ports can move truck traffic in and out more efficiently. Want to keep freight trains hauling containers to the rest of the country moving? Then why would you want to further clog already congested rail lines with trains hauling coal and oil to export terminals?

The Panama Canal threat has some deficiencies. Advocates of the regional ports say the West Coast still is the best entry point to deliver freight to the Upper Midwest and the best exit point to ship many goods to Asia, so the threat is overblown. They also note the amount of investment, including dredging projects, that will be required at some of the ports hoping to land those larger ships. Critics of the ports maintain there’s a threat all right, but it comes from the north, not the south, in the form of British columbia’s Vancouver or Prince Rupert, with lower costs and better rail connections. Others cite competition from West Coast ports including Los Angeles/Long Beach and Oakland, Calif., and maybe from Mexico as well.