|
PORT OF TACOMA ZOOMS
Stephen H.
Dunphy, in the Seattle Times - The newsletter - reports: Container volumes at
the Port of Tacoma are up 28 percent through May compared with the same period
in 2003 - more than double the average growth at other West Coast ports. The
Port of Seattle earlier reported a 16 percent increase in container traffic
through April this year.
Puget Sound may
be benefiting from last October's port closures. Shippers and steamship lines
are further diversifying their ports of entry after coping with congestion after
the ports reopened, said Doug Lungren, the Port of Tacoma’s business-planning
manager.
Tacoma is on
pace for a record year with port volume of 1.6 million TEU’s. – or
Twenty-foot Equivalent units, the standard industry measure - expected this
year, a 9 percent increase over 2002."
It might be
thought Tacoma longshoremen are working at neck break speed to handle that
volume of containers But the increased volume at Tacoma is not a result of super
productivity. It results from their having vast amounts of space for storage and
handling of containers. If Tacoma runs out of container space, their increases
will inevitably diminish as may happen in the Port of Seattle. Anyway, it is
predicted that Pacific Rim trade will double by 2020. Container space will then
be a serious problem for all West Coast ports.
We should be careful
about recent moves by developers to take over the Seattle waterfront for
commercial development. Recent efforts were made to cancel Hanjin's lease at
Pier 46. The only reason it failed was because Hanjin refused. We should be wary
of becoming another San Francisco port which lost its waterfront overseas trade
to developers.
|
