Join the discussion on the following article:
West Coast ports shut down again
Its time to reroute.
I would say it is already happening. However, it won’t happen on the scale that really hurts West Coast ports until the new canal locks open in 2016 and East/Gulf Coast add their capacity (think Miami & Savannah deepening, Port of Houston’s bayport expansion and so on). In the meantime, I don’t think anyone will be surprised when the next big expansion project(s) are announced in Vancouver and South of the Border.
.
You can also make an argument that Pacific Maritime Association finally woke up to what is happening in shipping and decided that a do or die position is better now than a do or die position when other port capacity projects come on line and or that big containership can be rerouted through the canal. The one issue that the longshoremen are right on is the trucker/chasis issue and lack of on port rail capacity is coming back to bite the ports hard. That is problem of their own making not labor. When your port business model depends on paying a crane op big time dollars to put a box on the chasis but a contract truck driver getting pittance to drive through city streets or a congested highway for distribution or to get the box on a railcar than you have a serious problem.