Scott tells DOT to spend $77M on Miami port project

[tufsu1]

Here are the articles Lake referenced above

http://www2.tbo.com/content/2011/mar/11/111840/scott-delays-sunrail-contracts-until-at-least-july/news-politics/

http://www2.tbo.com/content/2011/mar/11/112022/feds-to-give-away-24-billion-in-rail-funds-that-fl/news-politics/

Ock...don't get your hopes up....even if the cities/Amtrak get the money, this thing will not use CSX tracks west of Lakeland....and the reality is using CSX tracks east of Lakeland means opening up all the environmental studies again...which means delays...USDOT liked the Florida project because it had all approvals and could be built relatively quickly.

[Ocklawaha]

Here are the articles Lake referenced above

http://www2.tbo.com/content/2011/mar/11/111840/scott-delays-sunrail-contracts-until-at-least-july/news-politics/

http://www2.tbo.com/content/2011/mar/11/112022/feds-to-give-away-24-billion-in-rail-funds-that-fl/news-politics/

Ock...don't get your hopes up....even if the cities/Amtrak get the money, this thing will not use CSX tracks west of Lakeland....and the reality is using CSX tracks east of Lakeland means opening up all the environmental studies again...which means delays...USDOT liked the Florida project because it had all approvals and could be built relatively quickly.

Better to open up environmental studies and set the date back some more then build a railroad that crashes.

OCKLAWAHA

[thelakelander]

They should just do us all a favor and send that money right over to Fresno and Bakersfield.

[mtraininjax]

Better to open up environmental studies and set the date back some more then build a railroad that crashes.

+1

Measure twice, cut once.

[Jdog]

Orlando Sentinel article, pretty interesting: 

________________________________________________


Hours after rejecting Florida's high-speed train, Gov. Rick Scott declared the state would spend $77 million on dredging the Port of Miami â€" a project he said would create 30,000 permanent jobs.

But some experts contend digging out the Miami channel will not boost employment by anywhere near that number, much less ensure more shipping to the port.

Among those expressing doubts are Robert Poole. a Libertarian researcher whose criticism of high-speed rail was instrumental in Scott's decision to kill the $2.7 billion project.

"That strikes me as a very big number," Poole said of the Miami jobs projection. "I don't have any idea where they came from."

Scott said he supports dredging because the Panama Canal is being widened to enable much larger cargo ships to pass through its locks by 2014. That, in turn, will allow the massive ships access to the Gulf of Mexico and the East Coast.

The four major ports in Florida are too shallow to accommodate such freighters, and only Miami has all the permits necessary to begin the work and be ready within three years.

"This is a solid first step toward enhancing Florida's infrastructure and getting our state ready for a new generation of international trade with South America and beyond," Scott said in a statement.

The employment projection, Scott spokesman Brian Burgess said, comes from a study by the Florida Chamber Foundation in December.

The 48-page report looks for ways to improve Florida's economy. It predicted 32,000 jobs could be created and supported annually if the state takes on and completes a number of major steps, including deepening Miami's port from 43 feet to 50 feet. Among the other changes would be:

Capturing an undetermined "larger share" of the port business of unloading imported goods from Asia.

Expanding Florida's overall exports by filling empty import containers with goods from the state, which in turn could attract advanced manufacturing and other related export industries.

The state emerging "as a global hub for trade and investment."

It offered no timetable for when all the new jobs would be created.

Poole and others also say that improving Miami's port does not necessarily mean more ships â€" especially the larger ones â€" will gravitate there. Other major investments are needed, they said.

"The big ships don't change the size of the market," said Tampa Port Director Richard Wainio.

Right now, goods delivered to the Miami port largely supply South Florida. To grab a bigger share of the shipping business, Miami would have to increase its local demand, or move the goods farther north or south, experts say.

That may not happen for at least two reasons, said Wainio and Mark Vitner, a top economist who studies Florida for Wells Fargo Securities.

It's cheaper to keep the goods on the ship, Vitner said, and head north to other ports that have better access to the Southeast, such as Norfolk, Va. â€" where the port already is deep enough â€" Savannah, Ga., or Jacksonville, both of which are too shallow for mega-ships and do not have the permits ready like Miami. Goods for southern trade could continue being offloaded at Caribbean ports.

More problematic for Miami, Poole said, is its road and rail network. There is no major rail spur in the Miami port and the roads already are clogged with traffic, he said. Expanding the roads may well be too expensive, Poole said.

In 2007, Poole wrote a paper suggesting the construction of a toll road leading to and from the port that would be mostly for trucks. That could cost $1 billion or more, likely making the tolls too high for truckers to afford on a regular basis, he said.

The state already is spending $1 billion building twin tunnels linking the MacArthur Causeway east of downtown Miami with the port. They would get the trucks out of downtown, but still place them on already crowded highways such as Interstate 95.

Without additional major rail and road improvements, Poole and Vitner said, it is unlikely ships would deliver goods in Miami slated for Central and North Florida, much less the Southeast.

"It's a logistic chain, of which the ship is one link in the chain," Wainio said.

Burgess, the governor's spokesman, said the state is aware that more needs to be done and is looking at ways to improve the transportation of goods and cargo.

"The governor is confident that the Port of Miami project is an effective way to position Florida as a global economic hub in the coming years," he said.

dltracy@tribune.com or 407-420-5444.


http://www.orlandosentinel.com/business/os-port-miami-dredging-20110316,0,6277751.story

[thelakelander]

Poole must have overlooked the latest Tiger grant round.  Miami won a grant to bring rail back to their port.  Nevertheless, I tend to agree with the general idea that a deeper channel doesn't automatically mean more jobs and shipping.

[Kay]

Here's an opinion piece from today's T-U from a former Port exec who questions pumping money into dredging for Jax Port as well.    http://jacksonville.com/opinion/letters-readers/2011-03-16/story/guest-column-lets-slow-down-rush-raise-taxes-jaxport

[fieldafm]

More problematic for Miami, Poole said, is its road and rail network. There is no major rail spur in the Miami port and the roads already are clogged with traffic, he said. Expanding the roads may well be too expensive, Poole said

Jacksonville's big advantage over Miami is its current muli-modal links to the Midwest.

A container off loaded in Savannah, will more than likely travel through Jacksonville by road.  This is why it is critical to capture that container offload in Jacksonville's port so that Jacksonville can fully benefit from the Post-Panamax boon.

[fieldafm]

He makes some good points:

it should have been maintaining and upgrading its facilities over the years.

or done the smart thing: privatize the entire port operation, including maintenance.

There are carriers(shipping and rail) that want to call on JaxPort who have been shut out of the process b/c of existing relationships with Crowley(who doesn't invest in Jacksonville whatsoever, which is the exact opposite in Oakland/LA) and CSX(ditto).  Privatizing is not a bad option.  Especially since JaxPort has essentially no dedicated business development team. 

Also, exploring a short shipping agreement with Savannah should also be explored.

And the city has done no favors to the port over the years.  While Talleyrand was falling into the water in the late 70's(and STILL is today) the city in its infinate wisdom decided to stop giving money to JaxPort.  The repercussions of that decision(and continued lack of maintenance) still wants our facilities to this day.

But he is wrong about this:

JaxPort does not, and never will, generate outbound cargo that needs an expensive deeper channel, and I seriously doubt that super ships would call at Jacksonville in lieu of going to ports that are nearer to most final cargo destinations

That's simply not true.

I tend to agree that I am VERY leary of a sales tax extension to fund port expansion... very leary.

But to say that Jacksonville isn't UNIQUELY positioned to benefit from post-Panamax container traffic is exactly the kind of short-sighted thinking this city has demonstrated for decades.  This is a once in a lifetime opportunity for our community.  We've had a ditch out there for centuries that has been profitable and all we've done is ignored it... it's past time to make a decision if we are truly a port city and get in the business of actually ACTING like a port city.

I will echo, again until I'm blue in the face, that it is critical our new mayor appoints a funding specialist in the mayor's office solely dedicated to securing port money.

[yapp1850]

with all the talk about ports what about tampa port, tampa is the closest to mexico and Panama Canal and we have freight track to the port and we are building a new truck route.

[Dog Walker]

It's still cheaper to keep it on the ships and ship it further north, closer to rail hubs and major metropolitan areas.

Rail and truck cannot compete with ships when it comes to moving tons efficiently.  Lets continue to be a specialty port at our present size.  Everything is not going to be shipped by post-panamax ships.

We need to look to South America, the Caribbean and Europe for our freight, not just Asia.

[mtraininjax]

with all the talk about ports what about tampa port, tampa is the closest to mexico and Panama Canal and we have freight track to the port and we are building a new truck route.

Go look up the Tampa ports and their estimated expenses for Post-Panamax, its closer to 750 million, compared to Jacksonville at 600 million. Plus Jax has better rail and interstate systems. Jax is a no-brainer after Miami.

[simms3]

Here are two reasons why Miami is at a hugggeeee disadvantage and should not be made a priority East Coast seaport:

1) Goods are trucked generally distances of 6 hours driving time or less.  Miami is too far south in Florida to serve any major markets by the cheap/easy trucking industry.  It takes 1-2 hours for a truck just to leave Miami's metro and another 5-6 hours to reach the state line without any incidents.

2) That leaves rail as Miami's only option.  Unfortunately for Miami, it suffers from some of the heaviest rail congestion in the country and in logistics every second counts.

Throwing dollars at Miami before speeding up the process to be able to throw dollars at Jacksonville is shortsighted.  In today's limited budgets, it probably would have actually been more prudent to speed up the Army Corps study here, the environmental impact study here, and to push for funds here first.  Miami may be able to fit larger ships than us, but it has no room to actually expand and build more terminals.  We do.

[thelakelander]

Miami's new cranes just came in...

The post-Panamax era in Florida came one step closer to reality in October, when four 25-story-tall cranes arrived at PortMiami after a nearly three-month journey from Shanghai.

http://www.floridatrend.com/article/16565/portmiami-post-panamaxed

[Lunican]

That's crazy that they crossed the ocean like that.