Maryland Is Committed to the Port of Baltimore
Date: December 14, 2021
As President Joe Biden returns to Baltimore Wednesday, to visit the Port of Baltimore and discuss his infrastructure bill, he should know that the state is committed to the growth of the port. Recent projects include the arrival of four new massive cranes; the addition of a second, 50-foot berth at Baltimore’s Seagirt Marine Terminal; and the beginning in earnest of the long-awaited increase in height of the Howard Street Tunnel (HST) to accept double-stacked rail cars.
The new cranes and deeper berth can accommodate the largest ships that can transit the recently widened Panama Canal, the so-called Neo-Panamax ships. These improvements mean the Port of Baltimore is ready in the short-term to alleviate the effects of COVID’s widespread disruption of the entire intermodal supply chain. They also mean that Baltimore is ready to substantially grow its share of containership calls on a long-term basis.
The Port of Baltimore is one of the primary economic engines for Maryland. It currently accounts for about 15,300 direct jobs and an estimated 140,000 indirect jobs. It is among the top U.S. ports for volume of roll on/roll off cargo, including trucks, light autos, and heavy farm and construction equipment. Baltimore ranks 11th compared to major U.S. ports for foreign cargo handled and 10th for total foreign cargo value. The continued growth of the Port of Baltimore is a must for Maryland.
Attempts to alleviate delays at ports around the country have met with limited success. The Biden administration’s push to move to 24/7 operations at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach have stalled. But, in contrast to the delays plaguing many ports around the country, the Port of Baltimore is open for business, running smoothly and ready to handle more ships now. Baltimore boasts a 50-foot channel and berths making it one of the few East Coast ports capable of working the world’s largest container ships.
Baltimore has existing strong port infrastructure, including large cargo crane capacity, and local warehouse, distribution and sorting facilities. There is less congestion here, compared to New York and New Jersey, and Baltimore is closest to the Midwest as compared to Norfolk, Savannah or Miami. These traits make it an ideal place for ships to call to avoid the bottlenecks faced at other ports on the East and West coasts. As a result, Baltimore is uniquely positioned among other ports to accommodate growth in cargo capacity in the near-term which will ease pressure and delays in the intermodal supply chain.
Importantly, September of this year saw the arrival at the Port of Baltimore of four new cranes. As announced in a recent press release from the Maryland Port Administration, the cranes are part of a “significant expansion” at a time when import and export demand for container cargo has substantially increased and port congestion is at an “all-time high.” Once the cranes are operational, expected by January, Baltimore will be able to work simultaneously two of the world’s largest containerships.
The last hurdle to Baltimore’s ability to substantially grow its share of the Asian cargoes has been the inability to accommodate uninterrupted double-stacked rail service. The practice of double stacking rail cars began in the 1980s to increase efficiency. Today, nearly 75% of intermodal shipments use double-stacking. At present, however, it is not possible to assemble double-stacked train sets at the Port of Baltimore because of height limitations in the Howard Street Tunnel. Instead, the containers must be trucked from the port to other locations to avoid the HST.
Overcoming that hurdle has been a singular focus for the Hogan administration, which secured a federal grant in 2019 through the Infrastructure for Rebuilding of America program. The grant proved pivotal, and stakeholders came up with the remaining funding necessary to alleviate the current height restrictions of the HST. The HST project will permit uninterrupted double-stacking at the Port of Baltimore and eliminate the bottleneck that has long impeded the growth of intermodal calls here. The increased height will accommodate double-stacked rail cars. Construction is anticipated to begin later this year and to be complete by late 2024 or early 2025. Once the HST project is complete, 10,000 train sets with double-stacked rail cars can be assembled at Baltimore’s Intermodal Container Transfer Facility and get directly underway for destinations in the Midwest.
The installation of the new cranes and completion of the HST project will position Baltimore as the No. 1 hub to transport intermodal cargo up and down the East Coast, with uninterrupted double-stack access to all major population centers on the East Coast, from Maine to Florida.
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