(The following story by Neal peirce and Curtis Johnson appeared on the Charleston Post Courier website on June 29. Neal Peirce of Washington D.C., and Curtis Johnson of Minneapolis, Minnesota, were the authors of the Citistates Report on the Charleston region published over five successive Sundays by The Post and Courier last fall.)
CHARLESTON, S.C. — Every major port in the United States is moving as fast as possible toward loading long-haul cargo on to railroad lines. Since 2000 railway owners have spent more than $10 billion improving tracks and adding freight-yards. Now they are doubling down on that investment.
The key driver: moving cargo by rail costs about a third of moving it by truck. Every day diesel prices rise, so does the rail advantage.
There are already intermodal facilities for both CSX and Norfolk Southern railways within a few miles of each Port of Charleston terminal. The share of imported cargo headed for a rail trip is approaching 20 percent, according to a port spokesman.
When we ask what it would take to kick that percentage up dramatically, we hear first that it’s the ocean shippers, along with the customer companies, that decide whether cargo will head inland by truck or rail. But nearly everyone agrees that the long-standing standard of shifting to rail only if the destination is 500 or more miles away is, in the face of rising diesel prices, fast becoming obsolete.
The core problem is that rail tracks need realignment. CSX and NS each own pieces of the tracks and would have to collaborate — including sharing track use. These competitors so far seem to be throwing any collaboration under the train.
Meanwhile a private company has taken over the Macalloy property, adjacent to the site where the new port is to be built. That group is interested in turning Macalloy into a rail access point for the port. It looks like an opportunity for a public-private partnership.
Byron Miller of SPA tells us the port is encouraging a shift to rail. But with the terminals spread over multiple sites, it’s more complicated. Still, there’s no technical reason why CSX and Norfolk Southern could not improve and share track access. Track improvements could end the irritating at-grade crossings at Meeting and King streets.
Let’s concede that South Carolina, given the strategic importance of the Charleston port expansion, should spend the $300 million to build a truck access road to Interstate 26. But that doesn’t mean that 7,000 additional trucks have to barrel out on to I-26 every day, even if the port assures us that they’ll limit the number at peak traffic times.
Commuters in cars along with freight trucks have already damaged the quality of air people have to breathe. The Coastal Conservation League will rightly hammer away on this issue until some strategy emerges that is less polluting.
Consider, too, how the whole “Neck” area is being transformed from its industrial past into superior residential communities, with jobs and housing and retail mixed together.
Already the Magnolia and Mixon and Noisette initiatives show where things are going. Would the region allow a daily torrent of trucks to run over these promising possibilities?
Other ports are moving faster than Charleston toward rail. Southeast competitor ports at Norfolk, Savannah and Jacksonville are slated to invest nearly $500 million over the next five years to upgrade intermodal rail capacity. They see the next generation of wide-load gantry cranes that can straddle up to six rail lines. They see the advantage of getting rail access directly on the docks, so that there’s no double-handling cost liability.
In Los Angeles, host to the nation’s largest port, billions have been spent already to put trains in a dedicated trench and now the port will build a dedicated road that will thrust trucks beyond the perimeter of that region’s terrible congestion. It was air quality that drove officials to make these investments. Charlotte is building a major intermodal center to capitalize on its rail connections.
Is it sensible for the Charleston region, where the port is an economic driver, to be the slower moving player in a now obvious shift to rail for the majority of freight shipment?