>>1981041>>1981060Damn, two tards having a fight on /n/, what a surprise. Bulk cargo and container cargo differences are moderate but the economic forces are still similar when you have the business case to show for it. The Great Lakes are very populated, generally wealthy, and they’re navigable to the oceans. In most regions of the world with the same conditions, container shipping would takes place.
The Jones Act makes ships exorbitantly expensive for sure, and for shipping companies it is a major barrier to entry and expansion. No corpo in their right mind would buy ships at $400 million/ piece when you can buy them internationally at $30-50 million. The US however still can do trade with the international megaships just fine, those just can’t go through the Seaway and thus are locked at the coastal ports. Changing the Jones Act won’t magically bring ships to the lakes overnight, even with “porthopping”.
The big problem is simply infrastructure. Los Angeles and New York are busy because they are the only ports with the sheer invested technology, manpower, and expertise to move goods effectively for their clients. If you wanted to turn Cleveland or Chicago into a viable container port, it would require a massive investment, most likely coming from the state and federal governments to simply build up the ports. Then you’d have to enhance the train junctions, rail yards, highways and roads, and more, just to move the containers to their end destinations. Lets not even mention that you’d be tearing up lots of the shoreline, which many in the region really covet and will fight tooth and nail to prevent losing.
>pic related This is Newark-Elizabeth run by the New York port authority. It’s massive, and the supporting infrastructure to run it is equally immense. To do the same in a Great Lakes city in today’s dollars would cost immeasurable amounts of money. That’s discretionary spending most of the states don’t have right now.
