Post Panamax ships to call to Halifax

[IanWatson]

Originally Posted by teddifax

Think of the land that would free up for development.... it may not be a bad idea and would free up all the heavy traffic on the peninsula.

I wonder if there would be some cost advantages of not needing to remediate the oil refinery site. Just pave it over and put a port on top. Is that a kosher thing to do? Any environmental engineers in the house?

[Keith P.]

Originally Posted by IanWatson

I wonder if there would be some cost advantages of not needing to remediate the oil refinery site. Just pave it over and put a port on top. Is that a kosher thing to do? Any environmental engineers in the house?

Probably a good way to keep all those petrochemicals out from leaching out of the ground into the water table. Put a cap over the soil then pave over that.

I have mentioned this a while ago, but 20 years ago a prominent local engineer who did a lot of work with the Port showed me a large artist's conception of the Halterm site re-purposed into residential and light commercial. Looked like Marina Del Rey transplanted to Halifax. Would be fabulous and makes a lot of sense, as long as they reserve a ROW for the new bridge/tunnel across the harbour we will eventually need.

[Hali87]

Untitled by Hali87, on Flickr


Untitled by Hali87, on Flickr

[fenwick16]

Stats are out for the first quarter for the Halifax port. Hopefully this upward trend will continue for many more years.

(source: http://portofhalifax.ca/cargo/statistics/ )

Container Throughput at HPA Facilities (TEU)

[someone123]

They need to get those Q1 cruise ship passenger numbers up! All those people wasting their time going to the Bahamas in February when they could be visiting Halifax.

[YOWetal]

Originally Posted by someone123

They need to get those Q1 cruise ship passenger numbers up! All those people wasting their time going to the Bahamas in February when they could be visiting Halifax.

I wonder if they will ever get a ship to home port in
Halifax.

[someone123]

Here's an article on the growth in container shipping: http://thechronicleherald.ca/busines...ort-of-halifax

It's been double-digit increases for the past year or so, with a 19% increase in traffic in the second quarter of 2017. This follows a number of years of roughly flat traffic. Theoretically, Halifax is supposed to get more and more traffic as larger ships become more common.

Halifax gets around 500,000 TEUs per year while the bigger North American ports like Los Angeles and New York are around 5 million TEUs (actually all of the LA ports combined are well over 10 million). The #10 port in North America is something like 1.5 million TEUs. So Halifax is not a container major port but it's not inconsequential either.

[Keith P.]

Not sure if this is the right thread for this, but it does deal with post-Panamax ships in Halifax:

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-...ifax-1.4857943

Hugely disappointing to see Hector Jacques taken out behind the woodshed for a caning by Scott Brison.

While Brison's point about truck traffic is valid in isolation, this could have been an opportunity to finally do something about that issue as well. Brison is a self-important pompous ass and in my dealings with him I have never been impressed - he is like an empty vessel that spews out whatever has been poured into his head.

[MonctonRad]

I imagine Brison doesn't want more truck traffic downtown because this would rumble right past that Baton Rouge restaurant that he's a co-owner of......

#conflict of interest

[OldDartmouthMark]

Very disappointing. It kind of disgusts me that the federal cabinet minister who is supposed to be acting in our best interests is defending lack of support for our region by the feds. Wow... how do we get him out of there...

Regarding truck traffic in the downtown, one would think that there could have been funds put towards a depot outside of the city, where the containers could have been run by rail through the existing rail cut, and transferred to trucks at that location. This has been discussed ad nauseam, and in my mind still rises to the top as the best solution to the problem, but with no action by anybody to make it happen.

[Haliguy]

Here we go again, it's all about favouring Quebec

[MonctonianSentinel01]

Originally Posted by Haliguy

Here we go again, it's all about favouring Quebec

Yeah that could be. Halifax may be seen as a competitor to Montreal and Quebec, and so Mr. Trudeau wants to support his home provinces ports rather than it's competitors.

[Dartguard]

I imagine the discussion around the Cabinet table in Ottawa, in reference to Halifax, always gets back to Ottawa paying for the largest Forces base in the country ,Formation Halifax, as well as the Naval Shipbuilding Plan that the Finance Department is dreading to pay for.The Port may have to finance anything it wants privately,moving forward.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by Dartguard

I imagine the discussion around the Cabinet table in Ottawa, in reference to Halifax, always gets back to Ottawa paying for the largest Forces base in the country ,Formation Halifax, as well as the Naval Shipbuilding Plan that the Finance Department is dreading to pay for.The Port may have to finance anything it wants privately,moving forward.

This is possible but it suggests that the federal government views this type of infrastructure as a kind of dole or pork barrel exercise. The country would be better off if the federal government instead invested in economically optimal projects. Alternatively they could admit that there isn't really a national "strategy", take less tax money, and stop making ad hoc political investments.

NS and the Halifax port authority can also spend money on this project.

The only unfortunate thing is that some industries like shipping are heavily subsidized around the world by national governments, so it is hard to compete without similar support.

[eastcoastal]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

I imagine Brison doesn't want more truck traffic downtown because this would rumble right past that Baton Rouge restaurant that he's a co-owner of......

#conflict of interest

That restaurant was sold quite some time ago I believe... no longer associated with him.

[ns_kid]

I'll admit it: I have been a Liberal Party member, donor and supporter for several years. But (leaving the obvious, disheartening topic of alternatives aside) the failure of the federal government and its mute Nova Scotia MPs to stand up for Halifax has finally shattered my confidence. Minister Brison knows as well as we do that his weak-kneed defence of the GoC's indifference is laughable.

In my mind the key element of the HPA's proposal was development of an inland rail terminal: the only rational solution to the truck problem Brison addresses is to move the marshaling operation away from the waterfront, and the only way to do that is by rail.

I was pleased to hear Councillor Waye Mason speaking last week on CBC about his return from the Global Harbour Cities Conference in Kaohsiung, Taiwan. While there, he learned about the investments being made by many world ports to upgrade their rail infrastructure. To put it simply, if you plan to service ultra-class vessels, potentially landing thousands of containers, moving them off the dock in ones and twos with a truck cab is ludicrous.

Councillor Matt Whitman also appeared on radio last week to declare that putting trucks in the south-end rail cut would be "progressive". It would be anything but. In recent years, several cities, including Los Angeles and Kansas City, have spent billions to accomplish what Halifax achieved a century ago: a completely grade-separated rail corridor from its port to the national rail network. Even assuming CN would agree to share its right of way -- which I find difficult to accept -- putting trucks and trains together here would be a logistical and environmental nightmare, in my opinion.

[MonctonRad]

The rail cut needs to be double tracked again. This will improve the ability to mova cargo from post Panamax ships, and hopefully would help lead to the development of commuter rail service.

[someone123]

I wonder what the chances are that the federal government will change its mind or that this investment could move forward without them.

The inland rail terminal would be a big improvement for downtown Halifax and increases the value of all of the Cogswell lands. It seems like a rare win-win in that it would be good for handling port traffic and good for noise and traffic levels in the city. It is too bad that the terminal wasn't built years earlier (it has been contemplated for decades), and that there will be at minimum a transitional period when truck traffic will need to be accommodated through the post-interchange Cogswell street network.

[ScovaNotian]

Does anyone here know what the value of the container business is to the local economy? How does it compare, say, to the value derived from cruise ships?

[Keith P.]

Originally Posted by ScovaNotian

Does anyone here know what the value of the container business is to the local economy? How does it compare, say, to the value derived from cruise ships?

I don't know the numbers but intuitively I would have to say the container pier has an impact several orders of magnitude greater than cruise ships. If you talk to people in the tourism and hospitality business they all say that cruise ship visitors have very little impact on businesses locally with the exception of the tour bus operators and taxi companies. Cruise passengers usually do not even visit restaurants since they get meals on board, don't go to bars because they get drinks on board, and might buy just a few souvenirs or emergency clothing. The crews do spend money on provisions but that's it. The Port Authority loves to tout the cruise ship visits because they are among the few really benefiting.

Meanwhile the container pier supports a few hundred really well-paying jobs at the piers, plus trucking firms, railway workers, etc., all year-round.