But you miss some very important factors outside of the SPA’s control. Charleston is not the first US port of call for most vessels running north or south on the east coast. New York and Savannah are normally the first ports of call, so Charleston loses all the containers going to inland ports via rail. They get off at New York or Norfolk if the ship is southbound, and in Savannah if the ship is north bound.

Also, Atlanta is the biggest southern market, and the closest port is Savannah. It just cost more to bring a container into Charleston and deliver it to Atlanta, Alabama, or Tennessee. So shippers like me, tell the steam ship lines we want service into Savannah above all else. Charleston is a regional port servicing SC, and most of NC because this is the area where Charleston offers the lowest inland trucking cost.

The only thing that may change Charleston’s regional status is building dedicated rails lines into all the terminals for Norfolk Southern and CSX. Without the rails, Charleston will always be handicapped by geography.

We supposedly have a “Republican” controlled legislature- but let’s face it and judge them by their inactions- They are RINO’s. They feed the out-dated socialist port model with our tax dollars as evidenced by the +160 million dollars for a port access road for our 4th container terminal that we simply do not need.

Today we have 3 out of date container terminals in Charleston – operating at less than 50% capacity. We do not have the ability to load double stack intermodal trains in Charleston and probably never will. This is a fatal flaw we cannot overcome.

Savannah and Norfolk understand the shipping business – the goal is to handle containers and be able to ship them into the Midwest markets by rail because it is quicker and cheaper – you just can not do this effectively by trucks.

Changing the SPA’s bonus structure might make headlines but it will turn our port system into an “asset” by any stretch of the imagination.