While the past couple of years have been "varied" for volumes into Southern California ports, and this year has been rather flat, the longer-term forecast is put at 6%-7% growth a year in the region''s ports, according to Halcrow''s Stacey Jones.
"Operators on the West Coast are trying to figure things out, based on the fact that there hasn't been a tremendous amount of acreage coming on line in the past few years," she says.Against this background, the FuturePorts initiative was originally set in motion by a contractor who was concerned that development had come to a halt in the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach. FuturePorts members include representatives of terminal operators, railway operators, construction companies, chambers of commerce and other interested groups.
"It is an opportunity to pull together private interests to see where we could focus and move forward and highlight the economic benefits derived from the ports," says Ms Jones. "It needs to be a balanced approach - environmental issues should be resolved, but in parallel, not one at a time. We should not lose momentum. FuturePorts is trying to get people more active in support of the projects, be more vocal publicly, attend public hearings - and it is also aiming to provide its members with access to key political leaders in order to have a dialogue."
