By Dan McCue
Staff Writer

Paul Nelson, founder of the College of Charleston’s Global Logistics and Transportation program, could not hide his disappointment.

An acknowledged admirer of the current leadership of the S.C. State Ports Authority, he said he was still pained by a report a few days earlier that suggested federal transportation officials might block a proposed container terminal at the former Charleston Naval Base.

“It was the concern over trucks, I’m convinced, that doomed the proposed Global Gateway on Daniel Island several years ago, and the shame of it is it’s such a clean industry,” Nelson said at his home, a stone’s throw from the SPA’s Wando Welch terminal.

“After all this time, with so much talk of the tremendous increase in Asian trade and the opportunities that represents, it’s so disappointing to read headlines that suggest trucks are once again threatening port expansion and effectively killing our port.”

Traffic projections supplied to state and federal transportation officials suggest that, by 2014, with the additional anticipated traffic load generated by the new terminal, portions of Interstate 26 between Montague and Cosgrove avenues at peak hours could become parking lots.

If conditions do not change—in other words, if the terminal is never built—the interstate would have the capacity to handle projected traffic loads well into the 2020s.

Delays related to the traffic issue, as well as water quality and the continued viability of the endangered northern right whale, have pushed the release of the final environmental impact study, originally expected to be delivered this month, back to December.

A permit decision by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is not expected before April 2007.

But Nelson believes there could be a simple, although costly, solution to the situation: Create a no-access, controlled corridor parallel to I-26 that would extend from terminals in Charleston to an intermodal facility farther inland.

“Whether the intermodal facility is in Summerville or at the intersection of Interstate 26 and Interstate 95, that doesn’t matter,” Nelson continued. “What does matter is that at no time will passenger vehicles and (commercial) trucks, or what I envision as ‘truck trains,’ interact.”

In the concept outlined by Nelson, the SPA would own and operate the terminals at both ends of the corridor. Additionally, rail lines, which he described as being mired in the 19th century, would have little or no role in cargo movement until the containers reached the intermodal site.

Separate corridor for trucks

Besides the cost, for which Nelson offers no estimate, the proposal raises a number of questions, ranging from why he believes a dedicated roadway is better than the region’s rail system to why he thinks the SPA would be a better steward of an inland port than a private company such as CaroLinks, which plans to create a $250 million intermodal network while relying on trains and barges to move containers inland.

“As far as (CaroLinks) is concerned, it baffles me how they can be serious. The reason is all the double-handling of cargo containers that seems to be part of their plan. If you’ve done any work in logistics, you know that’s the one thing you most want to avoid,” Nelson said.

“In my view, it would be far more efficient to have the ports authority manage and operate an inland port and have the whole operation work as a fully integrated system. I envision having no containers stacking up on the docks. Instead, they’d be dispatched as soon as they came in, moved over elevated corridors from the Navy yard and North Charleston terminals and onto the dedicated lane along Interstate 26.”

The dedicated lane in his conceptual plan would be separated from commuters by a wall, meaning trucks could never enter passenger car lanes or visa versa, he said.

“In Australia, they operate systems in which a single truck cab pulls eight or 10 trailers on rubber wheels,” Nelson said. “Their tremendous advantage over rail for this kind of work is that if a train on a rail breaks down, the whole system stops. With a truck system, vehicles that break down can be pulled out of the way onto a shoulder. The bottom line is we’ve got to get what people view as the port’s greatest downside—the trucks that travel to and from its terminals—off our passenger roadways.”

Penny McKever, the program’s current associate director, is familiar with Nelson’s plan.

“It’s something Paul has always felt very strongly about, but it’s one of those ideas that would take a lot of money to realize,” she said. “The question is whether anyone with the access to that kind of money would want to take something like this on.”

High tech and pretty houses

That’s a question Nelson wonders about as well. In spite of the port’s acknowledged importance to the region, interest in helping it grow is being surpassed by a desire to try to attract any kind of industry that promises clean operations and high salaries.

“I think it’s another example of the Oregon syndrome,” he said. “Everyone is espousing high tech and pretty houses and forgetting the wonderful economic resource that’s right under their nose.

“The Port of Charleston has the highest productivity rate of any port in the world. We have an outstanding labor union and a united waterfront community. It would be a terrible thing if because of stymied growth we could someday only talk about those assets in retrospect.”

Dan McCue is a staff writer for the Business Journal. E-mail him at dmccue@charlestonbusiness.com.

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