Southern California ports in container imports
Twenty years ago Puget Sound ports were running a close second behind Southern California ports in container imports, receiving 2.2 million 20-foot containers annually (called TEUs) compared to Southern California’s 5.4 million. Now California has pulled far ahead.
By 2013, Southern California ports received 14.6 million TEUs, a 170 percent increase, while Puget Sound ports climbed only 59 percent, to 3.5 million containers, according to statistics from the American Association of Port Authorities.
Part of what’s behind that is the huge Southern California population: 23 million people eager to buy imports from Asia, compared to just 3.8 million people in the Puget Sound region.
For ocean carriers, there are great efficiencies in directing their largest ships toward that huge Southern California market, and then also sending a portion of those containers to interior markets via rail.
To the north, Puget Sound has been losing market share versus British Columbia ports for a slightly different set of reasons.
Twenty years ago British Columbia hardly existed as competition, bringing in just 400,000 TEUS that year.
But since then the province’s ability to attract cargo has steadily grown, in this case powered by a Canadian government that funds coordinated port and rail improvements.