Ports & Transportation

NEWS - Ports & Transportation

Second Quarter FY2010 yields growth in containers for Savannah and grain in Brunswick

1/25/2010 - Georgia Ports Authority’s (GPA) Executive Director Curtis J. Foltz announced today at its board meeting that the second quarter of FY2010 (October – December 2009) yielded a 3.6-percent increase in total 20-foot equivalent unit containers (TEUs) compared with the same quarter in the previous year.

“Georgia’s ports are beginning to experience positive signs that the new shipping lines and capacity we added during the economic downturn are driving growth,” said Foltz. “The continued surge in demand for our export commodities is creating opportunities for trade.”

Foltz reported that export volumes for December 2009 increased by 11.4 percent. Loaded import containers also increased by eight percent. Total TEUs handled for the month of December were 121,411, an 18.3 percent increase compared with December 2008.

“The GPA remains cautiously optimistic about the remainder of the current fiscal year,” said GPA’s Chairman of the Board Stephen S. Green. “Our strategic planning has ensured that Georgia’s deepwater ports are prepared to handle the growth demands necessary to advance economic development and opportunity.”

In Brunswick, Colonel’s Island reported record tonnage of 185,424 last month due to increasing volumes in grain for export. This represents an almost four-fold increase compared with December 2008 and yielded a year-to-date increase of 37.5 percent. Auto and machinery units through Brunswick for the month of December increased by 47 percent, but were still down for the fiscal year by 10.4 percent.

Additionally, safety performance throughout GPA’s terminals showed significant improvements for the first half of FY2010 compared with last year, including a 20-percent reduction in chargeable accidents.

Georgia’s deepwater ports and inland barge terminals support more than 286,476 jobs throughout the state annually and contribute $14.9 billion in income, $55.8 billion in revenue and $2.8 billion in state and local taxes to Georgia’s economy.

For additional information, please visit the GPA Web site at www.gaports.com

NEWS - Ports & Transportation

SBJ Staff

12/21/2009 - An Army Corps of Engineers draft environmental impact statement on dredging of the Savannah River shipping channel has been delayed from an expected year-end release to a mid-2010 release.

Corps spokesman Billy Birdwell had previously indicated a late 2009 release would occur but now says no release to the public is scheduled for at least another six months. He insisted the delays do not provide a signal on the Corps’ conclusions for the Georgia Ports Authority in its decade-long quest for a permit to dredge the approximately 22-mile-long channel.

“This is a major, major project. It is not unusual to have these sort of delays,” he said Thursday.

“We want to make sure we do a thorough report, that our modeling is correct and that all of our research is correct.”
On Tuesday, Curtis Foltz, designated to take over as director of the GPA on Jan. 1, said he expected to see a draft report within 60 days during an interview with The Savannah Business Journal.

Birdwell would not say whether Foltz’ expectations would be met.

Also awaited are environmental assessments of the dredging by the departments of natural resources in Georgia and South Carolina. Those state reports are expected to be critical to the conclusions and recommendations that will then be drawn by a U.S. Department of Environmental Protection (EPD) review.

The Corps’ draft environmental impact statement report is expected to address whether the dredging should go to the 48-foot depth preferred by the Georgia Ports Authority. The so-called draft Tier 2 Environmental Impact Statement will also detail possible mitigation steps, or measures that will ease any negative environmental impacts of the dredging that will stretch the length of the channel from the river’s opening to the Garden City Terminal.

After release, the impact statement will go through several phases of public review and comment that will take about six months.

After a public review, the report is to go back to the Corps for consideration to be released as a final Tier 2 Environmental Impact Statement, said Foltz.

The next stop after becoming a final impact statement is submission to the four cabinet-level federal agencies that will have signature authority on the dredging: the Department of Defense, the Department of Commerce, the Department of Interior and the Environmental Protection Agency.

Foltz said earlier this week, “We hope to have a record of decision by this time next year authorizing us to move forward on the deepening.”

It’s unclear whether the new delay will push back a final decision.

Meanwhile, the stakes couldn’t be higher for the GPA, according to Foltz.

He called the dredging critical to the Port of Savannah’s growth in market share and its ability to handle the immense cargo traffic that will come through a greatly expanded Panama Canal by the middle of the next decade.

That’s why the Georgia Ports Authority has spent more than a decade and $40 million pursuing the dredging permit.
“There is no single item more important to this city, state and the Southeast,” Foltz said.

The expanded canal will give shippers of consumer goods quicker and more efficient access to markets in the East and Midwest, Foltz noted.

The shippers have long lamented the time and difficulty involved in shipping to the West Coast and transporting their goods by train from there, he said.
The products sent from Asia through the larger, modernized Panama Canal will be aboard a new generation of giant freighters. Savannah – and other East Coast ports – must be ready to accommodate those super-sized ships, he said.
“The (Savannah River) dredging contemplates a deeper Panama Canal and the effects it has on trade. Larger ships demand deeper draft rivers,” Foltz said.
“We hope the entire East Coast gears up because it’s going to be needed. Our growth is going to come from customers currently using the West Coast. They want to be closer to their customers in the East.”

NEWS - Ports & Transportation

SBJ Staff

12/21/2009 - New super post-Panamax cranes, inter-modal facilities and technological upgrades contributed greatly to a 2009 that is shaping up to be the Port of Savannah’s second-best year ever.

When trying to achieve success amid the nation’s worst recession in decades, it also helps to have a diverse cargo mix that insulates Savannah’s port from the fickleness of consumer demand. The shipping industry’s equivalent of a deep bench has helped the port achieve its celebrated 37 percent growth in containerized cargo over the past five years.

In practice it works this way: Should the recession cause consumers to quit buying a certain product or category of products, other types of cargo can offset the potential for empty containers.

“The important thing about our success story is that it’s not built on a single element or item,” said Curtis Foltz, the Georgia Ports Authority’s COO and successor to Douglas Marchand, who is to step down as director on Jan. 1.

Further firming up the port’s standing for the future is continued modernization across the whole operation, Foltz said. The result is “a platform that is unparalleled in the nation,” he added.

Infrastructure and services grew in 2009 and will keep growing in the new year and the years beyond, according to Foltz.

February saw delivery of four super post-Panamax cranes that brought the Garden City Terminal fleet of ship-to-shore cranes to 23, the largest number of any facility in the country. The new cranes became operational in mid-year.

Fully assembled, the cranes are about 425 feet long, weigh 1,369 tons and rise 180 feet above the water with a 34-degree incline. They are designed to handle super post-Panamax vessels the size of 22 containers wide.

The cranes are part of the GPA’s long-term strategic growth plan to accommodate 6.5 million 20-foot equivalent unit containers, or TEUs,  by 2018, doubling the terminal’s current capacity, port officials say.

On Jan. 21, 2009, the port officially inaugurated the Chatham Intermodal Container Transfer Facility at the Garden City Terminal. The new facility features three working tracks at 2,145 feet each and 2,406 feet of storage tracks. The Port of Savannah is the only East Coast port to have two intermodal container transfer facilities within a terminal, port officials say.

The facility gives CSX its own intermodal station and designates the original intermodal station for the exclusive use of Norfolk Southern.

Now importers and exporters have a choice of using either rail line, Foltz noted, and added that both lines now give shippers daily service to Atlanta and Charlotte, N.C.

Savannah’s rising prominence as a rail hub led GPA officials to build the second intermodal station.  Rail freight handled by the port grew 128 percent between 2002 through 2008, port officials say.

On the technology side, the port is doing an information technology upgrade that by the end of 2010 will enable it to better communicate with customers, give customers improved tracking of their shipments and move the port closer to its goal of providing “seamless transport” of goods, Foltz said.

Meanwhile, several road projects that will more efficiently move goods in and out of the port are in various staging of construction or planning, according to Foltz. “Freight mobility beyond our ports is critically important,” he said, noting work is under way on projects “to assure long-term access to and from our roads."

Fotlz said he expects the Georgia Department of Transportation to award a bid soon for a mid-year start on a bridge overpass on Dean Forest Road (Georgia Highway 307) just outside the port’s Gate 4. “This will eliminate a railroad crossing just outside our gate,” he said.

The long-talked-about Jimmy Deloach Extension could be included in federal stimulus funding. “We hope to hear on that in January or February,” Foltz said.

The project would extend the Jimmy Deloach Parkway to Dean Forest and give trucks direct access to the port’s main gate.

“The real positive is that it’s all part of our integrated vision,” he said.

NEWS - Ports & Transportation

SBJ Staff

12/21/2009 - The Port of Savannah will end 2009 down about 8 percent in cargo volume but is to close to ending the decade with a five-year run that brought a 37 percent increase in container cargo volume.

On New Years’ Day, the job of reversing the current-year decline and restoring the significant growth numbers that accumulated in pre-recession years falls to Curtis Foltz, Georgia Ports Authority COO, who will take over for longtime director Doug Marchand.

While a decline is a decline no matter what, Foltz could have cause to give a New Year’s Eve toast to this year’s container cargo numbers. The numbers are some of the best the port has ever achieved, he said.

And that, he added, is a reason to start the new year on an optimistic note.

“Considering the condition of the current economy around us, we’re pretty pleased with the small drop in volume,” the director-in-waiting said in an interview Tuesday.

To put the current year drop in perspective, 2008 marked the port’s best year ever, with container exports growing 19 percent and imports 11 percent. The 8 percent drop is calculated based on 2008’s record numbers.

In relative terms, Foltz said, this year’s port performance is akin to that of 2007.

The Port of Savannah’s containerized cargo declines began the last two months of 2008. But for many ports, recession-induced declines began at the start of 2008 and eventually returned to levels not seen since early in the decade, according to Foltz.

“The industry itself is seeing volumes that reduce down to 2002-2003 levels,” he said.

By contrast, Foltz said, “This year will probably be the second-best year we’ve ever recorded.”

And 2010 looks to be a year of continued gains in market share, according to the newly designated port chief.
Why is that?

“We are probably one of the most balanced ports,” Foltz said. “Our import-to-export ratio is 52 to 48 percent.”
That balance in imports and exports enables port officials to sell their facilities to ground transporters and shipping lines with the expectation that containers coming and going from the port will be full.

The result?

More paydays for everyone and a growing profile for Savannah’s port as a preferred importing and exporting destination, Foltz said.

While outsourcing of manufacturing has had painful consequences for America’s manufacturers and the workers they employ, the Port of Savannah has gained from it.  The raw materials needed to manufacture goods in Asia and elsewhere go out of the port; the products made with those raw materials come through the port.

“We see outsourcing of manufacturing continuing long-term,” Foltz said. “What that translates to is a higher demand for export of unfinished products to Asia,” he said. “And for the finished goods to be re-imported back to us for the consumer market.”

While Foltz sees no end to that cycle, he expects improved economic conditions in Asia will create even more demand for raw materials shipped from Savannah as Asian manufacturers begin making more goods to sell domestically.

Asia has also acquired a taste for poultry and other perishable goods that ship out of Savannah’s port.  This year alone has seen a 20 percent spike in refrigerated container traffic, according to port officials.

The port is handling about 1,000 refrigerated containers a week, Foltz said. “We believe we have the heaviest (refrigerated cargo) volume in the nation.”
About 850 to 900 of the refrigerated containers are filled with poultry coming out of the Southeast, as well as some citrus products, he noted.
Most go to the Far East, he said. Meanwhile, Foltz expects the weak dollar to continue to drive up demand for raw materials from the United States, and especially the South. Savannah can expect a huge chunk of those exports, according to Foltz.

NEWS - Ports & Transportation

Funding for Chatham Area Transit Included in Appropriations Conference Report

Dec. 15, 2009 - Congressmen John Barrow and Jack Kingston’s offices announced today that the conference report on H.R. 3288, the FY 2010 Consolidated Appropriations Act, which includes funding for Transportation, Housing, and Urban Development, included $2,525,000 in funding for buses and bus facilities for Chatham Area Transit.

The House approved the bill last week and the bill now goes to President Obama’s desk to be signed.   Congressman Barrow submitted the request for the funds.  Kingston’s office states that the Congressman was supportive of the funding.

“This money means great things for this area,” said Barrow. “Folks spend a lot of time getting to and from work and home, and we need to make sure that the public transportation facilities they use are the best and safest they can possibly be.”

“We here at Chatham Area Transit are very excited about the latest round of support for the Transit Center project,” said Chatham Area Transit Executive Director Charles Odimdgbe.  “We particularly applaud the efforts of Congressmen Kingston and Barrow in support of CAT and their work to make this possible. Public transportation is critical to the local economy and funding for the transit center is vital to ensuring continuity of service for our riders.”

NEWS - Ports & Transportation

SBJ Staff

12/4/2009 - The curtain closed last Thursday on a month of charettes and focus sessions on the future of a stretch of DeRenne Avenue from Interstate 516 to the Truman Parkway.

From here, a pair of transportation options and several visions for the corridor’s commercial and residential development go to a citizen’s committee for review and to Savannah City Council for action early in the new year.

A crowd of more than 100 corridor residents, business owners and citizens interested in the avenue’s future showed up in the vacant NAPA Auto Parts building on DeRenne Avenue Thursday for a summary of Project DeRenne’s charette process.

In a rapidly moving presentation, planner Matt Noonkester of consulting firm Kimley-Horn and Associates detailed two alternatives for easing the roadway’s near constant bottlenecks. He addressed the corridor’s future development in a series of four “focus areas,” two looking at the possible commercial and residential future of the corridor area west of Abercorn Street and the remaining commercial and residential development east of Abercorn.

The “boulevard strategy” calls for an entirely new road while the “intersection strategy” specifies an additional lane on DeRenne’s eastbound side. Both options require the taking of private property, according to planners.

Named “Poplar Place Boulevard” by planners, the four-lane extension of White Bluff Avenue through to I-516 is seen as an effective way to get traffic off of DeRenne. This, planners say, would return the heavily traveled east-west roadway to its former purpose as a city avenue.

Traffic surveys show that of the 55,000 cars that travel DeRenne Avenue each day, about 20,000 have destinations that require turning south onto either White Bluff or Abercorn Street. Those southbound motorists would take the extension, thus relieving DeRenne of its bottlenecks, planners say.

“Not surprisingly, you would see a lot of improvement in delay time at the intersections” of Montgomery Street, White Bluff and Abercorn, Noonkester told last week’s gathering.

While the neighborhood south of DeRenne would lose houses to make way for the one-mile “Poplar Place Boulevard,”  it would gain a realigned Montgomery Street, creating a more connected neighborhood, Noonkester said. A straightened Montgomery would return “integrity” to the neighborhood, making it look more like a traditional Savannah neighborhood, he added.

Just how the alignment of the boulevard or a realigned Montgomery would look could well change “as you move forward and do some of the ‘fatal-flaw tests,’” Noonkester said.

While both transportation options include modifications to intersections, the “intersection strategy” specifically addresses the difficulty of traffic trying to turn south onto White Bluff from DeRenne. Under this approach, a new lane would be added on the eastbound side of DeRenne that would become a turning lane as it neared White Bluff. The lane would begin just before Mildred Street.

The intersection strategy’s flaw, planners say, is that it does not relieve lengthy bottlenecks on White Bluff as motorists try to turn east or west onto DeRenne or continue through DeRenne to Bull Street. Nor does it ease delays encountered in turning onto DeRenne from Abercorn Street.

“Unfortunately, it does not affect the long queues of vehicles waiting to turn on either White Bluff or Abercorn,” said Rob Hume, a traffic engineer with Kimley-Horne and the manager of Project DeRenne.

The stretch of DeRenne from Abercorn to the Truman is not viewed as over-taxed for a four-lane roadway, at least at present, according to Hume, who said traffic counts show about 35,000 vehicles travel the roadway daily. “The traffic volume and lane capacity are not that far out of balance,” he noted.

The focus here, he said, has moved away from adding more lanes to removing the center turning lanes and replacing them with wide medians that would be attractively landscaped. With that approach, Hume said, would come refiguring of the entrances and exits to north-south streets intersecting DeRenne, such as Habersham Street and Waters Avenue.
“We can make them better able to accommodate the traffic,” he said
In detailing the four focus areas, project planner Noonkester started with the neighborhoods south of DeRenne between White Bluff and Montgomery. The idea there is to create more connectedness among the Poplarville and University neighborhoods and to encourage neighborhood retail needs, such as a drug store and service outlets. The realignment of Montgomery Street is a key part of the strategy, he said.
In all, he said, “We see opportunity but no wholesale change in those neighborhoods. The neighborhoods have a good housing stock you’d want to keep up.” He noted particular attention should be given to maintaining the area’s large live oaks.
To the east, planners see an opportunity for transformation of the commercial stretch of the south side of DeRenne from White Bluff to Abercorn that is home to Savannah’s iconic globe. Noonkester envisions a village-like setup that would include a movie theater, a junior anchor store and a series of shops that would surround a park.

“What would happen if some of that commercial area were to be redeveloped to make it more intensive as a way to keep commercial from encroaching into residential areas?” asked Noonkester in describing a key purpose of what Project DeRenne planners call “Midtown Village.”

He suggested efforts could be made to preserve the globe, which has been a Savannah landmark since it went up decades ago as a giant natural gas storage container.

“Midtown Village,” he said, could become a draw for shoppers who could walk there from nearby Poplarville and Kensington Park. Instead of turning its back on Abercorn and White Bluff, the village “would address those streets,” making the shopping area an easy “walkover” from nearby neighborhoods.

“If you’re going to do this, don’t do it halfway,” Noonkester warned. “Pay attention to the design elements.”
The remaining two focus areas are the Medical Arts District and South Garden residential area.

Planners want to encourage more dense development of medical and professional office space uses in the Medical Arts District, which takes in 28 blocks from Candler Hospital to Waters Avenue and extends north from DeRenne to 67th Street.

This approach would rely on infilling of vacant parcels and encourage compact development as a way to prevent further encroachment of medical offices into the South Garden neighborhood.

South Garden could become an enticing target for medical office developers who may find willing sellers among the neighborhood’s large elderly population, Noonkester said. “It has lots of aging residents who want to sell their property,” he said. “Without a plan, we’d get a hodge-podge” of office and residential uses.

Attached multi-family housing could be the answer, he said. “We envision more than single-family.”

Attached multi-family could be built in the neighborhood in a way that would make it undistinguisible from the surrounding homes, he said.

Land-use polices should be put in place to keep South Garden a strong cohesive neighborhood, Noonkester said. “It’s worth fighting for as a neighborhood.”

Further, he said a linear park could be established that would connect to walking trails near Truman Parkway.

NEWS - Ports & Transportation

Thurs. Dec. 10, 2009 - 3:00 p.m. Chatham County officials held a news conference at 2:30 p.m. this afternoon on the front steps of the Old Courthouse, 124 Bull Street, for a major announcement that Chatham County will receive $90 million in Georgia Department of Transportation funds to move forward on Phase 5 of the Truman Parkway project.

The bids will be let out starting in late December through mid-January, according to local officials, and will present, "an enormous number of local jobs," said Chatham County commission chairman Pete Liakakis.

Liakakis said he got the word on the vote about 11 a.m. this morning at the conclusion of the Department of Transportation's regular monthly meeting. By Savannah standards, the possibility that the project could come through and be funded and started so quickly, was a well-guarded secret.

He credited heavy lobby efforts by Pat Farrell and Helen Stone on the County Commissioners who he said had worked with him for months to lobby local, state and federal legislative delegations for the funding.

In December 2008, after Phase 4 of the Truman Parkway project was officially completed, state officials had projected that it might be 2014 before funding could be secured for Phase 5 due to revenues shortfalls and challenges being faced by the Georgia Department of Transportation. But the leadership of the DOT has changed, and the reversal was welcomed news.

When added to the $24 million in funding that has been approved by the DOT for the new bridge to Skidaway Island and the $128 million new Chatham County jail project about to get underway, Liakakis tallies that there is almost $250 million in projects that will be built in 2010 in Chatham County.

The county commissioners approved its "scorecard" methodology last week for bidding the jail project which will give higher points to firms that commit to hire locally, and that will insure that minority and women-owned firms are included as subcontractors on the project.

"The same type system will be used for the Truman," he said.

He especially credited Roy Herrington, the Georgia DOT district representative, for supporting the Phase 5 of the Truman at this time. "He did a great job in listening to our needs," said Liakakis.

The two-mile extension of the Truman Parkway from Whitfield Avenue to Abercorn Street, south of the Savannah Mall, had originally been slated as a 2010 project in the region's master plans, with a projected cost of approximately $96 million or higher. But costs have come down in the current economy.

Chatham County has purchased land for years to have the right of way access needed for the extension, according to county officials.

The DOT also approved $866,000 for improvements to the exit ramps at Interstate 95 and U.S. Highway 204 which will improve safety there, said Liakakis.

NEWS - Ports & Transportation

SBJ Staff

11/23/2009 - Dec. 3 will mark completion of an idea-gathering process on the future of DeRenne Avenue that included a week of focus groups and discussions among residents, business people and professionals such as traffic engineers, architects, marketers and economists.

The evening should give a glimpse of what the future has in store for the long-discussed-and-studied DeRenne Avenue corridor. To be unveiled, say city representatives and consultants behind Project DeRenne, are the preferred options that grew out of a five-day charette process in early November that included several daily focus groups, studio sessions and pin-up periods.

From there, the selected suggestions will go to the project review and steering committees. Afrter weighing the ideas and deciding which to keep, change or discard, a set of proposals will go to the Savannah City Council.

It’s likely that along the way the ideas will undergo a process of evolution,  say Project DeRenne representatives.
The daily focus groups gave residents and other stakeholders an opportunity to come up with ideas and dissect them “in a down-and-dirty” fashion that included a strong emphasis on specifics, said Rob Hume, a transportation engineer with national consulting engineering firm Kimley-Horn and Associates,

The firm specializes in “context sensitive solutions,” a central goal of the brainstorming that has come from Project DeRenne.

Hume and his firm went into the project with the task of bringing together the different aspects of the DeRenne corridor such as traffic and commercial and residential land-use. Next, they had to weigh how various proposals would affect each aspect separately and together.

The months-long attempt at holistic planning has focused on DeRenne from Montgomery Street east to the Truman Parkway.

On the traffic front, a key proposal is for a one-mile roadway extension from White Bluff to Interstate 516 west of Mildred Street. The four-lane highway is seen as a way to keep traffic off DeRenne and give it direct access to points south, Hume said.

Coupled with safe and convenient sidewalks, bikeways, enhanced bus service and economic redevelopment, taking 20,000 cars off the stretch of DeRenne west of Abercorn Street would make that part of DeRenne “a destination – not just a road,” Hume said.

The stretch of DeRenne from Abercorn to the Truman is not viewed as over-taxed for a four-lane roadway, at least at present, according to Hume, who said traffic counts show about 35,000 vehicles travel the roadway daily. “The traffic volume and lane capacity are not that far out of balance,” he noted.

The focus here, he said, has moved away from adding more lanes to removing and replacing them with medians. With that approach, Huime said, would come refiguring of the entrances and exits to north-south streets intersecting DeRenne, such as Habersham Street and Waters Avenue.

“We can make them better able to accommodate the traffic,” he said

For instance, on Waters Avenue “why do they need two lanes” going north, he said. “We could refigure that to make left and right turn lanes.”

The idea of redoing the entires and exists of the north-south intersecting streets stems from the “holistic approach,” Hume explained. “If we were just looking at traffic, we might have looked at other accommodations.”

On land use on DeRenne’s east corridor, an emphasis has been on enhancing the small-lot residential character of the South Garden neighborhood east of the Medical Arts District. The key there, Hume said, is to discourage encroachment of medical-related businesses into South Garden.

To do that, he said, more attention must be given to how space is used in the medical district. It’s not uncommon, said Hume, to see medical buildings sitting among vacant, fenced lots.

Future development there should be more orderly and compact, he said.

“We went into this with an open mind,” Hume said, referring to endorsing a policy of expanding the medical district into South Garden. “But there’s just not enough use” of the land available in the district, he added.

The stretch of DeRenne from Abercorn west to White Bluff is deteriorating and falling well below its potential, according to Hume. It’s “definitely an area that could benefit from redevlopment,” he said.

Abercorn to White Bluff on both sides of DeRenne “has a tremendous amount of vacancy,” Hume said.

Empty storefronts are likely to remain, he said, until the transformation of DeRenne is accomplished.

That’s not just his opinion, he stressed. The number-one sentiment from business people and building owners all along DeRenne’s commercial stretches, he said, “was that we can’t do nothing.”

They attribute the stagnation to the absence of progress on the part of the city, the Metropolitan Planning Commission and the state Department of Transportation. Businesses and building owners are going to invest in property that may be seized for a highway right of way, Hume noted.

What he’s hearing, he said, is that “10 years of  uncertainty is killing us.”