Ports in Seattle, Tacoma and Vancouver are Cascadia's shipping gateways. Now an American man is investing up to $500 million to build a container-port operation in Prince Rupert, a town on the British Columbia coast about 500 miles north of Vancouver.
A story in the Wall Street Journal Tuesday explains that the new operation through tiny Prince Rupert could shave two days' transit for goods from China bound to Chicago. Ships would arrive in the town's naturally deep harbor and travel across Canada on a train line that has excess capacity (instead of on congested routes through the U.S.).
The project still faces many obstacles. But it underscores how much competition Cascadia's major ports face.
A couple of years ago Vancouver benefited while Seattle, Portland and California's ports suffered through a strike. Each port has since expanded to meet demand from the booming trade with Asia, providing more business for everyone.
Yet when an inevitable downturn in business comes, the key question will return: who can do the business fastest and at the lowest cost?
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