WASHINGTON: The arrival of the Ever Lambent, a massive green-hulled container ship, in Baltimore on Tuesday marks the end of a long wait and the beginning of what officials hope is a new era for the state-owned port. The 1,095-foot Taiwanese cargo ship, which can carry 8,452 20-foot shipping containers, is the first of a new generation of massive container ships to call on the port after transiting the newly expanded Panama Canal, which opened late last month.
Over the past decade, Panama spent billions widening the canal, and East Coast ports spent hundreds of millions preparing to handle larger ships from Asia. The port of Baltimore already had deep enough channels and acquired four giant new cranes to unload the massive ships, so there’s hope the new traffic coming through the Panama Canal will buoy its fortunes.
Baltimore stands to gain more than any other port on the East Coast, said James White, executive director of the Maryland Port Administration. “I think the tide has turned for us in a positive way,” White said.
While Baltimore is the nation’s top port for automobiles, the tide of container traffic hasn’t been particularly favorable in recent decades. It’s seen slow growth but lost market share to East Coast rivals that also serve the Mid-Atlantic and Midwest. Last year, New York handled the equivalent of 6.4 million 20-foot containers and Norfolk moved more than 2.5 million, compared with Baltimore’s roughly 800,000.
