Ships wide enough to fit through the Canal today are called Panamax. Those that will go through the wider Canal are called Post-Panamax. These larger ships were first used in the Far East, transporting goods through the Suez Canal to Western Europe. Later they added a route between Asia and the West Coast as commerce increased, particularly to and from China.
U.S. ports on the West Coast — at Long Beach, Los Angeles and Oakland, Calif. — could take the larger ships. They already handle almost twice as many containers as all the ports on the East Coast do.
Though more container ships have begun heading for the East Coast, most ports in that region don’t have harbors and channels deep enough to handle the Post-Panamax container ships, which need harbor water depths of 50 feet. The East Coast ports that today have the main container terminals — New York, Savannah, Ga., Charleston, S.C., and Miami — are at 42 feet or less. Norfolk and Baltimore have the depth but not the container volumes.
Enter the federal government, which, not surprisingly, has programs to help the multibillion-dollar import-export business. The Port of New York and New Jersey alone “provides more than 269,900 full-time
Article source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/panama-project-should-boost-us-shippings-fortunes/2012/02/11/gIQAOoWyBR_story.html posted in Panama Canal
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