Companies that export goods from China and the rest of Asia are looking for routes to the East Coast and Midwest that are cheaper and more reliable than the crowded West Coast ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, according to port planner and consultant M. John Vickerman.
So when the $5.25 billion expansion of the Panama Canal opens in 2015, allowing larger ships to move more cargo from the Pacific to the Atlantic, he said it could boost shipping through Pennsylvania from ports in the Gulf of Mexico and the Great Lakes.
“The Mississippi and Ohio rivers could become a highway for container cargo dropped off at Gulf ports and brought up by barge,” he said.