US East Coast Ports Are Spending Billions to Profit From Asia’s Shifting Exports
The container ship CMA CGM Marco Polo sails past historic River Street and City Hall in Savannah, Georgia, in 2021. Photographer: Stephen B. Morton/AP Photo
Savannah and Brunswick in Georgia are looking to win business away from Pacific coast rivals.
Named for a segregationist Georgia governor who served almost a century ago, the Eugene Talmadge Memorial Bridge over the Savannah River is a vestige of the Jim Crow era rendered in concrete. At 33 years old, it’s young by US infrastructure standards. But economic progress and the shifting winds of global trade have turned the bridge into a barricade.
That’s why state officials plan to spend $189 million to shorten the span’s suspension cables and raise its deck as much as possible, among other upgrades. The additional clearance will allow ever-taller vessels to reach the expanding docks just upstream at the Port of Savannah, the nation’s fourth-busiest for container traffic.
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