Baltimore intermodal project is crucial, leaders say

Gov. Martin O’Malley and Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake called Baltimore’s proposed intermodal project critical for the future of state transportation at Wednesday’s christening of the Port of Baltimore’s four new 40-foot cranes.

The $40 million cranes are part of a three-year, $105 million effort to prepare Seagirt Marine Terminal for the expansion of the Panama Canal in May 2015. The expansion will allow 13,000 twenty-equivalent-unit (TEU) ships to arrive in Baltimore, tripling the size of the ships currently able to dock at the port.

Ports America Chesapeake, which in 2010 signed a 50-year public-private partnership agreement to operate Seagirt, estimates the economic impact of the new ships at $16 million per year in tax income. But that depends on the city and state making sure CSX Transportation Inc. (NYSE: CSX) opens its new intermodal facility in Mount Clare by the spring 2015, Rawlings Blake said.

“These giant cranes are the physical representation of the future of the Port of Baltimore,” Rawlings-Blake told the assembled crowd.

Read full article here from Baltimore Business Journal