Same thing is happening in LA ports. Basically the empty containers are being stored on trucks which makes the trucks stuck and not able to pickup new containers. The pinch point is nowhere to store all the empty containers before they can be swapped out.
Long Beach did lift there city ordinance that limited you to a 2 stack of containers. Its gone to 4, so there is some hope that will help, there.
Right, but from my understanding that only buys a couple days or weeks of relief?
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No, if you look at Biden’s press release or compare the cities the article mentioned with CSX’s rail map, it looks more like they’re also moving containers by rail. I assume this also lessens the damage from driver shortages that @mike mentioned since they’re using/making actual storage facilities rather than makeshift warehouses, so it’ll provide relief for more than just a few days.
Most ships are much bigger than Panamax, though, to the point that they are now one of the smaller kinds of cargo ships used in global commerce. The one that got stuck in the Suez Canal earlier this year, for example, was four times that size.
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Do you have more information on these shipping containers and supply chain issues? Just point me in the right direction.
I am asking, because I find it hard to believe that an overload of empty shipping containers has caused material costs to increase over 30% this year and have created lead time issues where said materials are taking a magnitude of 2-3x the norm. I know if things don’t get better the construction industry is going to grind to a halt. Some items are taking up to 18 weeks from time of ordering that once upon a time took 6-8 weeks.
Anyway, just looking for education on a problem that has been affecting me daily.
Four eways empty containers drive up cost by just setting around. 1. they take of storage space forcing ports to have to work round them. 2. buy not getting on ships going back to pick up new loads they require new containers for each shipment. Do not recall the exact numbers but it’s something like the US imports 2 containers for each one that is sent out with load. Ports only take time to load paying containers and ignore loading empties on outgoing ships due to time constraints. 3. Being empties are not being sent back means that a lot of new ones have to be built. Kind of like only using your car for one trip and then buying a new one. 4. All this add up to MUCH higher shipping cost of somewhere in range of $1000 to Asia to US cost 3 years about to over $3000 now per container.
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I read this article yesterday and found it to be informative and refreshingly apolitical. Perhaps this will provide some insight?
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This has been big news in my hometown of Gainesville, GA. They were declared one of the inland ports and expect a lot of jobs.
Ok, here is a freebie solution. Let’s suspend the environmental restrictions in CA for 6 months, run 24/7 so all the Chinese ships can be emptied. Once they are empty reinstate the restrictions. We get our goods and China the worlds largest population generating country (climate trade.com) gets its money. No need for an inland container storage and processing center in NC if you can’t get the goods off the boat.
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So this may be something to follow…Remember the rumor mill circulating (along with supposed Tesla job postings for Raleigh) about Tesla opening a facility in Raleigh? Sounds like more fuel cell focused rather than a car plant…which is probably less jobs but much higher wages since it will be engineering - type jobs.
I thought the Piedmont Lithium deal was already done but apparently there is still the public hearing portion of the mine that has not been fully decided yet. There was a reported linkage to this plant & Raleigh’s facility because Piedmont Lithium had signed a deal to provide a chunk of Lithium to Tesla…
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CityPlat will spin off a company that will focus on high-end residential projects, will be associated with German luxury residential broker Engel & Völkers. Probably not mean much in the near future but might help the condo market? CityPlat owns a lot of downtown property and the office market is flat.
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Yesterday, the TBJ held a “State of RTP” press event. Leaders of RTP and tenant companies talked in this summit about how they want to evolve their business model to meet thee needs of 2021’s businesses and what they can do about it.
You’d think TBJ’ own journalists would only try to hype up the event. But surprisingly, it brought up surprisingly important points about what challenges lie ahead for RTP in its next 50 years -and in some cases, Raleigh and the whole Triangle, too.
From these TBJ articles (Article 1 | Article 2):
1. The Triangle is lacking in risk capital, including venture capital.
Startups, especially in biotech, need a lot of upfront investments. The NSF, NIH, and DARPA fund a lot of tech development, but companies still need to be formed and have initial investments before they’re ready to hit the markets. The Triangle is lacking in this regard, according to them and other research.
RTP’s leaders said this is a big drawback against more businesses starting in our region or calling it home. The 3D printing company Carbon and NFT platform Mojito are two successful startups I can think off the top of my head that moved out of the Triangle for funding rounds, so it’s definitely not a hypothetical question. It’s not to say there’s no VC funding here since there are several options for early-stage funding, options for affiliates for UNC, Duke, and State, and tons of resources when you need business advice. But when you need large or later-stage investments, it’s not that simple.
Personally, I wouldn’t just say it’s venture capital funds that are missing in the Triangle, but it’s the amount of risk-taking tolerated or encouraged in general. After all, many people end up moving to the Triangle with an established career to raise a family. Doesn’t that stage of life just fundamentally make you more risk-averse since you need to “think of the kids”? I wonder if there’s a psychological impact from things like that on risk-taking activities like making a startup.
2. The Triangle doesn't think or plan as a region.
We talked about this earlier in the elections/council thread in the context of whether it’s okay for Durham-based religion-leading housing advocates in OneWake to do what they do in Wake County. I still need to process my thoughts on that, but it’s clear that we aren’t the only ones who recognize the Triangle is still very siloed based on its individual cities and counties.
@Francisco mentioned in the above link that Amazon may have had a discouraging headache from how it had to calm down Durham after it awarded “Raleigh” as a HQ2 finalist. I’m not sure how true that was, but it is true that we only have so much coordination between the governments, cultures, and identities of our region.
I mentioned some possible solutions in the commuter rail thread. Maybe there’s other ways we could share planning policies, too? For example, Triangle cities could pitch in and have one shared design guideline for “missing middle” houses, a joint plan for affordable houses, or engineering standards for safer and more walkable streets. We have an existing place to start, too, in the form of the Triangle J Council of Governments.
3. RTP's running out of empty land, but density runs against its selling point.
Speaking of land use planning, we’re obviously about density here in the DTRaleigh Community. But big companies, especially in the tech and bio worlds, are sensitive about privacy and intellectual property protection. RTP seems to think it will need a better way to figure out how to navigate this changing landscape of corporate needs.
To be clear, suburban offices don’t seem to be dying without a fight despite quite a lot of articles saying otherwise. But I wonder what RTP will actually do about that conflict next -beyond what it has in store for Hub RTP and the Frontier?
One more thing to note: if the future really is leaning towards dense, walkable places with urban-style mixed-use buildings, then this means Raleigh (and especially downtown!) may have a business case for competing against RTP as a business hub. I’m not sure if that would lead to the helpful, mutually-improving kind of competition or the type of competition where both sides cannibalize each other’s markets, though…
Do these sound right to you? How do y’all feel about that?
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I assumed RTP’s strongest selling point was location to the universities. The empty land may have shaped what came next, but it was more correlation than causation.
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I agree with you partly, but our schools alone wouldn’t differentiate us from Boston or Silicon Valley. Since correlation doesn’t imply causation but does imply a common cause, I think historical trends gave special preference for our universities and turned our region into prime real estate.
Our biggest differentiator came from suburbs across America becoming popular since the 60s as people actively sought to avoid “inner cities”. The crown jewel of companies in this kind of environment was the “corporate estate”. That’s much easier to build when you’re not already an urban center -and even easier on virgin soil.
That’s not to say I think suburban offices’ value propositions hold water today, though. Some of today’s concerns like privacy feel more like companies are being stubborn with confirmation bias, but I digress.
By the way, click me for more fun facts!
The land the Park is on was undeveloped in the 50s since it was too poor-quality for farming, which is why the state was able to buy it to form RTP. They actually struggled with recruiting for a while (except for RTI) until its operator stopped being for-profit venture in 1959.
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Not hyper-local but within communtable distance of Raleighwood. Bit of a boondoggle @ taxpayers expense but it helps a part of ENC that is commutable to Raleigh.
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Looks like there’s been a lot of local pushback recently to the lithium mine they want to open out in Gaston County. Looks like they would have been one of the largest open lithium mines in the US too.
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Something that fascinates me are conflicts between one environmental climate change need and another local environmental concern. Situations where both sides think they are saving the planet.
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I see it as “I’m all for fighting climate change (CC), until the fight is near my house”. Kind if two-faced in my option, but then not saying all the oppose people think climate change is a real thing. If anyone looks they can see CC around. Like around my place, lefts where weeks later changing this year and where still leaves on trees until last week (normally all bare but mid OCT) when a major wind event striped them off. Now having forest fires breaking out in number of places due to very dry conditions.
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