Cargo is at last beginning to move more swiftly through the big Port of Los Angeles and Port of Long Beach after months of congestion and, in some cases, no movement at all.
Containers, reports the Wall Street Journal, have been “moving more quickly through the ports and on to inland destinations recently.”
The two largest ports in the U.S. combined have handled up to 40% of all shipping containers in the country, processing lumber and wood products, as well as steel and aluminum material needed by the domestic construction industry.
But throughout most of 2021 the ports were plagued with traffic jams, prompting unprecedented backups and delays in the movement of materials. By the first week of this year, the line of ships waiting to be served was more than one hundred.
But according to the Marine Exchange of Southern California the backup in recent weeks has lessened.
The Port of Los Angeles is now recording a 3.6% increase in traffic for the first month of this year, marking the first year-over-year monthly increase since September. In a statement, Gene Seroka, executive director of the Los Angeles port, remarked that the good numbers for January “reflects the great efforts of our longshore workers, truckers and terminal operators as we continue to focus on additional operational efficiencies in the months ahead.”
Dockworkers and terminal operators at the Long Beach port, meanwhile, saw an increase in traffic of 3.2% in February, over the same period of time last year. As of last week, reports the Long Beach Business Journal, the “backlog was down to 50 vessels, only three of which were within 40 miles of the coast.”
Despite the ports’ latest hopeful figures, the Wall Street Journal, among other sources, says that many of the underlying supply chain issues that caused backlogs last year remain unresolved: “Warehouses still don’t have enough workers or space to process and store boxes,” while trucking companies remain short of drivers to pull containers.
By Garry Boulard
