Submitted by Suanne Z. Thamm
Reporter – News Analyst
August 25, 2014 5:25 a.m.
Senior Planner Kelly Gibson has announced a date change due to scheduling conflicts for the third and final meeting of the PAB Subcommittee on the Port Master Plan. The meeting will be held on Tuesday, August 26, 2014, at 3:00 p.m. in the Commission Chamber at Fernandina Beach City Hall. There are three items of new business:
3.1 Discuss Historic District impacts
3.2 Discuss wetland and dredging projects contained in the Master Plan
3.3 Discuss Comprehensive Plan Amendments – Appendix D
Gibson has requested that comments be forwarded to her at [email protected] prior to the meeting.
Look long and hard about creative options that may be available to inhibit container drayage through the main streets leading through Fernandina Beach and the A1A corridor. The port operator, Kinder Morgan, will put as little investment as possible into using rail to transport containers through Fernandina Beach – when drayage trucking is available. How about increased charges per container based on exceeding a minimum limit – enough to offset the impacts on roads, businesses, and the tourist industry on Amelia Island. Sometimes “growth” is bad “growth”.
http://www.kindermorgan.com/business/terminals/southeast.cfm
Robert,
I strongly support your concern about the increased truck traffic in the event of an expansion of the Port’s container traffic. However, you should be aware that RockTenn did a study a couple of years ago for using the railroad to bring in the chips and logs from an inter-modal loading yard off of US 17. The study wasn’t just theoretical but included an actual pilot program for at least a month. Overall conclusion was that due to the additional handling there wasn’t a cost savings and the intermodal yard would require a major capital investment in an expansion to be able to handle a larger quantity of trucks. Of course, realize that probably just as many trucks come in to service Rayonier but turn off 8th Street at Gum.
Dave – I certainly agree, the investment in rail certainly costs more. But the impact of port drayage on this community and the A1A corridor is even greater. Who wins, who looses? There is good growth, and there is bad growth. Better to resolve this investment issue and rate structure with KinderMorgan now. It will be a fait accompi later.