savvysearch
December 30th, 2004, 01:48 AM
This may also be motivating for the city to turn the port space into public spaces and parks in LA and Long Beach ports.
Kennedy Airport Falls to No. 2 in Moving International Goods
By SEWELL CHAN
Published: December 29, 2004
For the first time, Kennedy International Airport has been surpassed as the top international freight gateway in the United States, according to new federal statistics that show that the Port of Los Angeles is now the nation's largest point of access for the movement of goods across countries.
Last year, $122 billion in international shipments moved through the California port, compared with $112 billion through the New York airport, according to data released yesterday by the Bureau of Transportation Statistics, a unit of the federal Department of Transportation.
Kennedy had held the No. 1 position since 1999, when the bureau began compiling information reported by the freight gateways.
Third on the list is the land component of the Detroit/Wayne County Port Authority, where $102 billion in international shipments moved across the border with Canada last year. The seaport of New York and New Jersey remained at No. 4, with $101 billion in shipments moving through the harbor.
The remainder of the top 10 gateways are the seaport of Long Beach, Calif.; the border crossing at Laredo, Tex.; Los Angeles International Airport; the border crossing at Port Huron, Mich.; the border crossing at Buffalo and Niagara Falls, N.Y.; and O'Hare and Midway International Airports in Chicago.
At 8 of the 10 hubs, the value of imports exceeded the value of exports, but the Los Angeles port is an especially stark reflection of the nation's trade deficit. Last year, $105 billion in imports and $17 billion worth of exports passed through it, compared with $65 billion of imports and $47 billion of exports at Kennedy.
A spokesman for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which has managed Kennedy since 1947, said it was not fair to examine the airport apart from the harbor.
"The air cargo division and the Port of New York and New Jersey act as one entity, responsible for the import and export of freight to and from the United States," said the spokesman, Tony Ciavolella. "It's an apples-and-oranges comparison to look at Kennedy Airport as a separate entity from the total Port Authority system."
Mr. Ciavolella also noted that the total value of foreign trade that passed through the airport and the harbor, $213 billion, far exceeded that of any other single metropolitan region in the nation.
A spokesman for the statistical agency defended its comparison across the three modes of transport.
"We have become more intermodal," the spokesman, Roger P. Lotz, said. "There are shipments that don't just go simply by ship, by truck or by plane. Look at a FedEx shipment. It will go by a truck to a plane to a truck."
The bureau plans to release a report next month on the top freight gateways in the United States, Mr. Lotz said. Last year, $2 trillion in exports and imports moved through more than 400 freight gateways across the country. Forty-three percent, or $851 billion, was handled by the top 10 gateways.
An urban historian said it was not surprising that a western port would eclipse Kennedy as the single greatest point of access for international trade, given the growth of the Pacific Rim economies. "New York's primacy as an international entrepôt and port were in large part due to the importance of the Atlantic world and ocean," said Kenneth T. Jackson, a professor of history and the social sciences at Columbia University.
Professor Jackson added that he did not believe the change in ranking was an important gauge of the relative importance of the two cities. "There are many ways to measure urban significance, and the physical movement of goods is not as important now as it was 100 or 200 years ago," he said.
Kennedy Airport Falls to No. 2 in Moving International Goods
By SEWELL CHAN
Published: December 29, 2004
For the first time, Kennedy International Airport has been surpassed as the top international freight gateway in the United States, according to new federal statistics that show that the Port of Los Angeles is now the nation's largest point of access for the movement of goods across countries.
Last year, $122 billion in international shipments moved through the California port, compared with $112 billion through the New York airport, according to data released yesterday by the Bureau of Transportation Statistics, a unit of the federal Department of Transportation.
Kennedy had held the No. 1 position since 1999, when the bureau began compiling information reported by the freight gateways.
Third on the list is the land component of the Detroit/Wayne County Port Authority, where $102 billion in international shipments moved across the border with Canada last year. The seaport of New York and New Jersey remained at No. 4, with $101 billion in shipments moving through the harbor.
The remainder of the top 10 gateways are the seaport of Long Beach, Calif.; the border crossing at Laredo, Tex.; Los Angeles International Airport; the border crossing at Port Huron, Mich.; the border crossing at Buffalo and Niagara Falls, N.Y.; and O'Hare and Midway International Airports in Chicago.
At 8 of the 10 hubs, the value of imports exceeded the value of exports, but the Los Angeles port is an especially stark reflection of the nation's trade deficit. Last year, $105 billion in imports and $17 billion worth of exports passed through it, compared with $65 billion of imports and $47 billion of exports at Kennedy.
A spokesman for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which has managed Kennedy since 1947, said it was not fair to examine the airport apart from the harbor.
"The air cargo division and the Port of New York and New Jersey act as one entity, responsible for the import and export of freight to and from the United States," said the spokesman, Tony Ciavolella. "It's an apples-and-oranges comparison to look at Kennedy Airport as a separate entity from the total Port Authority system."
Mr. Ciavolella also noted that the total value of foreign trade that passed through the airport and the harbor, $213 billion, far exceeded that of any other single metropolitan region in the nation.
A spokesman for the statistical agency defended its comparison across the three modes of transport.
"We have become more intermodal," the spokesman, Roger P. Lotz, said. "There are shipments that don't just go simply by ship, by truck or by plane. Look at a FedEx shipment. It will go by a truck to a plane to a truck."
The bureau plans to release a report next month on the top freight gateways in the United States, Mr. Lotz said. Last year, $2 trillion in exports and imports moved through more than 400 freight gateways across the country. Forty-three percent, or $851 billion, was handled by the top 10 gateways.
An urban historian said it was not surprising that a western port would eclipse Kennedy as the single greatest point of access for international trade, given the growth of the Pacific Rim economies. "New York's primacy as an international entrepôt and port were in large part due to the importance of the Atlantic world and ocean," said Kenneth T. Jackson, a professor of history and the social sciences at Columbia University.
Professor Jackson added that he did not believe the change in ranking was an important gauge of the relative importance of the two cities. "There are many ways to measure urban significance, and the physical movement of goods is not as important now as it was 100 or 200 years ago," he said.