Seattle harbor changes

At the beginning of July two thirds to three quarters of the container shipping from Seattle began moving to the harbor in Tacoma. The Tacoma harbor is roughly 1/5 of the size of the Seattle harbor.

I never got the full facts on the reason Seattle is giving up billions of dollars of business.

There is one fact which is easy to see. New container technology allows the loading of railroad cars 1.25 miles long at one time. The Seattle railroad tracks are on the wrong side of a freeway.

I was given several reasons Seattle gave up billions of dollars of business. One was the environmentalists abhorrence of the future use of the harbor for loading coal. Another was the unions dislike of new technology that reduced the number of jobs.  Still another was the view that the land in the harbor was too valuable to continue using for industrial harbor purposes.

Regardless of the reason there seems to be a political failure. The two harbors should be controlled by one political entity not two.  In such a case, more rational decision-making would be possible. But I rarely have ever seen two separate commissions agree to become one.

If anyone has better information on this nightmare please let me know. I am interested in the way cities kill themselves.