 |
| Tay Yoshitani |
| |
For some, Summer is the season of golf, mowing the lawn and enjoying the Bay Area’s fine weather. While that holds true, Summer has a different meaning for those of us who work in the transportation industry. Oddly enough, Summer marks the beginning of the “Christmas Rush” when many companies and most shipping lines are quite busy bringing in the goods that will fill the shelves during the Holiday Season that today seems so far away. This time of year international imports begin to surge and hit a peak in the final days of September and October. Summer is a busy time for our Maritime Division.
And although the economy may be slow, containerized cargo volumes through Oakland have remained strong so far in 2003. Through the month of April, for example, overall cargo volume is up by 13.8% while imports alone are up by nearly 21%. If this trend remains steady for the rest of the year, Oakland could see container volumes exceed 1.9 million TEUs (Twenty-Foot Equivalent Units) for the first time in our history.
Oakland International Airport is also busy, and we are estimating that 13 million passengers will travel through the Bay Area’s most convenient airport this year. Bucking the national trend, Oakland remains one of the fastest growing airports in the United States. We are building to handle this growth, and more parking, more passenger gates and better security will ensure that you will continue to move through the airport quickly and conveniently.
Public works projects, such as Oakland’s Airport Development Program, remain one of the bright spots in our regional economy. We are investing today for Oakland’s facilities of tomorrow. And the construction jobs from our developments are targeted for our local citizens. We have set a goal of 50% of the construction jobs for people in our Local Impact Area (LIA). We have also set a target of 20% of the construction to be performed by apprentices from the LIA. Local jobs for local people. Local jobs that can become careers. This construction is budgeted at $1.2 billion, and is funded from the revenues created by our on-going operations. To make it happen we will need to watch every dollar to ensure it is spend effectively and productively. The economy may be down, but the Port of Oakland’s mission to provide benefit to the citizens of our community will continue.
One final point I wanted to mention was the tremendous efforts and contributions to the March of Dimes by our staff and our business partners. The Port of Oakland was the lead corporate sponsor and raised over $50,000 from employees and friends for this year’s March of Dimes WalkAmerica campaign. A total of $230,000 was raised in the East Bay, doubling last year’s amount. We can all be justifiably proud of this accomplishment.
