Edward Lotterman
The collapse of Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key bridge, dramatically caught by CCTV cameras, is riveting the nation’s attention.
It evokes millions of online suggestions from armchair engineers and commercial shipping “experts,” yet it will have little effect on the national economy. However, it does give myriad lessons in economics. Let’s consider a few.
The first is on how the cost of information has collapsed relatively faster than a truss bridge with its supports knocked out. This slashing of the costs of finding out anything is changing the world in the way that the transatlantic telegraph cable or jet-engine airliners did generations ago.
On reading myriad news stories about the bridge, I was struck that none mentioned the tide. As an avid reader of the Hornblower and Aubrey-Maturin novels, I know the importance of rising or falling tides on entering or leaving harbors, regardless of propulsion. Yet only a National Public Radio story mentioned anything.
With my favorite search engine, I found that high tide had been at 8:08 p.m. on Monday evening and the next low tide was at 2:20 a.m. The time of impact has been given as 1:15 or 1:30 am, so water was still flowing strongly out of the harbor. The mean tidal current speed is 1.94 feet per second averaged across the whole tide cycle but would be faster at some times of the month than others and generally would be faster in mid-channel than along banks.
I found that the moon had been full just one night before and so this was the second greatest tidal range in a lunar month and thus the fastest currents. It probably was near 3 mph at the time of collision. Since ships must travel relative to moving water itself for any rudder effect, the fact that the ship in question, the Dali, seemed to be traveling fast was understandable and not reckless.
Finding this info took under five minutes. When I started this column in 1999, it would have taken hours in a good research library to find the same information. And was there any library in Minnesota informing me that MV Dali’s problematic main engine, a MAN-B&W model 9S90ME, is an electronically controlled two-stroke diesel producing 41,480 kilowatts or about 55,600 horsepower?
This specific information has little importance in itself, but the fact that a layperson can find it in their own home while coffee water heats is astounding! It is why our world is changing so fast. On the whole, cheap information is making economies more efficient, but also brings wrenching societal adjustments.
Also consider that in mere moments after the Dali lost power, and before the collision, emergency responders in Baltimore were able to block traffic access to the bridge, no doubt saving lives. Again, modern speed of ubiquitous low-cost information comes into play.
Now consider the economic ripples of the collision itself. As opposed to the modern-day access to information mentioned above, some of these direct and indirect impacts are timeless. First, there is the immediate loss of life and of equipment on the bridge. There is the destruction of the bridge and damage to the ship. There will be a large cost in removing the wreckage and even greater cost in money and time in rebuilding the bridge.
The 13 or so ships trapped in the harbor will sit idle for weeks. The dozens scheduled to enter for loading or unloading in the immediate future will also sit idle until alternate arrangements are made. Shipments of goods to the port, including John Deere and Caterpillar equipment, will have to be rerouted. Customers will have to wait for new machines, perhaps badly needed. Some car buyers will wait additional weeks for sleek new European wheels. Dock workers and truck drivers will lose work hours. So will the ancillary port businesses.
Probably most importantly, tens of thousands of drivers will drive millions of extra miles and spend millions of extra hours before a replacement bridge is built. Trucks will drive extra miles burning extra fuel. A new bridge will take years. At even minimum wage, these hours lost probably will be the largest cost.
So the economic impact is, indeed, large. But it will have no measurable impact on the gigantic U.S. economy nor, probably, on Maryland. And measurable economic effects on Baltimore itself will be smaller than one might think.
People who live in the Twin Cities should know this. The August 2007 collapse of the I-35 bridge in Minneapolis, and its impacts, are remembered by everyone who lived here back then. Some drivers spent extra time in traffic for 13 months. More people died in our disaster and 145 were injured — ours happened during rush hour. Vehicles per day across our bridge were more than three times as high as Baltimore’s. As with Baltimore, that bridge collapsed over a major commercial waterway, also blocking barge traffic.
But the I-35 collapse does not show up in any statistics as a hit to state or metro output, employment or incomes. And the same was true for the Tampa Bay area after the very similar ship-collision-caused destruction of the Sunshine Skyway Bridge in 1980 that had many more deaths.
Baltimore’s situation is more problematic than the Twin Cities because its water transport facilities are upriver rather than below the wreckage. Baltimore’s site for rebuilding is more challenging, and so forth. But 20 years from now it will be seen like our disaster, memorable — but not economically crucial.
From a national economic point of view, the disaster shows how fortunate our nation is. Econ texts all teach students about “equity” and ”efficiency” in economic systems but seldom resiliency or sustainability.
Geography can be an asset or an impartment to the destiny for nations. Ours is very favorable and gives us resiliency in many ways. It is about the most felicitous of any major nation in the world in terms of transportation.
We have dozens of major ports beside Baltimore. Boston, New York, Norfolk, Charleston, Savannah, Jacksonville, Miami, Mobile, New Orleans, Houston and, yes, Duluth, all connect us to the Atlantic. And there are several smaller ones with useful capacity. We have good rail systems, so tractors and excavators parked at the Dundalk terminal, up in the Baltimore port from the bridge, may have to be reloaded and railed thousands of miles to another port, but we have the capacity to do it. Auto carriers may have to sail down to the terminal in Brunswick, Ga., but it can unload them and speed them on their way. Brazil or Bolivia or Congo would give anything to have our topography. Also understand that some Baltimore port facilities are unaffected and quick improvisation might increase their capacity
Now to questions of rebuilding. The ship owners are liable and their insurers will have to pay something. But if hail destroys your roof but the shingles are 17-years old, your new roof won’t be free of charge. If a red-light runner T-bones my rusting 2003 F-250, I won’t get a check that will buy me a 2024 model. The destroyed bridge was designed in the 1960s and built in the 1970s. It was obsolete even though safe and serviceable. We won’t get full payment for a modern one.
Any replacement probably will be cable-stayed rather than steel arch. It will have greater clearance under it for ships and greater span over the channel. It will have more robust protection of piers against errant ships. And, if our latest St Croix-area highway bridge gives a hint, Baltimore’s replacement bridge will cost billions. And, forgive Joe Biden or not for election year crowing, the federal government will pay nearly all of it. The simple reason is that the bridge is part of the federal interstate highway system. The Eisenhower-era legislation establishing that system mandates a federal share of at least 90% for all construction.
There are many more economic issues. Should we have more tugboats? Better ship inspections? U.S. only crews? But we have enough lessons to ponder today.
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St. Paul economist and writer Edward Lotterman can be reached at stpaul@edlotterman.com.
