Having already lost about four percent of their market share of Asian cargo to Canadian and East Coast ports the past few years, and hoping to avoid a further diversion of cargo when the Panama Canal is widened in 2014, U.S. West Coast ports are jointly and individually developing strategies to be more competitive. … The executive directors of the six major West Coast container ports in August wrote a letter to the BNSF and Union Pacific railroads, urging the rail carriers to join them in branding and promoting the West Coast as the preferred gateway for trade with Asia.
