Punta Colonet

Punta Colonet is still a sleepy village, but developers hope to make it one of the largest ports on the Pacific Coast. Click on the photo to see the Los Angeles Times' series.

The Los Angeles Times recently ran a series of photographs and captions online that shed light on the Mexican government’s plans to build a mega-port south of Tijuana. Updates included the following:

  • Mexico’s government is preparing to open bidding on what would be the largest infrastructure project in the nation’s history, a $4-billion seaport that could transform this poor village south of Tijuana into a cargo hub to rival the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach.
  • With the West Coast’s largest port complex, L.A.-Long Beach, constrained by urban development and environmental regulations, shippers are searching for alternatives.
  • Punta Colonet, a one-light Baja town of 2,500, will need to be reinvented as a modern city with massive upgrades to its roads, housing, water system and power supply if the seaport project goes forward. State and local officials are planning for a city of about 200,000 to spring up around the port.
  • A thick fog bank looms offshore from the natural bay at Punto Colonet that government leaders envision as the site of a new, $4-billion seaport that would handle a large chunk of the tens of millions of containers that cross the Pacific each year. One booster says the facility could one day rival the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, which last year handled 15.7 million containers combined.

See the photos and captions at this link to the Los Angeles Times.