International Maritime
The Vincent Thomas Bridge( pictured) handles 53,000 vehicles a day, including 3,400 heavy-duty trucks. Shutterstock. com
The redecking project, scheduled to begin in January, will require one-directional bridge closures for nine months. Full closure of the bridge will occur from November 2026 to March 2028, a Caltrans representative told a meeting of the Propeller Club of Los Angeles and Long Beach in May.
Caltrans has identified an alternative network of surface streets that will allow truck and vehicular traffic to move into and out of the harbor area during the lengthy bridge closure. Street upgrades are underway, and Caltrans has set up a communications network for real-time traffic updates, the agency representative said.
If the state were to adopt the port’ s plan to raise the bridge clearance by 26 feet, the total cost of the project would increase from $ 1.5 billion to $ 2.2 billion, while the bridge closure would also be longer, going from 16 months to 28 months.
Seroka told the Journal of Commerce the port and terminal operators will maintain a dialogue with the state on eventually raising the height of the bridge.
“ While we were hopeful that we would be able to include a bridge raising component into Caltrans’ pending critical maintenance project, we’ re encouraged by the strong support of the administration to quickly explore additional projects, which could include raising the bridge or building a new crossing,” Seroka said.
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of the tender process before the authority chooses the successful concessionaire.
“ The final phase of the concessionaire selection is expected to conclude in the fourth quarter of 2026,” ACP said.
The terminals will have an initial combined capacity of 5 million TEUs and focus mainly on transshipment traffic.
“[ The terminals ] will strengthen Panama’ s position as one of the world’ s most competitive intermodal hubs, and expand port capacity in the interoceanic area, which is currently operating near its limit,” the ACP said.
“ The final phase of the concessionaire selection is expected to conclude in the fourth quarter of 2026.”
The terminals are part of an $ 8.5 billion, 10-year investment plan announced by ACP Administrator Ricaurte Vásquez Morales on Sept. 16.
ACP originally planned to develop the Corozal container terminal in 2016, but the project foundered when none of the four shortlisted companies, including APM Terminals, PSA International and CMA CGM, submitted a bid.
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ACP revived the Corozal terminal project earlier this year following the geopolitical wrangling between the US and China that engulfed the proposed sale of Hong Kongbased CK Hutchison’ s 90 % interest in the Panama Port Company to BlackRock and Mediterranean Shipping Co.’ s terminal arm.
Morales told the Journal of Commerce in June that reviving the Corozal project would help allay concerns about the canal’ s neutrality and competitiveness as its existing container terminals are concentrated among a handful of operators. At the time, he said the Corozal Container Terminal should be a common-user facility, open to all carriers.
The Colón container terminal has since been added to the overall project.
Besides CMA CGM, Cosco, Hapag-Lloyd and Maersk, ACP said the other carrier participants at its latest meeting about the project were Ocean Network Express( ONE), Evergreen Line, HMM, MSC, OOCL, Yang Ming and ZIM Integrated Shipping Services.
In addition to PSA and DP World, the terminal operators represented were APM Terminals, Cosco Shipping Ports, CMA Terminals, Hanseatic Global Terminals( part of Hapag-Lloyd), MOL Group, Port of Houston, SSA Marine – Grupo Carrix and MSC’ s Terminal Investment Ltd.
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December 1, 2025 | Journal of Commerce 17