Photo credit: Nicholas Vinacco

Earlier this month, John Kostrzewa was walking on a new bike path alongside the Quonset Business Park in Rhode Island. It got him thinking about the past and its failed economic development dreams for the park, including a contentious plan to build a deepwater cargo container port. And then he started thinking about the future.

“Quonset can fulfill its potential by forging a stronger link between Rhode Island and the world’s economy,” he wrote in a column for the The Providence Journal newspaper. “The tighter the connection between Rhode Island and out-of-state markets, the better chance for the state and its residents to prosper. [...]

[One] idea being promoted by the federal government is short-sea shipping to move more freight up and down the Eastern seaboard by barge or small container ships rather than trucks on congested highways.

Quonset’s proximity to shipping lanes in the Atlantic Ocean could make it a candidate for short-sea shipping. The concept is not the deep-water, big-box cargo container port that was so politically divisive 10 years ago, but a more modest site that could provide jobs and connect Rhode Island to trade routes. [...]

Why not Rhode Island? Why not at Quonset?

Then, the next generation who walks the path on the perimeter of Quonset could witness the development of a new economy, and not focus on past failures, or what Quonset once was.”

Read the full story here.