In the more than 90 years since it was built, do you think that the benefits of the Panama Canal to world trade have outweighed the costs in time, money, and human life?
1 Answer
The Panama Canal has repaid its construction costs (capital and human) many times over since its completion.
Explanation:
Annual traffic through the Panama Canal amounts to more than 340 million tons of shipping by 2015 and over 13,000 transits are made through the canal every year.
The alternative to the Panama Canal prior to its construction was: A long transit around the Cape of Magellan or Cape Horn requires weeks of extra time; and both passages contain many hazards. Winds and Sea States there are very contrary and have claimed many hundreds of ships. The Northwest Passage in the Canadian Arctic is still not viable as a commercial shipping route and probably never will be.
The savings in fuel, time, wear on ships and in sailors' lives provided by the Panama Canal is probably incalculable.
The other alternative prior to the creation of the canal was to tranship goods to trains (and mule trains before that) on one side and carry them over the Isthmus to reload them on the other side. Unloading and reloading ships is also time-consuming, expensive, and leads to loss of cargo from breakage and theft.
Additionally, there is a risk of loss of life from accident in cargo handling and on the rail road. Ironically, the biggest threat to passengers before the construction of the canal came from exposure to Yellow Fever (often endemic in Panama). However, what side benefit of the Panama Canal's construction was the discovery (by US Army doctors) of how Yellow Fever was transmitted and could be treated -- thus saving at least hundreds of thousands since.;
