BRUNSWICK, Ga. — At the Brunswick State of the Port event Wednesday, Georgia Ports President and CEO Griff Lynch announced that Brunswicks’ Colonel’s Island Terminal is now the nation’s busiest port for automobiles, as well as heavy farm and construction equipment.
It takes the top spot from the Port of Baltimore, which was forced to shut down for weeks following a deadly bridge collapse.
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Lynch said the port handled more than 3 million tons of roll-on/roll/off cargo in 2024, including 841,000 cars and trucks. That’s an increase of more than 13% over the previous year. Lynch said the boom coincided with $262 million in improvements completed last fall that expanded Brunswick’s capacity for processing and storing autos.
“That’s huge. I can’t believe it myself,” Lynch said in a phone interview after his speech. He added: “This is one of those ‘If you build it, they will come’ situations.”
More than 90% of autos moved by rail at Colonel’s Island are U.S.-made exports, according to Georgia Ports.
The Port of Brunswick often gets overshadowed by its larger sister port in Savannah, the fourth-busiest in the U.S. for retail goods and other commodities shipped in containers.
But Georgia officials have invested heavily in Brunswick, where Lynch said recent upgrades and expansions have caused automakers to shift business to Georgia from neighboring ports, including Jacksonville.
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The Port of Brunswick plans further upgrades in the coming years. A new berth built for docking larger car-carrying ships is being designed and should open in 2027, Lynch said. The port is also building a new railyard that will eventually triple its capacity for using trains to deliver cars for export.
Meanwhile, Georgia port officials are looking to Washington to fund improvements to Brunswick’s shipping channel. The Army Corps of Engineers wants to widen portions of the waterway to give ships more room to turn after the South Korean freighter Golden Ray tipped over while leaving the port in 2019. Lynch said maintenance dredging is also needed to return the channel to its proper depth of up to 38 feet.
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