Considering the state of the economy, with high unemployment levels showing no signs of abatement and earnings levels having fallen to a point not seen for a decade, one hesitates to malign any announcement that new jobs are coming to the area. And clearly last week’s twin announcements regarding the first tenants in the new CenterPoint Properties development on Holland Road can be nothing but good news for the hundreds of people that will be employed there.

Ace Hardware and the Navy Exchange Command both announced last week their plans to build warehouse and distribution centers in the new intermodal industrial park that CenterPoint is developing along Route 58. They are just the first ripples in what is expected to be a tide of new port-related industries locating in the CenterPoint development and in similar industrial parks elsewhere in Suffolk and Western Tidewater.

There never really was a question about the jobs the new facilities would bring, though. It’s a simple matter of arithmetic to see that the expected increase in port traffic would cause shippers to look for more ways to disseminate goods from Hampton Roads’ docks to the American heartland, or to consolidate those goods coming from the heartland and headed for ships docked in Hampton Roads.

CenterPoint’s location ensures that shippers’ options will include both railroads and highways, or some combination of the two, making the Suffolk complex some of the choicest industrial property on the East Coast. And as more companies agree to locate distribution or “redistribution” warehouses there, employment is sure to follow.

But just as the successes could be predicted, so could the problems that would arise, especially the problem of traffic along Route 58. Opponents of the development predicted that increasing truck traffic would make travel along Holland Road into a nightmare, but the city chose to approve the CenterPoint project in the bare hope that it would get help improving the road from the state or federal government.

In the face of the recession, that salvation has been slow in coming — indeed there is no promise it will arrive at all — and Suffolk easily could find itself with the unenviable choice of widening Route 58 on its own dime or leaving the road to become so heavily traveled that it’s both unsafe for locals and inefficient for shippers.

As traffic backed up for miles on Monday following an accident that closed down Route 58 — the second in a week — it became clear just how bad things could get.

Suffolk officials are talking about redoubling their efforts to get federal and state help for upgrades to Route 58. Considering the pressing nature of the situation, they might want to consider begging; it might be the only avenue that remains for them.