Boston has some big decisions to make in the next few years that will impact one of the city’s greatest strengths, which is the diversity of its workforce and the opportunities it has been able to provide to white collar and blue collar workers alike who are able to make a living and raise a family while living in what many of us consider to be one of the greatest cities in the world.

One of the bigger questions Massachusetts must resolve is whether to invest significant resources in deepening Boston Harbor so that larger ships will be able to dock at Conley Container Terminal and deliver heating oil and other fuels via the terminals along Chelsea Creek. Much larger cargo vessels will soon dominate world maritime trade once the expanded Panama Canal opens in 2015.

Currently, the channel at the Cruiseport dock is 35 feet deep and the container terminal has a depth of 45 feet of water. To continue to be able to dock the larger ships, the cruise terminal can remain at 35 feet but the container terminal needs to be dredged to 50 feet.

In September, the Army Corps of Engineers found the Boston Harbor Navigation Improvement Project to be “technically sound, environmentally and socially acceptable, and economically justified,” as it recommended to Congress that federal funding be authorized for the $300 million project. The Army Corps projects a doubling of volume at Conley if we dredge.

If Boston Harbor dredging gets included in the list of projects eligible for federal funding under the Water Resources Development Act, we must decide as a community whether we are able to identify the state’s $130 million local share to qualify for a federal match or, as the Boston Globe warned, to do nothing and “essentially foretell the death of Boston Harbor as a major cargo port.”

This $130 million could be shared 50-50 by the Massachusetts Port Authority and the state, as has been done in the past. An investment of $20 million a year for three years or so for the state and Massport seems like a small price to pay for preserving a part of our heritage and blue-collar jobs.

The second big question is what changes need to be made to relieve traffic congestion in the South Boston Innovation District, where there has been an unexpected spike in congestion as the pace of commercial development in one of the hottest real estate markets in America right now is running more than a decade ahead of original projections. Some 30 million square feet of development has already been built or is permitted and another 15 million square feet awaits future growth.

Massport has entered into a partnership with A Better City, the Boston Convention Center Authority, the City of Boston, and MassDOT to identify both long- and short-range solutions to these traffic problems, while contributing our share of the $1 million that was raised for a comprehensive multi-modal study involving all the major stakeholders in the district, both public and private.

Among Massport’s key objectives in this effort is finding solutions that preserve important blue-collar maritime jobs that are dependent on the port. From Massport’s perspective, the transportation plan must provide for growth in commercial and residential development in a way that preserves the important needs of the maritime industrial activities of the Port of Boston.

There are a few things that make Boston uniquely Boston. It is no more possible, for example, to imagine the world champion Boston Red Sox playing anywhere but in 101-year-old Fenway Park than it is to think about Boston without a working Boston Fish Pier —which turns 100 next year.

And while it’s true South Boston’s bustling Innovation District may be more closely associated with the Internet than with fishing nets, some of the best jobs with good wages can still be found in New England’s more traditional industries—whether it’s the dock workers who load and unload ships at Conley Container Terminal or Cruiseport Boston, or the fishing captains and their crews who land their catch each day on Boston’s famous Fish Pier.

But the fishing industry is more than boats. In 2011, Massachusetts ranked second behind only California in the number of seafood-related jobs, with more than 98,000, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Americans spend more than $83 billion a year on seafood. Massachusetts residents alone consume about $8 billion. That’s a lot of fish. And chances are, if you are having lobster or cod for lunch or dinner in St. Louis or Kansas City, it was processed here and flown out of Logan. More than 500 jobs are tied directly to fishing and fish processing on Massport’s Fish Pier and Marine Terminal alone. In the Mass Maritime Terminal, Legal Sea Foods processes about 30,000 pounds of fish per day and North Coast another 100,000 pounds daily.

In South Boston, Massport is generating jobs with a balanced real estate agenda. About 9,000 mostly white-collar office jobs are connected to Massport-related commercial developments in the Innovation District while another 27,000 good paying blue-collar jobs are tied, either directly or indirectly, to Massport’s container operations, its cruise business, or fishing and fish processing.

New England’s maritime industries are a lot more than picturesque tourist attractions. They provide vital contributions to our city’s economy and social fabric. But preserving those industries and the jobs that go with them requires that some hard decisions be made by the entire Boston community, and made soon. The clock is ticking.

Tom Glynn is the chief executive of the Massachusetts Port Authority.